Vacancy title:
Research Officer

Jobs at:
Uganda Health Marketing Group Ltd ( UHMG )

Deadline of this Job:
4:00 pm or 16:00 hours (East African time) on Friday 2nd February 2018

Duty Station:
Kampala, Uganda

Job details:
Uganda Health Marketing Group Ltd ( UHMG ) is a Company Limited by Guarantee, whose Vision is ‘A good life for all Ugandans". We envision a Ugandan society with good life, when products and services in Reproductive Health, HIV, Malaria ‘and Child Health are accessible, affordable and effectively utilized by all those in need. Our Mission is ‘To improve the quality of life of Ugandans, through the provision of superior and affordable health care solutions.“ Our Core Values are; integrity, Transparency, Accountability, Teamwork, Excellence, Flexibility, and Equity. UHMG is seeking a dynamic qualified individual to fill the following position as part of its team.

POSITION: Research Officer
Reports to: Senior Advisor-monitoring, evaluation and learning.

Job Summary: The Research Officer will be responsible for mainstreaming and promoting implementation science to enable the project and the organisation understand barriers and facilitators of successful implementation of effective interventions and integration of evidence to practices, S/he will specifically guide SMA project and UHMG in general, in the design and implementation of studies, including study protocols, and will provide a mechanism of documenting best practices, identify replicable models for scale up and timely dissemination of the project IUHMG studies, key learning to stakeholders, and publish them in renown journals.

S/he will work very closely with all project's technical managers to identify key priority study areas for incorporation in the overall annual work plans. Prioritized research activities will be analysed for their relevancy, credibility, feasibility, cost effectiveness and added value to the project and the overall organisations mandate In addition, s/he will work specifically with M&E team to ensure that the projects and organisation's teaming agenda is aligned with the projects and institution's Annual Work Plans. S/he will play a key role in executing project's/organisations implementation science by carrying out both informative and operational research, and updating M&E frameworks, and hence this will require a self-driven, seasoned, and experienced person with skills to manage and oversee these technic areas. This position requires a person who has strong skills in research, monitoring and evaluation (RME) development, communication, and documentation, to effectively and proactively reinforce the organisation's commitment to strong RME systems, S/he must focus on qualify, improvement effectiveness and efficiency, and model independence, objectivity, ethics, integrity, professionalism, and avoidance of bias and conflict of interest. The person should have the capacity to work under minimum supervision with resilience, and maintain a clean and transparent research management and monitoring system as per set procedures.

S/he should be detail- and results-oriented, have strong conceptual, analytical, and reporting skills, with expertise in information gathering, analysis and timely reporting, be proactive in instituting innovative, sustainable, and cost-effective studies, and work dedicatedly to fulfill the organisations goals, while upholding the Core Values of UHMG.

Primary duties and responsibilities:

• Coordinate implementation of the project's teaming agenda for generating evidence of effectiveness of supported interventions, lessons teamed and best practices for replication.
• Support the Maternal and Child Health (MCH) sector to prioritize programs activities in line with evidence from researches carried out internally and reviews of other established authorities. Design and implement operational researches to identify barriers to sustainable MCH services utilization, design pilots on new innovative strategies to overcome identified barriers and develop a scale up plan for the delivery of these services.
•  In collaboration with the programs technical team, identity research themes to analyze current issues that limit full utilization of Family Planning services to address the unmet need for family planning and other service delivery gaps in the reproductive health services, and develop a plan to scale up identified best practices.
• Support the programs technical team to identify key research themes for scale up of malaria prevention services and case management services uptake. Key areas include the extent of use of preventive measures; LLITN and IRS, as well as l adherence to malaria case management guidelines; lab testing for suspected malaria fever and adherence to prescription guidelines by both providers and ‘clients.
• Work with the Communications team to guide the design and implementation of evidencebased interventions, and incorporate activities on monitoring and evaluation frameworks with key benchmarks to evaluate program outputs and impact.
•  Work with the Marketing teams to monitor and evaluate the impact of brands promotion activities based on key monitoring indicators to monitor specific brands uptakes, customer preferences and satisfaction with their use.
• Work with the Product Facility team to monitor market potential and penetration of UHMG socially marketed products, market share, and determine strategies to capture and maintain specific products market share. Also work with this team to analyze the cost-benefit of the third-party logistics services, product sales and distribution.
• Work with the Knowledge management team in the publication of UHMG results and best practices across all service sectors, and particularity ensure that UHMG subscribes and contributes to key journals and publications.
• Undertake any other duties as may be assigned from time to time by the supervisor.

Minimum Requirements (Knowledge, Skills and Abilities)

• Bachelor’s Degree or higher in Social Sciences, Public Health, Statistics, Population studies or other related degree.
• Post Graduate training in research, Monitoring & Evaluation and communication is an asset.
• At least 4 years‘ relevant experience working in research in a donor environment, and in monitoring public health communication-related projects of similar scope in a social marketing field. Experience working with USAID programs will be an added advantage,
• Experience in the use of data analysis software (SPSS, STATA, Excel, etc.) is mandatory. Demonstrable results in previous work environment should reinforce claims to this experience.

Job application procedure
Please deliver your resume (CV), copies of certificates, references, and cover letter clearly indicating position applied for on the “top left-hand side of the envelope‘, to the UHMG Office Reception, addressed to The Human Resource Manager, Uganda Health Marketing Group Ltd. (UHMG, Plot 20-21, 27-28, Martyrs Crescent, Ntinda.

The deadline for receipt of applications is 4:00 pm or 16:00 hours (East African time) on Friday 2nd February 2018. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted. All documents submitted by applicants towards this recruitment process shall become the property of UHMG. Any attempt by an applicant or their representative, acting on their behalf, (within and/or outside UHMG) to influence the recruitment process in their favor will lead to automatic disqualification of that applicant.

UGANDA HEALTH MARKETING GROUP IS AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER