Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss-TPH) has been mandated by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) to implement a project known as “Towards Malaria Elimination in Tanzania” (TEMT). This project runs for a duration of four years, from May 2020 to April 2024.

TEMT project aims at providing technical and strategic support to the Government of Tanzania and Zanzibar. The technical assistance is specifically focused to the National Malaria Control Programme (NMCP), the President’s Office Regional Administrative and Local Government (PO-RALG) and to the Zanzibar Malaria Elimination Programme (ZAMEP). The three key areas of support are: vector control, malaria case management, and surveillance, monitoring & evaluation.

The project will benefit all Tanzanians (mainland and Zanzibar) suffering from the burden of malaria disease – particularly those in rural areas and those in the highest risk groups (pregnant women and children, individuals living with HIV). A strong focus will be put on gender-sensitive approaches to our work. Hence, the total number of beneficiaries is expected to be around 50 million.

TEMT project is currently in its first phase of implementation and is seeking to hire the following personnel:

Position: Surveillance, Monitoring and Evaluation (SME) Specialist

Reports to: Senior Technical Advisor

Duty Station: Dar es Salaam

Duration: One year (renewable)

General functions:

The SME Specialist is responsible for supporting technically and strategically in the areas of surveillance, monitoring and evaluation of the NMCP/ZAMEP programme. The SME Specialist will be responsible to ensure quality and timely implementation of selected TEMT project interventions as related to SME. This can be achieved through collaborating with NMCP, PO-RALG and R/CHMTs to routinely plan, execute, reflect and report on project related activities in a timely manner, and in accordance with the agreed work-plan developed jointly with the Ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children of mainland Tanzania (MOHCDEC) and PO-RALG. The SME specialist will ensure that implementation of all TEMT project activities are in line with the current National Malaria Strategic Plan and the malaria surveillance guidelines.

Specific responsibilities:

a)      Planning and budgeting:

•    Participate in the preparation of annual and quarterly work plans, prepare quarterly advance requests for TEMT funding in the applicable format for SME activities
•     Provide technical support to malaria SME activities to the NMCP/ZAMEP and district authorities, whenever necessary
•     Participate in quarterly work planning and progress reporting meetings with the Project Team Leader and the other Technical advisors

b)      Project Implementation:

•     Technically support the NMCP in routine collation, cleaning, quality review, and management of DHIS2/HMIS malaria related data
•     Technically support  the NMCP in the annual update of the malaria macro/micro-stratification risk maps
•      Technically support the NMCP in the digitization of malaria micro stratification for microplanning tool in selected councils
•      Provide district level capacity building through identification of needs, development of training tools and conducting micro-stratification training in selected councils
•     Technically support the NMCP in the collation of all malaria related information for the composite database specifically the phase 3 development of the composite database (malaria strategic information system)
•    Technically support the NMCP in the development of training materials and building capacity/orientation of councils (CHMTS) and stakeholders on the use of the composite database and ensuring timely entry of data into the system
•     Technically support NMCP on case-based surveillance activities and its subsequent information system development
•    Assist the senior public health advisor to technically support the NMCP in the Larval source management (LSM) information system Integration into the DHIS2 malaria strategic information system so as to ensure that all data pertaining to LSM application is well recorded and performance is monitored over time.
•    Technically support ZAMEP in mapping environmental, socio-economic, behavioral, occupational, entomological risks and coverage of malaria interventions to add to the epidemiological risk stratification conducted by partners
•    Technically support ZAMEP in the mapping, planning, data collation, data cleaning, development, training and operationalization of the malaria strategic information system
•     Technically support ZAMEP on operationalization of malaria epidemic preparedness and response
•     Establish regular documentation of challenges, corrective actions, lessons learnt with regard to micro-stratification for micro-planning implementation that are shared with all councils in the country
•     Participate in all technical meetings related to surveillance, monitoring and evaluation of malaria program.

c)      Project Reporting:

•   Routinely document on project success stories to share the knowledge and experience pertaining to malaria stratification and malaria control interventions (including LSM) to a wider audience, both scientific and non-scientific
•     Prepare and share quarterly financial burn rates for each interventional area as per the work plan
•     Assist in the writing of semi - annual and annual reports to the donor and to Tanzanian authorities.

d)      Other duties:

•     The candidate can be requested by the TEMT Team Leader (and supervisors) to perform other public health-related duties, in line with the candidate’s competences. 

•     Master’s degree in Public Health/Epidemiology or Biostatistics
•    At least five years of experience in implementing a public health project with solid experience in budgeting, planning and reporting on international funded projects.
•     Experience working with disease programs under the MOHCDEC, preferably in malaria
•     Experience working with HMIS/DHIS2 software
•     Excellent analytical/ statistical skills
•     Excellent negotiation and collaborating skills
•     Good knowledge of monitoring and evaluation of health programs
•     Good computer skills in the Microsoft office software such as word processing (MS Word), and spreadsheets (MS Excel)
•     Experience working with spatial software tools such as QGIS or ArcGIS
•     Desirable: experience with statistical/analytical software packages (R/Stata)
•     Fluency in writing and speaking both English and Swahili languages