Janaagraha - State Project Lead - Urban Healthcare System Reforms

What does it take to be Senior Project Lead - Urban Healthcare System Reforms

Core Competencies :

1. Effective communication

2. Managing large projects efficiently, where multiple internal and external stakeholders need to work together quickly and seamlessly

3. Creative problem solving

4. Program Management

5. Proactive stakeholder engagement

Functional Competencies :

1. Excellent project plan formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation skills

2. Excellent ability to manage a diverse set of stakeholders, in and outside of government

3. Ability to operate with minimal instructions & supervision

4. Ability to advocate and provide policy advice and interact with high level decision makers

5. Excellent networking skills

What will the Senior Project Lead - Urban Healthcare System Reforms really do?

A) Manage planning and development of Janaagraha's Urban Public Health programme

1. Work closely with the CEO & Project Director to develop and implement strategic direction of the program

2. Identify planning and programme needs, opportunities and approaches to strengthen Janaagraha's presence and relevance in the urban healthcare reforms space;

3. Provide strategic advice and leadership support to the CEO and key senior partners (government, civil society, think-tanks, multilaterals);

4. Engage and collaborate with senior and key stakeholders in Urban public health ;

5. Manage and ensure the quality and timeliness of outputs and outcomes; prepare the medium-term programme plan and a programme funding plan;

6. Nurture and build relationships with the donor ecosystem;

7. Manage the development and implementation of the programme's communication strategy and plan

B) Manage project delivery & the state team

1. Manage the performance of staff under supervision; provide managerial direction, guidance and leadership to staff and provide performance feedback and coaching to staff under supervision;

2. Support the government in undertaking activities related to effective planning, development and implementation of urban primary healthcare delivery

3. Assist health and other relevant departments in operationalisation of the all GOs, tracking and ensuring compliance at the ULB & district levels.

4. Create and customise training modules to ensure relevant guidelines and action plans are best suit the state's urban context, as well as to improve implementing staff's uptake

5. Conceptualise, design and oversee ULB and other relevant staff capacity building

6. Work with the Project Director to finalise the methodology for and execute a landscape study of urban primary healthcare systems with specific emphasis on reforming public financial management (PFM) systems and staffing

7. Assist the project director in right-staffing the state team;

8. Lead innovation and adoption of best practices in the team;

9. Finalize donor reports, and negotiate and/or approve cost-sharing agreements with donors;

10. Ensure smooth running of day-to-day operations, troubleshooting and managing relationships with all stakeholders in the state

C) Engage with the urban healthcare finance ecosystem

1. Represent Janaagraha in relevant forums, public information/relations events and key meetings, participate in policy dialogue; discuss policy initiatives, report on progress achieved and/or present policy papers/ideas;

2. Establish and maintain relationships with government, partners, stakeholders and donors to achieve active collaboration, cooperation and alliances on programme development and implementation;

3. Ensure Janaagraha's active participation in relevant forums and working groups to establish effective networks and keep abreast of ongoing debates and thinking on the governance of urban healthcare delivery and urban healthcare infrastructure finance.

4. Build relations and partnerships with high level and senior government officials as well as multi-lateral, bi-lateral agencies and NGOs; and participate in all critical meetings and events;

5. Create and maintain strategic partnerships and manage and implement resource mobilization strategies;

Qualifications and Experience :

1. Master's degree or equivalent in public health, business administration, public administration, public policy or other directly relevant fields;

2. 10+ years of experience in government advisory, public finance, public health, business consulting or in a non-profit working in public health/ infrastructure finance; should have held strategic and managerial leadership for at least 4 years in their career;

3. Should have held positions engaging directly with senior or c-suite clients and stakeholders in the public health sector or related sectors (including bureaucrats at the positions of Principal Secretaries in State Govt. and Joint Secretaries in the Central Govt)

4. Field based experience working with multi-cultural and geographically diverse and spread teams; experience leading teams of at least 5 members and annual budgets of at least USD 1mn

5. Preferred - should have led or worked as a manager on projects with governments on public health systems transformation, capacity building, transaction advisory for at least 5 years; at least 3 directly in public health

What Janaagraha Offers :

At Janaagraha, you will be part of a multi-disciplinary team of professionals and passionate citizens who apply cutting-edge technologies and practices aimed at social change in India's cities. We offer a dynamic, driven, remunerative and vibrant work environment for professionals who are passionate about investing their time, skill sets and energy to transform quality of life in India's cities. At work, you will be exposed to a unique combination of policy, practice and platforms and will have abundant opportunities to learn and apply professional skills to complex social challenges.

Remuneration : We offer competitive remuneration packages, commensurate to the experience & industry standards.

Project Details :

Primary healthcare in India's cities and towns is nascent. Covid-19 has severely exposed its shortcomings. The XV Finance Commission (XVFC) in a welcome move has allocated Rs 26,000 crores for Urban Local Bodies (ULBs, aka municipalities) specifically towards strengthening decentralised primary healthcare. The XVFC has rightly identified and strengthened the need for neighbourhood and city level delivery of public health services in cities, drawing lessons from Covid-19 pandemic. 

We believe this needs to be leveraged as an opportunity not just for short-term measures, but for more sustainable medium and long-term systems change. Municipalities (referred to in governments as Urban Local Bodies or ULBs) have hitherto not been systematically involved in delivery of public health services in cities. There is therefore a need to not just invest significantly in urban health services (against the backdrop of the pandemic), but to also simultaneously build out a long-term approach to decentralising health infrastructure and services through greater involvement of ULBs. At the heart of this approach is the need to look at primary healthcare alongside city governance, equity and environment, in an integrated and coordinated manner.

However, the current 1-yr project is to respond to a more immediate requirement. It will involve setting up institutional processes, SOPs and rolling out trainings to ensure both states meet all XVFC grant access and deployment requirements, as laid out in the MoHFW's operational guidelines (OG). It will also study the urban healthcare governance landscape with the objective of surfacing systemic gaps and identifying pathways for co-creating solutions. 

This project is envisaged to be phase 1 of a more longer-term engagement to be finalised over the course of the first one-year phase. The next phase will focus on drawing up a comprehensive roadmap for full devolution of primary healthcare governance to ULBs & deploying a newly designed PFM system ensuring financial sustainability (adequacy of funds) as well as financial accountability (accountability for outputs and eventually citizen outcomes) for primary healthcare in ULBs.