Vaccine Delivery Advisor, Africa CDC

Focus of the Role

To date, Covid-19 has cost more than 4 million lives. High income countries are showing the incredible power that vaccinations have to save lives and allow economies to recover. But while countries such as the UK, Italy and the US have fully vaccinated around two thirds of adults, less than one per cent of people on the African continent have received one vaccine. 

This is everyone’s concern. Until the whole world has been vaccinated no one is truly safe—we have seen repeatedly that Covid-19 does not respect borders. 

Africa is losing the race to vaccinate: when vaccinations become available, logistical challenges, insufficient resources and vaccine hesitancy pose risks to their deployment in time or to populations that need it the most.

Turning this situation around is a priority for the Tony Blair Institute. We are supporting a number of African governments to:

• improve national and local government coordination
• find, triage and ensure delivery of donor support
• operate a complete, secure and widely shared vaccine data collection and analysis system
• develop and implement a strategic communications plan to overcome fears and misinformation about the vaccines
• help coordinate and deliver supplies of vaccines to where they are most needed

This work could not be more important or urgent. Case numbers are rising rapidly on the African continent due to the highly transmissible Delta variant, but vaccine supply will begin to rise rapidly towards the end of the year.

We are seeking talented and dedicated individuals to join our new Africa Vaccine Programme (AVP) who want to play a direct role in ensuring as many lives as possible are protected from Covid-19. The Programme will operate in over eight of our existing countries from September 2021 onwards, and our team will be made up of senior Delivery Advisors and those with targeted public health expertise.

As part of our Africa Vaccine Programme, we are working with the Africa Centre for Disease Control (Africa CDC). The Africa CDC is seeking to strengthen coordination of income offers of vaccine support with country needs and absorptive capacity, while also helping to address vaccine rollout roadblocks. As part of this effort, it is establishing a Vaccine Equity Dashboard to track the procurement and distribution of vaccines to African countries, to identify roadblocks to successful and equitable vaccine redistribution. Once these issues are identified and tracked, it will be essential to rapidly ensure relevant decision makers are well coordinated and can rapidly address those roadblocks. 

The Vaccine Delivery Advisor will support the Africa CDC to coordinate vaccines and vaccine support between global partners, donors and recipient countries and to resolve rollout roadblocks. 

The post holder will help the Africa CDC to make use of its Vaccine Equity Dashboard to coordinate partners, governments and other stakeholders to ensure equitable distribution of vaccines in line with absorption capacity, and to help them problem solve around roadblocks to vaccine rollout across the continent. 

TBI is seeking an exceptional individual with excellent inter-personal, management, analytic and strategic skills to provide delivery and coordination support. The role holder will support the Africa CDC senior management to coordinate offers of vaccines and vaccine support from international partners, and match this support to countries based on need and absorptive capacity, and identify and resolve bottlenecks. The post holder will use ACDC’s Vaccine Equity Dashboard to guide this work in partnership with, its manager. The role holder will also support the Africa CCDC to advise and support in-country TBI Covid Vaccine Delivery Advisors, partner governments, regional bodies, development partners and other stakeholders on innovative approaches to strengthen government’s ability to deliver vaccines. 

This is a 12-month, fixed-term role based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, embedded in the Africa CDC.

Key Responsibilities

• ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Build and maintain excellent working relationships with the stakeholders of the Africa CDC’s work on vaccines
• Support Africa CDC with delivery of its Covid vaccines programme, being flexible and adaptive to respond to urgent needs, and to facilitate problem solving the issues identified and highlighted by the dashboard
• Use the Africa CDC Vaccine Equity Dashboard, and working closely with the Dashboard Associate, to identify bottlenecks and constraints to vaccine rollout
• Facilitate communication around the issues emerging from the Dashboard, and support coordination of stakeholders and decision makers needing to take actions around the issues
• Contribute to the Africa CDC's stakeholder engagement system by working closely with other TBI workstreams supporting Africa CDC
• Communicate resource gaps to key stakeholders, government and development partners, and support resource mobilisation to address resource gaps around rapid vaccine rollout
• Ensure outreach to, collaboration with and responsiveness to the TBI vaccine delivery and vaccine experts working in countries, to support the vaccine rollout effort
• Engage TBI’s government and delivery practice to explore tools and services that can be applied to support the Africa CDC while advising on the bespoke application of these tools where they add value and are in demand
• Support the AVP Programme Manager and other staff on this programme with data, advocacy and learning

Person Specification

This is a role in a fast-paced team working in complex policy areas. To be successful in this role you will need to be entrepreneurial in your approach to your work. 

You will have the following skills, knowledge and experience:  

• 5-7 years of experience in public sector delivery or in management and coordination roles (preferably in Africa)
• Strong grasp of the tools and techniques of “deliverology”, and of strategy and organisational management
• Be pro-active and dynamic, be ready to go the extra mile
• Excellent interpersonal, negotiation, networking, collaboration and communication skills, with an ability to develop and foster relationships with a wide range of senior stakeholders.
• A strategic mindset and experience in adaptive management and problem solving, for example Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation.
• An ability to deliver results in complex and challenging environments.
• Strong numeracy and analytical skills
• Excellent written and spoken communication skills
• Experience in management consulting or centre of government/delivery work in Africa is an advantage
• Relevant experience in public health is an advantge, but not a requisite.
• Fluent in written and oral English. Proficiency in French or Portuguese is an advantage

About The Institute

The Tony Blair Institute (TBI) is a mission-driven not for profit organisation. We exist to equip political leaders and governments to build open, inclusive and prosperous societies. We work hard, every day, to make a difference. When governments work well they are able to create economic and social change in a way that promotes fairness, social justice and opportunity. We work relentlessly to support leader and governments with the challenges they face. Giving them practical solutions and actionable insights, that once implemented, can be transformative for their people  

We do this within two connected divisions: 

 Government Advisory 

Our Advisory Practice works directly with political leaders and governments around the world to implement reforms that improve the lives of their citizens. It has both non-profit partners and a client base and its outputs cover a range of disciplines and projects across countries in Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and South Asia. We are currently in a rapid expansion phase from c. 18 countries at present, to 30 by December 2022.

 Policy Futures 

Our Policy Futures work encompasses three broad areas: 

• Renewing the Centre: developing a bold and innovative domestic policy programme to help renew the centre ground of British politics; 
• Tech and Public Policy: exploring the policy challenges and opportunities presented by the technological revolution; and 
• Extremism Policy Unit: creating solutions designed to tackle the threat of extremist ideologies in the UK and around the world. 

As an organisation, the core beliefs we all embrace are: 

• Open and Progressive: you’ll believe in the value of teamwork 
• Bold and Pragmatic: you’ll approach everything you do with integrity and authenticity 
• Optimistic Changemaker: you’ll be focused on results 

TBI believes embracing diversity and inclusion make us a better place to work.  It’s our goal to reflect everyone in society and we actively welcome applications from individuals and groups who are under-represented in the workplace. We celebrate difference be it ethnicity, religion, age, gender or gender identity, sexual orientation or disability. We will only ever assess you on your abilities and fit for a role. We’re happy to discuss any adjustments you need to ensure a level playing field during recruitment and, if you\'re successful, discuss any adjustments you might need to thrive in your role.