Guided by the belief that every life has equal value, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives. In developing countries, it focuses on improving people’s health and giving them the chance to lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty. In the United States, it seeks to ensure that all people—especially those with the fewest resources—have access to the opportunities they need to succeed in school and life. Based in Seattle, Washington, the foundation is led by CEO Mark Suzman, under the direction of co-chairs Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates and the board of trustees.

Group Summary

The Global Development Program includes a diverse range of program areas aimed at finding creative ways to ensure solutions and products get into the hands of people in low-income countries who need them most. We focus on areas with the potential for high-impact, sustainable solutions that can reach millions of people. Our program strategies include: Emergency Response; Family Planning; Maternal Newborn & Child Health; Nutrition; Polio Eradication. A common theme across these programs is focus on innovative delivery, including an emphasis on strengthening primary health care systems. The Global Development Program also encompasses our India Country Office and Africa Team, with physical offices in Johannesburg, Addis Ababa, and Abuja. Our Program Strategy Teams work in close partnership with these Country Office Teams to align the foundation’s health and development equity agenda with the government’s broader priorities.

Leadership and Culture

Our culture shapes our choices about what we do and how we do it. We believe that energized people, working well together, fueled by great leadership in an inclusive environment can do extraordinary things. We expect foundation employees to intentionally and consistently embody our values of optimism, collaboration, rigor, innovation and inclusion.

Position Summary

In Ethiopia, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF)’s health portfolio works focuses on strengthening national and regional-level institutions to improve district level service delivery, including reproductive, maternal, neonatal, child, and adolescent health care (RMNCAH) and nutrition (NUT)-related services. To this end, the portfolio includes investments in service delivery; data systems; supply chain; health financing; research, innovation, and scale; and nutrition (health and non-health). Overall, BMGF aims to support the Government of Ethiopia (GOE) to achieve its Health Sector Transformation Plan II (HSTP II).

To foster this country-led approach, the foundation’s Ethiopia Integrated Health Team (EIHT) works to shape investments that are in alignment with government priorities while also considering BMGF’s proficiencies, values (including a “One Foundation approach” that emphasizes strong internal coordination across teams), and mandates, such as diversity, equity, and inclusion as well as gender-sensitive programming. As such, the EIHT aims to work with government, development partners and other collaborators: to support health sector governance, and accountability at the national and regional levels, and to deliver evidence-based, high impact health and nutrition services using a systems lens.

The Program Officer (PO)will be a key part of the EIHT and an important member of the wider Africa team at BMGF. The PO will help operationalize the Foundation’s systems-strengthening-focused country health plan. This will entail working with EIHT members to implement, refine, and manage multi-year platform/flagship investments in the areas noted above (service delivery, data, health care financing, supply chain etc). The PO will also use an evidenced-based approach to manage and distill key findings from assessments to inform programming (through the continued refinement and execution of a monitoring, learning, and evaluation plan) and the team’s approach to promote country-led, sustainable, and resilient practices – such as local institution strengthening and partner diversification. The PO will also be responsible for managing a discrete grant portfolio and/or providing research and analysis work in support of grant-making, strategy development, coordination, communications, and advocacy. This position provides an opportunity to operationalize BMGF’s strategic direction in Ethiopia, such that it is responsive to health and nutrition needs.

Core Responsibilities

• Support the EIHT in planning, developing complex investment opportunities, and managing grants as well as internal and external relationship management.
• Collect data coming in from grants, assessments, contracts and partners. Analyze data in excel and other programs. Use data to interrogate team hypotheses and support better decision making.
• Support the Deputy Director to operationalize approaches for partner engagement (internal and external) that promote capacity strengthening, local institutional strengthening, resilience, and BMGF mandates of diversity, equity and inclusiveness as well as gender intentionality and transformation.
• Support the team measurement, learning and evaluation strategy. Help operationalize processes which will feed data and analysis from grants and research back into key strategy and portfolio management decisions.
• Handle discrete grant portfolio that includes collaborating with grantees to achieve desired impact of grants; conduct site visits when appropriate, provide technical guidance, convene meetings and apply and evaluate milestone-based performance objectives. Ensure appropriate documentation, grant budgeting and reporting as well as operational efficiency and effectiveness.
• Review letters of inquiry and grant proposals; provide clear, concise and insightful written analyses and recommendations for funding, including drafting and editing proposal summaries and progress reports for existing grants for review by foundation leadership.
• Interact and communicate clearly and consistently with grantees and partners in the field.
• Draft sections of key documents, reports, and presentations for a variety of purposes and audiences, summarizing developments and recommendations for program areas and external partners.
• Prepare and write briefs and synthesize existing literature. Provide written analysis of key topics for foundation management. Fulfill data requests from leadership.
• Represent the foundation to key program-related external constituencies, as appropriate, on committees related to area of expertise and responsibilities of the position.
• Travel up to 25% domestically and internationally (as per the travel policy).

Core Knowledge And Skills

• Extensive project contribution and management experience.
• An excellent teammate with strong interpersonal skills.
• Comfortable in a wide range of cultural, geographic and operational situations, demonstrating culturally-sensitive behavior with a diverse range of people.
• Strong analytical, writing and verbal skills for communicating with a broad and diverse audience.
• Language:
  • Ability to operate effectively in English, both verbally and in writing.
  • Verbal Amharic skills is preferred.
• Effective as a collaborator in complex internal and external organizations.
• Leadership abilities to work with multiple partners, including government, other donors, grantees to create a common vision and visualize simple and effective but implementable solutions to complex problems.
• Strong knowledge across relevant technical area/expertise, including health systems strengthening.
• Demonstrated initiative to solve unstructured problems with little oversight, creativity, high energy, and a positive attitude.
• Handles complexity and ambiguity effectively: proven ability to be flexible, efficient, and tactful in a fast-paced environment.
• Creative problem solver with a rigorous approach.
• Highly organized and efficient; able to prioritize work based on minimal direction and multiple competing priorities.
• Strong understanding of shaping and managing sustainable and scalable ventures.
• Understanding of strategies for automating the process of data collection in a variety of settings and sites.
• Experience with research methodologies and deployment of data strategies.

Education And Experience

• Bachelor’s or other advanced degree with 5+ years of experience, or equivalent experience.

As part of our standard hiring process for new employees, employment with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will be contingent upon successful completion of a background check.