OVC and HIV Prevention Data Analysis Advisor At Sustaining Technical and Analytic Resources (STAR)

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FELLOWSHIP TITLE: OVC and HIV Prevention Data Analysis Advisor
HOST ORGANIZATION: Health Office, South Africa, United States Agency for International Development
LOCATION: Pretoria, South Africa
POSITION LEVEL: Mid-Career Technical Advisor
STAR-P2-098

TRAVEL: 20% estimated travel

STAR PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

Sustaining Technical and Analytic Resources (STAR) is a project of the Public Health Institute (PHI) supported by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) Global Health (GH) Bureau. Its purpose is twofold: (1) Through individual fellowships, STAR will help strengthen the capacity of diverse American and low-and-middle-income country (LMIC) health professionals at all levels to make innovative contributions to global health (GH); and (2) STAR will create ground-breaking opportunities for both US and LMIC GH academic institutions and other groups, including professional associations, to create systems for open-access knowledge sharing, resulting in effective partnerships. STAR’s individual and institutional participants are contributing to the development of self-sustaining systems and tools that will produce global citizens with the full spectrum of relevant health competencies. STAR is managed by the Public Health Institute and implemented in partnership with Johns Hopkins University (JHU), the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), and the Consortium of Universities for Global Health (CUGH).

ABOUT THE FELLOWSHIP

The STAR Fellowship is a two-year 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:

The USAID Mission to Southern Africa implements all USAID health programs as well as the President’s Emergency Plan for HIV/AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) programs for South Africa. The Health and HIV/AIDS portfolio covers a broad field of work, including Treatment, Care, Voluntary Counseling and Testing, Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission, Tuberculosis/HIV, Prevention, and Orphans and Vulnerable Children programs. The Orphans and Vulnerable Children portfolio within PEPFAR is a unique combination of health and social programs that support the non-medical interventions (education, child protection, psychosocial well-being, etc.) of the PEPFAR platform, to strengthen families, communities and national systems that support children affected by AIDS. PEPFAR South Africa recognizes the crucial importance of slowing the high HIV incidence of adolescent girls and young women to achieving epidemic control.

Introduction:

The OVC and Prevention Data Analysis Advisor (Advisor) will be based in Pretoria, South Africa. This position will provide analytical support to the Health Team specifically the Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) and HIV Prevention Teams including covering the Determined, Resilient, Empowered, AIDS-free, Mentored and Safe (DREAMS), Gender Based Violence Prevention, Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision (VMMC) and Key Populations (KP) technical areas. The Advisor will be expected to interact with and present data to PEPFAR interagency teams from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), State Department and Peace Corps working with HIV prevention programs, including OVC.

Reporting structure:

The Advisor will be based at the USAID Health Office in Pretoria, South Africa. They will work closely with the OVC and HIV Prevention Teams and will receive technical guidance from the Strategic Information (SI) Team Lead who will serve as their Onsite Manager.

Essential Duties and Outcomes:

Enhance the quality of data science and analytical support across the USAID South Africa OVC and HIV Prevention Teams:

• Apply data science techniques to prioritize the South Africa DREAMS and OVC program and document its performance, strengths weaknesses and related challenges.
• Provide data science focused analytical guidance to USAID subject matter experts to improve planning, monitoring, evaluation, and reporting of programs specifically the expanded DREAMS program and the OVC programs.
• Design, develop and deliver data analysis and visualization products to support USAID/South Africa operations at all stages of the development programming cycle.
• Acquire, process, manage, and analyze data from a range of sources for improved decision making.
• Collaborate with data analysts and other program experts across USAID to develop, streamline, and improve existing and emerging PEPFAR and USAID Strategic Information systems, processes, and coordination in South Africa.

Build the USAID South Africa Health Office for the OVC and the Prevention Team capacity on data analysis:

• Provide consultation to non-technical audiences and develop and implement guidance on integrating data and analysis in routine decision-making processes specifically for HIV Prevention.
• Prepare concept papers, background analyses, and briefings to build support for the use of data analytics and data science techniques in the USAID South Africa Prevention Team.
• Facilitate discussion among key USAID stakeholders to articulate a vision and plan for integrating data science into planning, delivering, and assessing development programs.
• Lead and conduct trainings to improve the skill sets of the Health Office in the areas of data analysis and visualization through statistical software packages (e.g. R, Stata, Excel) and visualization tools (e.g. Tableau, ArcGIS/QGIS, R, Excel, and Inkscape/Adobe Illustrator).
• Lead review and analysis of impact evaluation data and develop strategies for data utilization to inform decision making with regard to policy, budgeting and programing.
• Support the team with review and analysis of partner performance in line with assigned MER indicators for OVC and prevention programs.

Improve data quality for USAID South Africa Health Office OVC and HIV Prevention Team programs:

• Assist the USAID South Africa OVC and HIV Prevention Team with conducting analyses of health and prevention data from a variety of sources in order to answer key evaluation questions and programmatic adjustments.
• Support coordination with the Health Team to drive use of OVC and HIV Prevention analytics across the OVC and HIV prevention technical priority areas and HIV clinical cascade.
• Support coordination with strategic information advisors for country clusters in developing country specific OVC and HIV Prevention data analysis and visualization that respond to specific programmatic priorities and requests.
• Provide input into the development of communication products and reports that summarize information on data trends, evidenced-based/high impact practices, and evaluation results.
• Assist in monitoring and evaluation core functions for the OVC and HIV Prevention Team, such as reporting of indicators both within the framework of the Southern Africa Health Office, Global Office of HIV/AIDS and PEPFAR.
• Support the OVC and HIV Prevention Team in developing and standardizing the use of analytics as part of routine programmatic review.
• Assist in the presentation and development of forums dedicated to identifying and sharing best practices in the field of data analytics for HIV programs.
• Identify, collect and manage various data sources for specific analytic needs.

Anticipated learning outcomes: * Required 10% time

• Develop an understanding of how to apply core global health competencies defined as development practice, cross cultural awareness, communication, capacity strengthening, ethics of public health, health equity, gender equality and global burden of disease.
• Gain exposure to data analysis and visualization through global health programming specifically for HIV Prevention programs.
• Apply effective communication skills across a broad network of peers and advisors within global health to support learning and professional development.
• Apply technical knowledge in health information systems and strategic information development to global health program activities specifically for HIV prevention.
• Identify and leverage a broad network of peers and advisors within the Health Office to enhance peer support learning and professional development.
• Cultivate leadership skills based on the STAR GH mentorship curriculum to effectively facilitate capacity building and knowledge sharing activities amongst staff and peers.
• Expand access to knowledge and resources through networking and collaborative practice within global health.

FELLOWSHIP REQUIREMENTS

Required:

• Minimum 7 years of relevant technical experience with a master’s degree in Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Economics, Engineering, or a related technical field or a minimum 9 years of relevant technical experience with a bachelor’s degree.
• Strong quantitative background and experience in data collection, management, cleaning, processing, and applied analysis using one or more of these statistical software or programming languages: Python, Stata, SAS, R, SPSS, MATLAB, Tableau, PowerBI.
• Ability to produce compelling data visualization products.
• Curious, self-motivated individual with excellent communications skills — must be able to distill highly technical quantitative methods into policy relevant snippets.
• Experience translating analysis into briefing documents or presentations for senior leadership.
• Ability to apply data science analytical techniques to problems and data sets spanning diverse sectors as agriculture, democracy & governance, economic growth, education, environment, and health.
• Strong writing and analytic skills.
• Experience in data analysis, geographic information systems (GIS), biostatistics, data entry and validation, evaluation methods and research, including experience with statistical software.
• Experience using ArcGIS and/or QGIS products to collect, organize, analyze and visualize spatial data.
• Experience with meta-data standards and database best practices.
• Experience working effectively in a multidisciplinary environment.
• South African citizen or Permanent Resident with work permit required.

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. All applications will be reviewed until position is filled.

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