SUSTAINING TECHNICAL AND ANALYTIC RESOURCES
FELLOWSHIP TITLE: Senior Social Behavior Change Advisor
HOST ORGANIZATION: United States Agency for International Development (USAID), India Health Office
LOCATION: Delhi, India
POSITION LEVEL: Senior Technical Advisor
STAR-P3-155
TRAVEL: 20% estimated travel
STAR PROGRAM DESCRIPTION
Sustaining Technical and Analytic Resources (STAR) is a project of the Public Health Institute (PHI) in partnership with the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), supported by the US Agency for International Development (USAID). STAR is a Global Health talent hub. Through fellowships, internships, and strategic partnerships, STAR supports building the capacity of diverse global health professionals and organizations at all levels to make inclusive, collaborative, and innovative contributions to global health. STAR participants collaborate in the development of systems and tools that strengthen and sustain the local and global health response. https://www.ghstar.org/ Sign up with our listserv.
ABOUT THE FELLOWSHIP
The STAR Fellowship is a global health and learning opportunity with:
- Individualized, tailored support to enhance the fellow’s achievement personal and professional goals
- Personalized learning plans and access to learning resources (courses, conferences, mentoring) based on fellow’s learning style and preferences.
- Access to broad professional networks to enhance peer learning and knowledge sharing.
FELLOWSHIP OPPORTUNITY DESCRIPTION
Background:
USAID/India Health Office (HO) manages a vast and diverse portfolio of programs that are aligned with the Government of India’s (GOI) Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health (RMNCH+A) goals, the national TB goal to increase detection and treatment success rates, and the National AIDS Control Program to achieve epidemic control by 2030, and emergency response to COVID-19 as well as building resilient health systems. The health portfolio’s overall objectives are driven by an inclusive development agenda. USAID’s overarching approach in India is to work as partners with the GOI, demonstrating and evaluating scalable models that shape India’s healthcare system to effectively respond to the needs of the poor and vulnerable. Through these relationships, USAID/India serves as the GOI’s “innovation lab partner,” demonstrating and evaluating high-impact solutions to India’s most complex health challenges, and then working with the GOI to scale them up across the country.
Introduction:
Social and behavior change (SBC), along with behavioral research and evaluation approaches, are essential ingredients to changing attitudes, perceptions, and practices to ensure the success of key health interventions. SBC plays a critical role in supporting the health care service delivery to achieve USAID/India’s health office goals. The Senior Social Behavior Change Advisor (Senior Advisor) will be responsible for providing overall technical assistance for the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of SBC strategies across USAID/India portfolio as well as coordinating with and building the capacity of Government of India (GOI) and implementing partners. The Senior Advisor will ensure the utilization of best practices and global learning to inform the development of effective SBC strategies, frameworks, tools etc. The Senior Advisor will partner with GOI, private sector, local and national organizations, UN organizations and civil society for coordination and exploring synergies and partnership opportunities for SBC. The Advisor will also guide ongoing M&E for health communication programs. Key for this position’s success will be the ability to apply Behavior change concepts and approaches to the wide variety of programs across the USAID portfolio including on RMNCHA, TB, HIV and COVID-19. The position requires in-country travel to communities throughout India.
Reporting structure:
The Senior Advisor will be based at the Health Office within the USAID office in Delhi, India. The Senior Advisor will receive technical direction from the Division Chief, Family Health, who will serve as their Point of Contact.
Essential Duties and Outcomes:
Outcome 1: Set a distinctive strategic vision for Behaviour Change for USAID/India, integrating behavioral insights into its programming and partnerships.
- As a thought leader ensure that USAID/India programs integrate new methods and approaches and reflect latest evidence, best practices, emerging priorities and trends in the field of behavioural sciences.
- Provide leadership in the design, integration, institutionalization, and quality assurance of Behaviour Change across programs in the portfolio.
- Build capacity of USAID staff and implementing partners in best and emerging practices in Behavior Sciences for example human centered design, using digital/social media, social media listening, behavioral economics, the development of social norms, building social movements (Jan Andolan), systems and design thinking, and measuring impact of Behaviour Change interventions.
- Contributes to the planning and implementation of public health outreach and education programs and events, including high-level visits for GOI and USG staff
Outcome 2: Strengthen the technical leadership of social behavior change efforts within the public health interventions supported by USAID/India Health Office programming.
- Provide strategic vision and leadership to support the GOI’s efforts on COVID-19 related risk communications and community engagement (RCCE) and provide technical recommendations to GOI and USAID implementing partners on SBC/demand generation efforts aimed at promoting COVID appropriate behaviours.
- Utilize participatory methods to engage key stakeholders to increase uptake of critical public health measures and address barriers and challenges to implementation of public health interventions, incorporating methods to mitigate stigma and discrimination.
- Provide guidance to USAID India RCCE programs and ensure that they are evidence based, cutting-edge and build on past successes such as of polio programs thus ensuring they use context appropriate channels, proper audience segmentation and reach out to the most vulnerable groups.
- Strengthen network and partnership development on SBC interventions, working with a variety of stakeholders to explore synergies and leverage resources, and forging collaborations with design and communication organizations, donors and private sector.
- Prepare briefers, presentations or other documents to summarize progress, conduct regular data review, share results and trends, and facilitate sharing of SBC materials and best practices across US Government and other donor/bilateral programs.
- Provide technical support for development and review of partner work plans; monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) plans; progress reports, communication products and other deliverables, and assist in monitoring the project(s)’ technical and financial performance in achieving SBC goals and objectives.
- Collaborate with other SBC technical working groups and stakeholders within India to share evidence-based best practices, ensure coordination of materials and communication message strategies, to minimize overlaps and gaps.
Outcome 3: Strengthen M&E for ongoing communication activities and accelerate knowledge sharing and best practices for measuring impact.
- Provide expertise to guide the implementation of an appropriate performance measurement strategy to effectively monitor and evaluate the extent to which the objectives of the USAID/India Behavior change programs have been achieved.
- Lead discussions with the Global Health Bureau and its technical offices, mission colleagues and with other counterparts, identifying needs and staying abreast of and applying the state-of-the-art advances, technologies, and best practices for improved measurement of effectiveness of SBC interventions.
- Ensure that behaviour change programs reflect sound project design, implementation, monitoring, evaluation and documentation of experiences and results and ensure dissemination of these learnings for enhanced visibility of USAID’s work in behavior change.
- Work with implementing partners and our Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning team to coordinate the implementation of targeted research and social online/offline listening amongst priority groups to generate behavioral insights to inform SBC interventions.
- Position USAID health and social behavior change programming as thought leader in India by sharing and disseminating evidence and best practices in policy and strategy consultations within in-country technical working groups and other networks.
Anticipated learning outcomes: approximate 10% time
- Cultivate mentorship skills based on the STAR GH mentorship curriculum to more effectively support and improve knowledge transfer and skills acquisition of staff, incoming fellows and interns.
- Advance leadership skills to successful support capacity building and knowledge sharing activities, and mentor develop junior staff.
- Apply leadership skills and technical expertise to support programmatic growth and scale up within social behavior change programming.
FELLOWSHIP REQUIREMENTS
Required:
Minimum 13 years of relevant technical experience with master's degree or a minimum of 15 years of relevant technical experience with bachelor's degree.
Must have in-depth professional-level knowledge of development principles, concepts, and practices, especially as they relate to managing behavior change activities in health and immunization programming in India.
Familiarity and understanding of USAID policies and procedures (highly preferred), or those of other donors, donor funded projects, community- based projects, or corporate social responsibility projects.
Demonstrated ability to coordinate closely with government staff, effectively manage their expectations, and build capacity.
Proven abilities to set priorities, to multi-task, and to work collaboratively across technical disciplines.
Demonstrated experience of influencing donors, partners, and peer organizations toward innovative programs and best practices.
Strong management skills are required, along with the ability to work well in a team environment.
Hands-on experience designing, planning, implementing, and evaluating behavioral interventions in India.
Ability to function with a high degree of independence and latitude with respect to policies, programs and issues related to one’s area of expertise.
Excellent analytical, written, and oral communication skills
Fluency in English and preferably in Hindi.
Indian citizenship/ or Indian permanent residency required.
Additional skills (preferred)Knowledge of public health issues in two or more of the following: HIV/AIDS, immunization, family planning, reproductive health, maternal and child health, TB and other infectious diseases.
Familiarity with emerging Behaviour Change approaches, including behavioral science, behavioral economics, nudges, and Human Centered Design.
Established relationships with Behaviour Change thought leaders to facilitate access to emerging approaches and to identify appropriate leverage opportunities across program portfolio.
Past experience with emergency response assignments or other crisis response work that demonstrates ability to successfully adapt and support assistance methodologies to real-world complexities.
How to apply:
TO APPLY:
All applicants are required to apply for this position through STAR’s online recruitment system at https://www.ghstar.org/, which allows you to store your CV/resume and separate cover letter describing your qualifications and experience, interest and familiarity with issues relating to this position, and how this position relates to your career goals is required for each application. The position will remain open until filled.