Senior Program Manager

Amref Health Africa was founded in 1957 and has since grown to become the largest African-based international health development organisation; currently implementing more than 180 programs, reaching more than 40 million people across 35 African countries; and a staff complement of over 2,000. Headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya, Amref Health Africa has offices in ten countries in Africa – Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Guinea (Conakry), Kenya, Malawi, Senegal, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. An additional eleven advocacy and fundraising offices are located in Europe and North America.

Amref Health Africa is driven by its vision of ‘Lasting health change in Africa’ and its mission ‘To catalyze and drive community-led and people-centred health systems while addressing social determinants of health’. We believe that the power to transform Africa’s health lies within its communities, and therefore strive to ensure that health systems are not only functional but that communities are empowered to hold these systems accountable for the delivery of quality and affordable health care.

ABOUT THE PROGRAMME

Africa’s population is growing rapidly, with young people comprising an increasing share of the workforce. However, job creation has not kept pace with this growth, leaving millions of young people—particularly young women—without access to stable, dignified livelihoods due to barriers such as limited access to education, restrictive social norms, and unpaid care responsibilities. These constraints also limit entry into formal employment within the health sector.

At the same time, Africa’s health sector is expanding in response to demographic change, primary health care reform, and growing demand for community-based services, presenting a significant opportunity to create sustainable livelihood pathways. This programme focuses on transforming community-based health work into respected, viable career pathways for young people, especially women. Starting in Kenya, Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Tanzania, and Malawi, the programme aims to professionalize community health workers and related cadres, create dignified employment opportunities, and strengthen health systems—contributing to both improved youth livelihoods and healthier communities.

POSITION SUMMARY

The Senior Programme Manager provides end-to-end leadership for programme delivery in Ethiopia, translating programme strategy into high-quality, timely, and compliant implementation within the country’s primary health care and community health systems, while strengthening and expanding programme impact and health outcomes.

The role serves as the primary integrator across technical teams, Finance, MEL, Grants, Communications, consortium and implementing partners, and government and health sector stakeholders, ensuring delivery of programme objectives while strengthening systems, building local leadership capability, and sustaining donor and community confidence.

The Senior Programme Manager leads country work planning and budgeting, ensures regulatory and donor compliance, and supports effective country-level partnerships. Working closely with the HQ-based programme leadership team, the role supports the launch, growth, and scaling of the Ethiopia programme, ensuring country learning and innovation inform wider health systems strengthening and workforce development efforts.

With an entrepreneurial and problem-solving mindset, the role continuously scans the operating environment to anticipate risks, identify opportunities for innovation, and adapt delivery approaches to country realities, while contributing to cross-country learning and continuous improvement across the broader programme.

This role requires a leader who combines strong execution discipline, contextual intelligence, disciplined innovation, and adaptive change leadership in a complex, donor-funded, multi-stakeholder environment.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

1. Programme delivery, innovation, and execution:
   • Lead the end-to-end implementation of the Ethiopia community health workforce programme, translating programme priorities into clear, executable country plans that deliver timely results and tangible impact for community health service delivery and health outcomes, within budget, and to quality standards.
   • Apply an entrepreneurial and problem-solving mindset to identify delivery risks, operational efficiencies, and opportunities to strengthen programme impact, adapting approaches in response to country realities.
   • Coordinate all sub-grantees in the country programme and ensure disciplined execution while encouraging practical innovation, development of Proof of Concept(s), and refining delivery approaches for scalability.
2. Change leadership & programme stewardship:
   • Exercise sound judgement in interpreting programme strategy, donor intent and county context realities.
   • Anticipate and respond to shifts in the political, regulatory, and operating environment, making timely, evidence-based decisions that balance delivery ambition, risk, and long-term programme integrity.
   • Apply disciplined programme adaptation within agreed governance frameworks, making informed trade-offs and escalating material risks or changes to the HQ Programme Director, with clear analysis, options and recommendations.
3. People leadership, capability building and safeguarding:
   • Model and reinforce the programme’s ways of working, values, leadership behavior, safeguarding commitments and ethical standards; lead, manage and develop country programme teams fostering accountability, collaboration, innovation and continuous improvement/
   • Create clarity of roles, decision rights and expectations; coach and support team members to build leadership capacity, resilience, and ownership at all levels, to create a safe, respectful and energetic work environment.
4. Financial stewardship & resource optimization:
   • Oversee country work plans, budgets, and resource allocation in collaboration with the Finance and Grants teams, ensure strong financial discipline and value for money; exercise strong executive judgment over country programme investments; ensure compliance with donor financial requirements, programme policies, and local regulatory frameworks.
   • Support accurate financial reporting, audits, and resource optimization decisions; balance innovation with accountability, ensure financial sustainability considerations are embedded in country programme design and decision-making.
5. Monitoring, Learning and Adaptive Management:
   • Work closely with MEL colleagues to ensure high-quality data collection, analysis, and reporting at country level.
   • Use evidence, learning, and contextual insight to inform decision-making and adaptive programme management.
   • Contribute country-level insights, innovations, and lessons learned to regional and organisational learning processes related to community health systems strengthening and workforce development.
6. Stakeholder, Partner & Ecosystem Leadership:
   • Build and sustain effective working relationships with senior government counterparts e.g. in the Ministry of Health, consortium and implementing partners, training institutions and other key stakeholders in the Ethiopia programme.
   • Provide oversight and support partner performance management and capacity strengthening to enable aligned, high-quality delivery.
   • Represent the programme in country-level coordination, learning, and review forums as required.
   • Work in collaboration with other country programme leaders including but not limited to: Population, Health and Environment (PHE), Disease Control Prevention and Management (DCPM) and other key ecosystems such  as WASH and Family & Reproductive Health.
7. Risk Management and compliance:
   • Identify, assess, and manage programme, operational, and contextual risks at country level including health service delivery, safeguarding, and regulatory risks; ensure adherence to safeguarding, compliance, and risk management requirements.
   • Escalate critical issues to the HQ Programme Director with clear mitigation options.

KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS (SUCCESS MEASURES) – Building the right platform and creating lasting impact

1. Programme delivery and country-level impact: Effective translation of the approved programme strategy into high-quality country delivery, including: on-time implementation of country work plans; clear tracking and reporting of agreed outputs and outcomes related to health workforce performance, youth employment, and gender-disaggregated results where applicable; operationalisation of standardized programme models at country level (at least Proof of Concept); and effective coordination with government, consortium, and implementing partners. Minimal delivery disruptions and escalations.
2. Operational excellence and country risk management: Consistent, efficient, and compliant programme operations in Ethiopia, including: proactive identification and management of country-level risks (financial, operational, security, safeguarding, and contextual); maintenance of a current country risk register; timely mitigation actions; and early escalation of material risks with evidence-based options.
3. Country financial and grant stewardship: Strong financial discipline and grant compliance, demonstrated through: effective management of country budgets within approved variance; accurate forecasting and reporting; full compliance with donor and Amref requirements; and informed resource allocation decisions, including decisions to adjust or discontinue underperforming activities in line with agreed governance.
4. Leadership behaviors: Demonstrated sound judgement in navigating complexity and uncertainty, including: timely, defensible decisions at country level; effective interpretation of programme intent, donor expectations, and contextual realities; disciplined adaptation within agreed guardrails; and leadership through periods of change or disruption without reactive or siloed decision-making.
5. Country contribution to scale, learning & sustainability: Meaningful contribution of Ethiopia experience to wider programme learning and evolution, including: generation of practical insights and innovations from country delivery; participation in cross-country learning and adaptation; contribution to scalable models, policy dialogue, or institutional uptake at country level; and support to sustainability pathways, including government ownership, private sector engagement, or funding readiness where relevant.
6. Programme governance & stakeholder confidence: Strong country-level governance and stakeholder trust, demonstrated through: effective coordination with government and partners; transparent communication; adherence to agreed decision-making and escalation processes; minimal governance escalations; and sustained donor and partner confidence in the country programme’s leadership and delivery.

JOB REQUIREMENTS

1. Ten and above years of relevant experience, with at least five (5) years of senior leadership experience in social enterprise, international development, or mission-driven organisations with a strong health or community systems focus;
2. A Master’s degree in Public Health, Public Policy, International Development, Business Administration, Economics, Social Sciences, or a related field is an added advantage; a PhD in a relevant field is a further added advantage.
3. Programme or Project Management certification (PMP, PgMP, PRINCE2 Practitioner or equivalent);

Change Management certification e.g. PROSCI, CCMP are an added advantage;

1. Track record of setting strategic direction for large multi-stakeholder country programmes preferably across diverse regulatory, political and market environments in Africa;
2. Demonstrated ability translate strategy into executable models that deliver sustainable livelihood, health workforce or systems-change outcomes;
3. Strong financial and commercial judgment in donor-funded or blended-finance contexts;
4. Proven experience building and managing high-value partnerships with key stakeholders, key country & regional stakeholders, private sector actors, consortium and implementing partners;
5. Experience in health systems, community health workforce development, or youth employment;
6. Exposure to gender-responsive or inclusive employment models; and
7. Must be an Ethiopian citizen, legal resident or possess work authorization documents.

CORE COMPETENCIES

1. Driving execution: Translates strategic priorities into operational reality; aligning communication, accountabilities, resources, capabilities, internal processes, and ongoing measurement systems to ensure that strategic priorities yield measurable and sustainable results. Interprets complex information, balances trade-offs, and makes sound, timely decisions within governance frameworks. Acts decisively with incomplete information, using evidence, experience and values.
2. Driving innovation and entrepreneurship: Open to new ideas and experiences; collaboratively creates and tests solutions and adapts quickly within a complex multi-country and multi-partner context; applies sound financial and operational judgment to balance an entrepreneurial mindset with accountability – enabling responsible risk-taking to support programme delivery.
3. Facilitating change: Encourages others to implement better approaches to address problems and opportunities; leads the implementation and acceptance of change within the workplace. Maintains effectiveness when experiencing major changes in work responsibilities or environment (e.g. people, processes, structures, programme priorities, or culture); adjusts effectively to change by exploring the benefits, trying new approaches, and collaborating with others to make change successful.
4. Driving for results: Setting high goals for personal and team accomplishment, uses measurement methods to monitor progress towards goals; tenaciously works to meet or exceed goals while deriving satisfaction from that achievement or continuous improvement. Takes initiative to accomplish work goals; takes action to achieve results beyond what is required; being proactive.
5. Creating an inclusive environment: Makes decisions and initiates action to ensure that programme policies leverage the capabilities and insights of individuals with diverse backgrounds, cultures, styles, abilities and motivation.
6. Delegation and empowerment: Identifies and leverages opportunities to accelerate results and build capability by assigning tasks to individuals or their own team with clear boundaries, expectations, support and follow-up, with the intent of involving others in agreement, for successful outcomes.
7. Innovative leadership: Creates a culture that inspires people to generate novel solutions with measurable impact for existing and potential stakeholders (internal and external); encourages experimentation with new ways to solve work problems and seize opportunities that result in unique and differential solutions.
8. Proactive Learner: Identifies own strengths and shortcomings that impact organizational and programme results; actively pursues development experiences that will enhance own impact on long-term organizational outcomes.

Your application should include a cover letter detailing why you are the best fit for this position and your CV with relevant skills and experience. Closing date will be on Thursday, 04 June 2026. 

Amref Health Africa does not require applicants to pay any money at whatever stage of the recruitment and selection process and has not retained any agent in connection with recruitment. Although Amref may use different job boards from time to time to further spread its reach for applicants, all open vacancies are published on our website under the Vacancies page and on our official social media pages. Kindly also note that official emails from Amref Health Africa will arrive from an @amref.org address.

Amref Health Africa is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults and expects all staff to share this commitment. Amref Health Africa is is dedicated to diversity and is an equal-opportunity employer with a non-smoking environment policy.