Senior Health Specialist

Role Scope: 

Role Purpose: The Senior Health Specialist provides strategic and technical leadership for Save the Children's Health programme in Sudan, ensuring the design, quality, scale-up, and integration of health interventions with nutrition and WASH. The role focuses on strengthening programme quality, building the capacity of partners and health teams, leading proposal development and resource mobilization, and expanding the health portfolio in line with the 2025–2027 Country Strategic Plan. The position also leads health research, innovation, policy advocacy, donor engagement, and knowledge sharing while working closely with technical, operations, field, and MEAL teams to deliver high-quality emergency and development programmes that improve child and maternal health outcomes.

Reports to: Head of Child Survival 

Staff reporting to this post: NA

Indirect: Programme Health Program Managers, and coordinators

Role Dimensions: The health programme represents a significant part of the country programme's portfolio. The post holder is expected to play a key role in building and maintaining strategic relationships with key donors, the Ministry of Health and other actors in the sector, especially humanitarian and development actors 

KEY AREAS OF ACCOUNTABILITY

Leadership, Strategic Planning & Humanitarian Health Response Accountability

• Provide strategic leadership and technical oversight for the design, implementation, and scale-up of health programmes to improve child survival and reduce morbidity and mortality across Sudan.
• Support development, review, and execution of health sector strategies, plans, and priorities, ensuring alignment with organizational objectives, humanitarian needs, national policies, and global best practices.
• Guide evidence-based programme design through health situation analysis, assessments, operational research, and lessons learned to strengthen programme quality, impact, and advocacy.
• Lead humanitarian health preparedness and emergency response planning, including needs assessments, response strategies, budgets, and implementation plans, ensuring timely and effective service delivery to affected populations.
• Drive resource mobilization efforts through high-quality proposals, concept notes, donor engagement, and technical contributions to fundraising initiatives.
• Ensure strong programme quality, accountability, and results through effective MEAL integration, performance monitoring, donor reporting, and continuous improvement of health interventions.
• Strengthen cross-sector collaboration and integration between Health, Nutrition, WASH, and other programme areas to maximize outcomes for vulnerable children and communities.
• Build and mentor high-performing health teams, ensuring adequate staffing, capacity development, technical support, and compliance with organizational standards.
• Provide oversight of essential health commodities and supply chain management, including forecasting, procurement planning, storage, distribution, and rational use of medicines and medical supplies.

Programme  development:

• Lead on situation analysis/needs assessments in the area of responsibility and ensure that all proposals respond to beneficiary needs.
• Identify the most appropriate interventions for meeting the needs of children and women based on assessment findings. 
• Lead on the development of concept notes and proposals for continuous funding of the health and Nutrition Programme. 
• Play an active role in the development of a fundraising strategy in the areas of responsibility and in donor liaison where appropriate. 
• Incorporate analysis and lessons learned into new strategies/activities.

Quality Insurance and Capacity Building:

• Lead the development and implementation of a comprehensive Health capacity ‎strengthening strategy for Save the Children and partner staff, including learning needs ‎assessments, tailored capacity-building plans, mentorship, coaching, and linkage to external ‎learning and coordination opportunities.‎
• Provide technical leadership and quality assurance across the Health portfolio, ensuring ‎evidence-based, innovative, and high-quality programming in maternal, newborn, child health, ‎SRH, nutrition-sensitive interventions, and other child health priorities in Sudan.‎
• Develop, standardize, and oversee the use of technical guidance, training materials, tools, ‎and methodologies, while building the capacity of program teams and partners to deliver ‎effective, accountable, and quality health interventions in line with national and international ‎standards.‎
• Strengthen monitoring, evaluation, learning, and reporting systems by supporting teams to ‎establish robust documentation, knowledge management, evidence-generation, and donor ‎reporting processes, in close collaboration with MEAL, PDQ, Awards, and field teams.‎
• Guide programme design, implementation, and performance monitoring, ensuring ‎interventions are gender- and age-responsive, informed by assessments and learning, and ‎generate measurable impact and evidence for program improvement, advocacy, and strategic ‎decision-making.‎
• Conduct regular field support and quality assurance visits to monitor program performance, ‎identify capacity gaps, provide technical coaching, and oversee assessments, evaluations, and ‎learning processes that contribute to continuous improvement of health programming.‎

Representation and coordination:

• Provide strategic and technical leadership for health and nutrition programming, ensuring quality ‎implementation, adherence to humanitarian standards, and alignment with organizational and ‎national priorities.‎
• Represent Save the Children in Health Cluster meetings, technical working groups, and ‎coordination forums, influencing sector priorities, advocating for vulnerable populations, and ‎strengthening organizational visibility and partnerships.‎
• Act as the principal health technical specialist, providing evidence-based guidance, analysis, ‎briefings, and recommendations to senior management, donors, partners, and government ‎stakeholders.‎
• Support strategic engagement with government authorities, UN agencies, donors, and NGO ‎partners, fostering collaboration, coordination, resource mobilization, and policy influence to ‎improve health outcomes.‎
• Participate in driving health advocacy, research, and knowledge management initiatives, ‎identifying opportunities to generate evidence, document best practices, and influence ‎policies, programmes, and funding decisions.‎
• Work closely with ACCM, PDQ, and Operations teams to develop and implement integrated ‎health strategies, ensuring effective communication, advocacy, programme quality, and cross-‎sector collaboration.‎

Assessment, Monitoring and Evaluation 

• Oversee support program managers in the preparation of timely programme and donor reports on project activities in compliance with internal and external requirements. 
• Lead Child Survival multi-sectorial technical assessments in coordination with other Save the Children thematic areas, as well as other external agencies. ensuring that assessments’ findings are documented and that all assessments include a specific child views and analysis of children’s needs.
• Work closely with the MEAL team to put in place Child Survival M & E plan (including WASH), ensuring this is linked to reporting requirements, and capacity build technical field staff in carrying out the work.
• Work closely with the MEAL Team and take a lead in ensuring that all Health projects and components have robust monitoring plans, baselines, reviews and evaluations in line with project designs and donor guidelines
• Technically assist the PDQ team in measuring achievement and progress towards program goals and results through the MEAL system 
• Lead and work closely with the PDQ team to identify and lead strategic ground-breaking research in Health for development of innovative programmes and issue-based advocacy
• Facilitate appropriate dissemination of research findings and good practices documentations in the projects internally and externally to donors, governments, consortium partners and other key actors strategic for immediate and sustainable development of children in Sudan

Others:

• Contribute to advocacy and research initiatives. 
• Comply with all relevant Save the Children policies and procedures with respect to child safeguarding policy, health and safety, equal opportunities and other relevant policies.

BEHAVIOURS (Values in Practice)

Accountability:

• holds self accountable for making decisions, managing resources efficiently, achieving and role modelling Save the Children values
• holds the team and partners accountable to deliver on their responsibilities - giving them the freedom to deliver in the best way they see fit, providing the necessary development to improve performance and applying appropriate consequences when results are not achieved.

Ambition:

• sets ambitious and challenging goals for themselves and their team, takes responsibility for their own personal development and encourages their team to do the same
• widely shares their personal vision for Save the Children, engages and motivates others
• future orientated, thinks strategically and on a global scale.

Collaboration:

• builds and maintains effective relationships, with their team, colleagues, Members and external partners and supporters
• values diversity, sees it as a source of competitive strength
• approachable, good listener, easy to talk to.

Creativity:

• develops and encourages new and innovative solutions
• willing to take disciplined risks.

Integrity:

• honest, encourages openness and transparency; demonstrates highest levels of integrity

QUALIFICATIONS 

Masters in public health or equivalent field experience

EXPERIENCE AND SKILLS

Essential:

• Significant management experience working in both humanitarian and emergency response contexts or fragile states, including in health programmes
• Previous first-phase emergency response experience 
• Health professional with Masters in public health or equivalent field experience 
• Previous experience in managing a team
• Substantial experience at international level in technical support and/or programme management
• Direct experience of planning, implementing, and measuring the impact of health, nutrition, or other related programmes
• Successful track record of developing large-scale proposals and securing funding from donors 
• Evidence of active involvement in sharing knowledge across countries
• Successfully working with minimal administrative support. 
• Ability to analyse information, evaluate options, and to think and plan strategically.
• The credibility to represent the organization to national bodies and donors.
• Commitment to the values and mission of Save the Children.
• The ability to speak and write clear English and French succinctly as a primary working language.
• Excellent understanding of child rights programming.
• The capacity and willingness to be extremely flexible and accommodating in difficult and sometimes insecure working circumstances.
• Willingness to work and travel in often difficult environments

Desirable:

• Working experience in DRC or other countries of the Great Lakes context in challenging and insecure areas.
• Experience in nutrition programmes
• An area of particular expertise within humanitarian health 
• Experience or knowledge of working and living in relevant regions/contexts