SOLICITATION NUMBER: 636-16-000001-000002
ISSUANCE DATE: April 29, 2016
CLOSING DATE/TIME: June 3, 2016AT 16:30 pm Guinea local Time
POSITION TITLE: GLOBAL HEALTH SECURITY AGENDA ADVISOR
MARKET VALUE: ($73,846.00 – $96,004.00) the market value for this position is equivalent to GS-13level. Final compensation will be negotiated within the listed market value based upon the candidate’s past salary, work history and educational background. Salaries over and above the top of the pay range will not be entertained or negotiated.
AREA OF CONSIDERATION: Open to U.S. citizens and Third Country Nationals
A U.S. citizen for purposes of this definition also
includes persons who at the time of contracting are
lawfully admitted permanent residents of the United States.
A Third Country National by definition is an individual who is neither a citizen of the United States nor of the country to which assigned for duty, and who is eligible for return travel to the TCN's home country or country from which recruited at U.S. Government expense.
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE: Two (2) years with an option to extend. Extensions will be contingent on satisfactory performance, continued need for the services and availability of funds.
PLACE OF PERFORMANCE: Freetown, Republic of Sierra Leone
SECURITY/MEDICAL CLEARANCES:Security Clearance:
US citizens - SECRET
TCNPSCs-Employment authorization
The final selected candidates must obtain security and medical clearances within a reasonable period of time. USAID will provide details regarding these clearances to the selected candidate). If such clearances are not obtained within a reasonable time or negative suitability issues are involved, any offer made may be rescinded
1.0 INTRODUCTION
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) seeks to employ a U.S. citizens and Third Country National Personal Services Contractor (U.S./TCN PSC) who will be primarily responsible for ensuring well-coordinated and effective delivery of technical and program support across the Agency’s Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) portfolio including the activities management, coordination, and technical input for the Emerging Pandemic Threat (EPT) 2 Program. The portfolio includes priority USG programing the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) to prevent, detect, and respond to infectious disease outbreaks, and USAID’s Emerging Pandemic Threats (EPT) 2 program to pre-empt or combat, at their source, newly emerging diseases of animal origin that could threaten human health. The Advisor will be responsible for overseeing a multi-sectoral complex portfolio, providing leadership and technical support to the full range of GHSA investments in Sierra Leone. Additionally, the Advisor will help to link the GHSA investments under Ebola Emergency Pillar 4 effort to the health recovery and health system strengthen efforts support under Pillar 2 & to regular bilateral health program funding particularly other infectious disease programs. The Advisor will serve as a high-level technical advisor to for USAID’s GHSA health programs in Sierra Leone. The Advisor will be responsible for working closely with Washington-based AORs to ensure coordination across all EPT-2 assets within the GHSD portfolio and to ensure that program activities are well coordinated with national governments. The Advisor will also liaise with the AORs and CORs of applicable bilateral projects to ensure coordination of GHSA activities and mandated reporting.
Placement of an Advisor in Sierra Leone will fill a critical role for USAID to meet the expectations of the White House and Congress for rapid, effective, and coordinated implementation of GHSA Action Packages. At the same time, CDC and DOD will be programming significant amounts of their own funds for GHSA activities necessitating effective USG coordination. The Advisor will work very closely with other USG partners, particularly the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Department of Defense (DOD) offices working at national levels, which also provide support for GHSA implementation, thus presenting a "whole of government" approach. The Advisor will work very closely with Government of Sierra Leone including Ministry of Health, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Environment, and other government stakeholders. The Advisor will play a crucial role to help facilitate multi-sectoral coordination and meeting to develop effective One Health strategies to prevent, detect, and respond to emerging infectious diseases. This coordination does not exist in Sierra Leone currently but there is great enthusiasm of the Government to build a stronger One Health effort.
2.0 BACKGROUND
In today’s globalized world, the speed with which newly emergent diseases can surface and spread, as illustrated by the H1N1 2009 pandemic virus, raises serious public health, economic, security and development concerns. It also underscores the need for the global community to act pre-emptively and systematically to improve individual countries’ abilities to earlier identify and quickly mitigate health threats arising within their borders. Most importantly, the threat posed by new infectious diseases arising from animal reservoirs (zoonotic diseases) argues for a rethinking of standard strategies for the prevention, detection and response of diseases and their progenitors to reflect a more inclusive and strategic partnership across the public health, animal health and environmental sectors if we are to be able to address emergent disease threats before they pose an overwhelming global threat.
The majority of all new, emerging and re-emerging diseases affecting humans at the beginning of the twenty-first century have originated from animals. Many of these infectious diseases are of serious concern to human and animal health, and they are emerging in places where humans, wildlife, and domestic animals are increasingly in contact. The emergence of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) coronavirus in 2003 and the H1N1-2009 pandemic influenza virus illustrate the consequences of not having in place capacities to detect the early stages of spillover, amplification, and spread of a new disease threat – that is, while it is still circulating (and evolving) principally in animals and before the potential threat has acquired the ability to efficiently transmit among humans. In both instances the public responses came after the viruses had fully emerged as pandemic threats. On the other hand, the emergence of the H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza virus in Hong Kong in 1997 and its re-emergence in Southeast Asia in 2003, the early detection of H7N9 virus in China, and the Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) coronavirus in Saudi Arabia have provided important opportunities to monitor a threat after it has spilled over, but before large-scale amplification and spread in the human population– and enable the world a longer window to prepare for the possibility of a new health threat, including the production of diagnostics and vaccine, the stockpiling of antivirals, and development of non-biomedical risk-mitigation interventions. The early recognition of a potential threat also allows for a global effort to take preemptive steps to bring the spread of the virus under greater control – and by extension possibly reduce the opportunities for it to emerge as a pandemic threat.
Importantly, work, in part supported under USAID’s Global Health Security and Development (GHSD) portfolio, has advanced our understanding of disease spillover, amplification, and spread by highlighting the strong correlation between “high risk” geographic areas, animal hosts, microbial agents, and people. This collective body of work, in turn, has led to the recognition that risk-based intervention strategies enable targeting disease detection to those places, populations, times or situations where risk of viral spillover, amplification, and spread is greatest and the likelihood of detecting these events is highest.
The effective response to the challenges caused by the emerging, multifaceted health threats requires a multi-disciplinary approach. The EVD epidemic, MERS, and a recent reintroduction of AI in poultry in Nigeria, Niger, and Burkina Faso are jarring examples of the need for greater capability in all countries and across multiple sectors to rapidly detect and respond to new or re-emerging public health threats. In November 2014 USAID/GHSD launched the second five-year phase of the EPT portfolio (EPT-2). As with its predecessors AI and EPT-1, EPT-2 is focused on mitigating the impact of novel “high-consequence pathogens” arising from animals through a suite of One Health investments with the goal of enabling: early detection of new disease threats; effective control of new threats through enhanced “national-level” preparedness; and, a reduction in the risk of disease emergence by minimizing those practices and behaviors that trigger the “spillover, amplification, and spread” of new viruses. At the core of EPT-2 are seven new areas of strategic focus:
1.Developing longitudinal data sets for understanding the biological drivers of viral evolution, spillover, amplification, and spread
2.Understanding the human behaviors and practices that underlie the risk of “evolution, spillover, amplification and spread” of new viral threats
3.Promoting policies and practices that reduce the risk of virus evolution, spillover, amplification, and spread, specifically targeting four areas of risk identified under EPT-1; The Extractive Industry, Urban/peri-urban markets, Livestock “value chains” in Asia, and Africa Livestock Futures
4.Supporting national One Health platforms
5.Investing in the One Health workforce
6.Strengthening national preparedness to respond to events of public health significance
7.Strengthening global networks for real-time bio-surveillance
3.0 OBJECTIVE
The objective of this position is to provide the Sierra Leone programs under USAID/Guinea Mission with backstopping, coordination and programmatic support to assist in successful implementation, monitoring of, and reporting on the USAID/GHSA portfolio in Sierra Leone. Successful completion of this objective will require working with a wide array of US Government partners, ministries, regional economic bodies, international organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and other implementing partners. Of special consideration is a focus on rapid, effective, and coordinated oversight of GHSA action packages.
The Global Health Security Advisor, working with the USAID health team in Sierra Leone, will provide technical expertise to the Mission to manage, coordinate, and monitor activities associated with the USAID/GHSA portfolio as it relates to human and animal health and the environment. The Advisor will liaise with the Agency’s GHSD Unit in Washington. S/he will ensure that the Mission’s planning, response, and reporting on GHSA and EPT are carried out in accordance with Agency, State Department, and Congressional directives.
4.0 MAJOR DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
1.Provide support to introduce, develop, implement and coordinate across all assets and activities of the Emerging Pandemic Threats (EPT) Program in Sierra Leone, and with regional partners.
a.Engage with EPT implementing partners in Sierra Leone to ensure good coordination with the national government, USAID Mission, and other partners.
b.Coordinate closely with all USAID EPT partners to ensure the work is well aligned with the rest of the USAID portfolio, GHSA, USG, UN, donors, and Government of Sierra Leone.
c.With support from USAID Washington, coordinate EPT 2 program planning and monitoring activities for Sierra Leone.
d.Develop and maintain relationships with relevant ministries with EPT 2 activities to ensure that assets can be coordinated and align with Government priorities.
2.Ensure integration of EPT 2 activities with the broader USAID portfolio.
a.Build relationships within the USAID Mission and identify areas of convergence (e.g., common partners, similar streams of work, and key opportunities for linkages) across the USAID development portfolio (e.g., economic growth and trade, environmental conservation, food security, education, governance, health).
b.Work with EPT 2 partners to ensure that linkages and coordination with the broader development portfolio are understood and integrated.
3.Ensure coordination of EPT 2 activities with CDC and DTRA activities. Because of the GHSA responsibilities spanning USAID, CDC, and DTRA, it is important to forge a special partnership among the agencies.
a.Participate in routine and ad hoc meetings with CDC and DTRA leadership and staff to discuss activities in order to identify areas of collaboration and avoid duplication of USG activities.
b.Provide a bridge between CDC and DTRA activities and the broader USAID portfolio as it relates to the EPT program.
c.Build on CDC and DTRA contributions in Sierra Leone by expanding or supporting epi and lab capacity, increasing monitoring and interventions at the animal-human interface and develop or enhance pathogen discovery to maximize USG investments on detecting and controlling emerging infectious disease threats.
d.During disease outbreak situations in which CDC, DTRA, and EPT are asked to participate, ensure that EPT assets are tightly coordinated in supporting the national government.
4.Liaison with USAID Washington.
a.Report on EPT 2 activities in the region to USAID Global Health Security and Development Unit (Specifically the Agreement Officer Technical Representatives for each of the EPT 2 projects); this includes monthly reporting for any activities funded by SFOAA.
b.Ensure GHSA activities are coordinated with the Africa Ebola Unit and particularly Pillar 2 funded activities
Perform any other relevant duties as required.
5.0 REQUIRED SECURITY CLEARANCE
For U.S. PSCs, Secret level clearance is required.
For TCNPSCs, Employment authorization is required
6.0 REQUIRED QUALIFICATION AND SELECTION CRITERIA
Education (10 points):
A Master’s degree in public health, public policy, veterinary medicine, epidemiology, or related field is required.
Prior Work Experience (40 points):
A minimum of five to seven years of public health or related experience in developing countries with at least three years of experience working with international animal and public health organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) is required.
Knowledge, Skills & Abilities (40 points):
Knowledge,
-Knowledge in monitoring and evaluation methodologies including frameworks, data quality assurance, analysis reporting and best practices in data dissemination in international/resource poor settings
-Demonstrated competency in the design, management, and evaluation of projects to improve their quality, relevance, and cost-effectiveness
-Knowledge of democracy-building programs and/or economic development
-Knowledge of the political, social, and economic characteristics of francophone Africa
-Demonstrated knowledge in coordinating complex programs with multiple partners (especially those involving two or more US Government agencies) in resource-poor settings.
-Strong working knowledge of USAID programming, processes, documentation, and business practices.
-Understanding and knowledge of USG and international regulations and procedures
is desirable.
Skills & Abilities:
-Demonstrated ability to work effectively independently and in a team environment
-Demonstrated ability to communicate highly technical information related to human health, animal health, and environment to a variety of technical and non-technical audiences is required.
-Excellent leadership, communications and interpersonal skills with a high degree of judgment, maturity, ingenuity, and originality to interpret strategy and to analyze, develop, and present work results is required.
-Demonstrated knowledge and ability in managing and coordinating programs in developing countries that involve significant partnership and collaboration across multiple ministries to include Ministry of Health and Ministry of Agriculture.
-Demonstrated ability to understand the strategic purpose and goals of multiple organizations from different sectors (e.g. public health, animal health, and environment), identify and solve problems, and coordinate and support activities that lead to mutual success across the different sectors.
-Excellent computer skills in Windows, MS Outlook, word processing, Power Point, and spreadsheet software is required.
-Incumbent is required to travel within Guinea.
Language (10 points):
Level IV fluent English language is required.
TOTAL POINTS: 100
7.0POSITION ELEMENTS
Supervision: The Advisor will be supervised by and report to the Health Officer in the USAID- Freetown Office. As directed by the Supervisor, the GHS may be asked to manage and supervise a delegated compliment of FSNs. The GHSA shall not supervise any US Direct Hire employees. The Health Officer will assist the Advisor to: 1) establish annual work objectives and performance measures; 2) review work outputs and accomplishments to ensure compliance with Agency policies, and implementation of best practices; and 3) assess the incumbent's performance seeking input from appropriate USAID/ Sierra Leone team members and external stakeholders. As the incumbent is expected to work with a high degree of independence, s/he must be able to establish priorities, adhere to and meet deadlines, and perform responsibilities and duties with minimal guidance.
Available Guidelines: USAID administrative policies and precedents, ADS chapters, handbooks, USG/Embassy/USAID/ and Bureau and Mission directives, and technical Monitoring and Evaluation references, including specific references, are available, but are stated in terms that are often not specific for the current state of development in Sierra Leone. The Health Advisor must use judgment and ingenuity to interpret the intent of available guides, and independently develop applications for use in this work situation.
Complexity: The work includes a wide variety of duties requiring many different and unrelated processes and methods – applied to a broad range and highly technical health activities (e.g., planning and conducting/coordinating evaluations to assess a number of new health programs/ projects in a variety of technical areas and geographical zones), and intensive analysis and problem solving with an expedited timeline to achieve measureable results. Decisions regarding what needs to be done depend on an assessment of very complex, technical, diverse circumstances that involve major areas of uncertainty in approach, methodology, or interpretation resulting from such elements as continuing program changes, technical public health developments, new or unconventional methods, the unique or controversial aspects of health activities, or conflicting interests or ideas. The work may require devising new capacity building and/or project management strategies, methods and techniques, including but not limited to monitoring and evaluation, in order to produce effective results, or to implement advances in the state of the art; and establishing new criteria for administering quality programs (including stronger monitoring and evaluation and quality improvement methods.