Technical Director, Malaria

The AFGHS-Jhpiego project is funded by the U.S. Department of State (DoS) to support the delivery of lifesaving, comprehensive maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH) and malaria services across Mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar. It aims to improve service and data quality, strengthen health-system integration and resilience, facilitate effective transition, and promote local ownership and accountability for sustained health outcomes.

Jhpiego works closely with the Ministries of Health in Mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar, the Reproductive and Child Health Section (RCHS), the National Malaria Control Programme (NMCP), the Zanzibar Malaria Elimination Programme (ZAMEP), and Regional Administration and Local Government (RALG) structures to align implementation with national priorities and strengthen locally led implementation and oversight.

The Technical Director, Malaria, provides overall technical leadership, coordination, and oversight for comprehensive malaria interventions under the project, drawing on subject matter expertise in integrated vector management, malaria diagnosis and treatment, preventive therapies, surveillance, monitoring, and evaluation. Working closely with the project’s Senior Technical Team, the Technical Director-Malaria coordinates technical inputs across these areas and provides strategic guidance to ensure coherent, evidence-based approaches aligned with national guidelines and standards across Mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar.

The Technical Director – Malaria works closely with the monitoring, evaluation, research and learning (MERL) and community-based health services (CBHS) teams to ensure timely availability and use of high-quality data for surveillance, performance improvement, and adaptive management. The role serves as a key technical point of contact with national malaria program unit heads, research institutions, and other technical partners to strengthen existing systems, address technical issues, and promote consistent approaches. The Technical Director-Malaria also serves as the link between the malaria program team, national technical forums, and Jhpiego’s Global Malaria Team, ensuring technical alignment, coordination, and appropriate engagement.

The Technical Director- Malaria provides technical leadership for sustainability and transition of malaria clinical services, working with national malaria programs and other government counterparts to progressively institutionalize project-supported malaria interventions within government policies, plans, budgets, systems, and routine service delivery. The role strengthens government leadership, technical and workforce capacity, and use of government systems; identifies and addresses barriers to sustained implementation; and supports agreed transition milestones for progressively shifting technical leadership, implementation, monitoring, and quality improvement functions to government structures. The Technical Director- Malaria ensures that scale-up and transition approaches maintain quality and continuity of essential malaria services while strengthening government ownership and capacity to sustain results beyond direct project support.

• Provide overall technical direction and oversight for malaria interventions, ensuring alignment with national policies, project objectives, and global evidence.
• Provide technical leadership for the design, planning, implementation, and scale-up of malaria activities to ensure effectiveness, quality, and consistency across regions.
• Work closely with the Project Director and Senior Technical Team to establish technical priorities and respond to technical needs identified with government counterparts and other stakeholders.
• Lead identification and implementation of effective facility- and community-based strategies for malaria prevention, diagnosis, treatment, preventive therapies, and control.
• Provide targeted technical input to national malaria strategy development, guideline updates, and technical standards in collaboration with NMCP and ZAMEP, positioning the project as a trusted technical resource.
• Align malaria activities and technical support with approved project milestones and payment-linked deliverables, monitoring progress and addressing gaps to ensure timely achievement, verification, and payment of milestones.

• Lead institutional capacity strengthening across key malaria thematic areas, including integrated vector management; malaria diagnosis, treatment, and preventive therapy delivery; surveillance, monitoring and evaluation; and malaria service delivery and data quality systems.
• Strengthen national, regional, council, facility, and community-level capacity to implement, supervise, monitor, and continuously improve quality malaria services.
• Provide technical guidance to project technical teams to ensure consistent application of national standards, evidence-based approaches, and quality improvement methodologies.
• Strengthen government technical leadership, mentorship, supportive supervision, and quality improvement systems to progressively reduce dependence on project-supported technical assistance.

• Collaborate with MERL staff to strengthen and apply existing government systems to track malaria-related results, analyze data for decision-making, and inform adaptive management.
• Promote routine use of surveillance, service delivery, and quality data by national and subnational government counterparts to identify performance gaps, target interventions, and monitor corrective actions.
• Manage and coordinate technical inputs from research institutions leading surveillance activities, including defining scopes of work and monitoring technical performance in collaboration with NMCP and ZAMEP units.
• Ensure surveillance, research, and learning activities contribute to national priorities and strengthen government capacity to generate, interpret, and use evidence for malaria programming.

• Serve as a key technical point of contact with NMCP, ZAMEP, malaria implementing partners, research institutions, DoS, and Jhpiego malaria technical teams.
• Represent the project in malaria technical working groups, task forces, and other national and subnational technical and coordination forums.
• Maintain strong collaborative relationships with NMCP, ZAMEP, implementing partners, DoS representatives, and other technical stakeholders.
• Coordinate with MERL, CBHS, and other project technical teams to ensure malaria interventions are integrated, complementary, and aligned across facility and community platforms.
• Serve as the link between the project malaria team, national technical forums, and Jhpiego’s Global Malaria Team to facilitate technical alignment, knowledge exchange, and access to specialized technical expertise.

• Document and synthesize implementation experiences, adaptations, lessons learned, and challenges to inform project learning, technical improvement, and scale-up.
• Contribute to high-quality technical reports, presentations, and knowledge products required by NMCP, ZAMEP, DoS, and Jhpiego.
• Author or co-author abstracts, presentations, technical briefs, and peer-reviewed publications in collaboration with in-country and global colleagues.
• Identify and disseminate effective approaches and promising practices that can be institutionalized and sustained through government systems.

• Provide technical leadership for implementation and monitoring of the project’s malaria sustainability and transition approach, including agreed milestones for progressively shifting technical leadership and implementation responsibilities to government structures.
• Work with NMCP, ZAMEP, and other government counterparts to institutionalize effective project-supported malaria interventions within national and subnational policies, plans, budgets, systems, technical guidance, and routine service delivery.
• Assess institutional, workforce, financing, service delivery, data and accountability, and community-level barriers to sustainability and guide development and monitoring of practical actions to address identified gaps.
• Strengthen government capacity to progressively lead and sustain malaria planning, implementation, technical oversight, mentorship, supportive supervision, quality improvement, surveillance, data use, and performance monitoring.
• Ensure malaria scale-up strategies include clear approaches for institutionalization, government ownership, financing, and transition from project-supported to government-led implementation.
• Promote use and strengthening of existing government structures, systems, tools, and processes and avoid creation of parallel project systems.
• Work with government counterparts to identify opportunities to incorporate priority malaria interventions and associated resource requirements into national, regional, and council planning and budgeting processes.
• Monitor transition readiness and progress against agreed milestones and identify risks to continuity, quality, or sustainability of essential malaria services, with appropriate mitigation measures.
• Ensure transition decisions protect continuity and quality of essential malaria services and are informed by evidence of government capacity and system readiness.

• A clinical degree (doctor, nursing, midwifery), with Master of Public Health is required.
• At least 9- 10 years’ experience implementing and/or providing technical assistance for malaria control and elimination projects, with specialized knowledge and experience in at least one of the following:
• malaria prevention including malaria in pregnancy services (i.e., intermittent preventative treatment of malaria in pregnancy [IPTp]; malaria immunization
• routine distribution of insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) during vaccination clinics for children under five and ante-natal care (ANC) visits;
• malaria diagnosis through rapid diagnostic test (RDT)
• laboratory diagnostic capacity strengthening, including microscopy.
• malaria case management particularly for pregnant women and children under five;
• At least 8 years’ experience in implementing and/or providing technical assistance to large, donor-funded multi-year-old international health sector projects that have implemented activities in malaria prevention and control
• Demonstrated experience training clinical and community-based healthcare workers in malaria prevention, diagnosis, and treatment
• Demonstrated experience strengthening facility- and community-level case reporting, addressing provider behaviors, conducting operational research, and strengthening technical leadership at the national and provincial levels.
• Demonstrated in-depth understanding of the healthcare system in Tanzania, particularly the public health system; experience living and working in Tanzania required
• Familiarity with USG administrative, management and reporting procedures and systems
• Proven track record managing a project team composed of several technical experts and fostering teamwork
• Expertise in research to practice—identifying and adapting best practices to specific project contexts

• Excellent diplomacy skills and a proven ability to establish and maintain interpersonal and professional relationships with USG, US President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI), host-country counterparts and representatives from other key stakeholders such as NGOs, Faith Based Organization (FBOs), Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), and the private sector
• Required Leadership skills
• Proactive, self-motivated, and able to work with minimal supervision.
• Proficiency in MS Office applications.
• Strong teamwork and interpersonal skills.
• Strong analytical,communicationm and report -writing skills

Jhpiego offers competitive salaries and a comprehensive employee benefits package.

Please apply at www.jhpiego.org/careers

Applicants must submit a single document for upload to include cover letters, resume, and references.

For further information about Jhpiego, visit our website at www.jhpiego.org

Note: The successful candidate selected for this position will be subject to a pre-employment background investigation.

Jhpiego is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer

Jhpiego, a Johns Hopkins University affiliate, is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of gender, marital status, pregnancy, race, color, ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, veteran status, other legally protected characteristics or any other occupationally irrelevant criteria. Jhpiego promotes Affirmative Action for minorities, women, individuals who are disabled, and veterans.

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