Project Coordinator (Kuzama pa Kalondo Project) – Kamuzu University of Health Sciences

Job Description

Background

Malawi has made tremendous progress combating the HIV epidemic. The country is on track to surpass the UNAIDS 95-95-95 antiretroviral treatment (ART) and viral suppression targets, dramatically reducing new HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths. Now, HIV programme efforts are focused on how to effectively maintain requisite HIV services for decades to come to protect livelihoods of people living with HIV and sustain progress.

Transitioning from rapidly scaling-up HIV programmes to monitoring sustained epidemic control requires new approaches to monitoring the HIV epidemic and response. To date, monitoring the HIV infection trends and associated risk factors has relied on facility- and population-based surveillance methods, which were effective in detecting large changes in HIV infections and programme coverage. Quantifying sustained high coverage, small gaps, and low numbers of new infections poses new challenges.

The Kuzama pa Kalondo — ‘Getting Smart’ on HIV Surveillance Project aims use novel data analytic methods to track the progress Malawi is making in the fight against HIV/AIDS. This project is being implemented by the Kamuzu University of Health Sciences (KUHeS), Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (HSPH), Nyanja Health Research Institute, African Institute for Development Policy (AFIDEP), and University of Cape Town (UCT), in partnership with the Directorate of HIV, STIs, and Viral Hepatitis (DHA), the Public Health Institute of Malawi (PHIM), the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and others. The Kuzama Pa Kalondo Project is therefore seeking a Project Coordinator to support administrative and logistics for the project and facilitating stakeholder engagement.

Position Title:         Project Coordinator

Responsible to:     Principal Investigator

Location:                 Blantyre

Job Type:                Full-time

Duration:                 1 Year with possible renewal

Responsibilities

1. Operationalizing the Kuzama pa Kalondo project in line with relevant KUHES research and grants management policies, regulations and procedures;
2. Ensure strict adherence to relevant research and grants management policies, regulations and procedures by all Kuzama pa Kalondo project co-investigators and collaborators undertaking project activities within KUHeS;
3. Working with the KUHeS Grants Compliance Officer and Grants Accountants in preparing invoices and financial reports for submission to Harvard University, in accordance with the relevant clauses of the sub-award;
4. Liaising with the PIs and co-investigators in preparing annual technical progress reports for submission to the local and international Research Ethics Committees and ensuring timely submission of the same;
5. Supporting KUHeS co-investigators in the planning and implementation of project activities;
6. Facilitating optimal communication between the KUHeS team and the other collaborators outside the KUHeS, listed above;
7. Ensuring optimal communication with all key study stakeholders within and outside KUHeS
8. Organizing and updating the Kuzama pa Kalondo Project electronic folders and ensure that all co-Investigators and collaborators have access to the folders;
9. Facilitating travel and meeting logistics for KUHeS co-investigators and other collaborators, in accordance with the approved project budget
10. Participating in internal Kuzama pa Kalondo project monthly meetings, and all relevant Project meetings;
11. Facilitating the advertisement and recruitment of postgraduate students, including doctoral fellows, in line with the KUHeS policies, regulations and procedures.
12. Participating in stakeholder interviews aimed at reviewing the existing HIV and STI Surveillance Strategy and developing a novel HIV Surveillance framework;
13. Contributing to the drafting of project reports and policy briefs; and
14. Ensuring strict adherence to KUHeS policies, regulations and procedures when implementing all project activities.

Requirements:

• Bachelors’ degree in Health Sciences plus at least 2 years proven work experience as a Project Coordinator or similar role in a research or academic organization. Those with no experience working in a research or academic organization should not apply and will not be shortlisted.
• Proven experience in monitoring and evaluation
• Proven competence in the use of applications for scheduling and organizing meetings/conferences and transcribing recordings (including Doodle Poll, Zoom, MS Teams, Sonix)
• Familiarity with novel applications for project management (including Asana and Slack);

• Excellent verbal communication skills in English and Chichewa; and
• Excellent writing and computer operating skills (including MS Word, Access, Publisher, PowerPoint and Excel)

Application Procedure:

Interested candidates who meet the above requirements should send their applications including cover letter, CV with names of three traceable professional referees and copies of relevant certificates to:

The Registrar

Kamuzu University of Health Sciences

Mahatma Gandhi Road Campus

P/Bag 360

Chichiri

Blantyre 3

Or email to: recruitment@kuhes.ac.mw

Indicate position title on the envelope for hard copy applications and indicate the same in the subject line of your email for electronic submissions.

Applications should reach the Registrar not later than 30^th November, 2024. Only short-listed candidates will be acknowledged.