Child Health Advisor

The world has witnessed an extraordinary 70 percent decline in child mortality over the last 50 years, and a reduction in child deaths from over 12 million in 1990 to 5. million in 2021. Despite this progress, significant work remains to increase coverage of high-impact interventions, strengthen the health systems that support these interventions, improve quality, and address equity gaps that are bottlenecks to ending preventable child and maternal deaths.

Building on the new framework for Preventing Child and Maternal Deaths and on the momentum of the June 2012 Child Survival Call to Action and the subsequent launch of A Promise Renewed, USAID is committed to use this new strategic framework to shape and support policies, practices, and country led programs that improve the quality of care, promote equity, and achieve the optimal coverage of life saving care. The Office of Maternal and Child Health and Nutrition (GH/MCHN) serves as the Agency’s technical and policy lead on maternal and newborn health; child survival; immunization; and nutrition, with a focus on ending preventable child and maternal deaths. Cross-cutting activities managed by the Office in support of this goal address private sector partnerships, social and behavior change communication, multilateral partnerships, gender, research, and monitoring and evaluation. The CHI Division provides technical and policy leadership, addressing the leading killers of children in the post-neonatal period. This includes treatment of pneumonia, diarrhea, and other major contributors to death, vaccine-preventable diseases, as well as emerging issues. The Division also manages the Agency’s significant investments in Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance as well as our contributions to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative.

The USAID Child Health Advisor will serve in the Bureau for Global Health’s (BGH) Maternal and Child Health and Nutrition Office (MCHN), Division of Child Health and Immunization (GH/MCHN/CHI), to support Agency efforts to prevent child deaths, and promote child health and wellbeing. The Advisor will work closely with the child health team to further the engagement with USAID missions to energize USAID’s child health programs, in the context of the life course care  full “continuum of care” for mothers, newborns, and children and USAID’s broader global health portfolio.

The Advisor will play a leading role in USAID’s development, implementation, and monitoring of global and country-level policies, strategies, research, programs and activities aimed at accelerating the reductioning of infant and child mortality, and improving ability for children to thrive and achieve their full potential.  The Advisor will also foster relationships across the Office and Bureaus to strengthen collaboration and technical input into child health programs. The Child Health Advisor must have the capacity and interest to promote integrated approaches to child health consistent with USAID, the Child Survival Action blueprint for advocacy and action, and other global priorities: Getting to 2030: Maternal and Child Health and Nutrition Technical Roadmap;  the Preventing Child and Maternal Deaths: A Framework for Action in a Changing World; USAID Country Level plans that have been developed to advance MCHN goals; the Integrated Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Pneumonia and Diarrhea (GAPPD); and the Standards for improving the quality of care for children and young adolescents in health facilities.