State Program Officer

**Evidence Action - India Program**

**Position Overview**

**Job Title**:State Program Officer

**Employment Status**: Regular Full Time

**Position Location: Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh**

**Grade**: 4

**About Evidence Action**

Evidence Action aims to be a world leader in scaling evidence-based and cost-effective programs to reduce the burden of poverty for hundreds of millions of people in the poorest places. Last year Deworm the World reached 280 million people with deworming medications, partnering with governments to launch, scale, and sustain mass school-based deworming programs, including in India. Meanwhile, Dispensers for Safe Water provided 4M people across rural Africa with clean water, saving thousands of young lives. The approach relies on an innovative and human-centric design to deliver clean water at the source. These serve as just two examples of the work Evidence Action is undertaking.

In addition to running these scaled programs, Evidence Action leverages its unique Accelerator to develop the next generation of programs. These programs are rigorously tested to ensure exceptional scale, cost-effectiveness, and clear evidence of impact. In 2019 we launched an ambitious new strategy, intending to double our impact over the next five years, with much of that impact coming from new programs identified and scaled through the Accelerator.

Evidence Action has a presence across 7 countries, with major offices in Nairobi, Kenya; Delhi, India; and Washington, D.C. Evidence Action’s programs have been recognized by GiveWell, the Skoll Foundation, the Life You Can Save, Giving What We Can, and covered in the Economist, NPR, and the New York Times.
- In India, Evidence Action’s technical partner EAII Advisors provides technical assistance to select state government’s ministries of health, education, and women and child development to implement the school and Anganwadi based National Deworming Day program and Iron and Folic Acid (IFA) supplementation program to improve children’s health, education, and long-term development. In the long term EAII Advisors aims to expand to provide technical support to more state governments and on other public health & nutrition issues too._

**About the Position**:
The State Program Officer (SPO) will report to the State Program Manager, s/he will be the focal for the programs in the state and anchor the execution of technical assistance model of Evidence Action for program implementation in Uttar Pradesh.

The SPO will support the SPM in the adaptation of the organizational program strategy to state context, develop a comprehensive state program implementation plan, assist the government in preparing trainings cascade, community mobilization strategy and effective implementation of all EAII supported program including AMB components in the state that promotes high program coverage for children and adolescents.

The applicant must possess technical insight for public health & nutrition issues, in depth understanding of health systems, a sense of collaborative team work, and willingness to assist colleagues and travel approximately 40% of his/her time within state.

**Roles & Responsibilities of the position**

**_Policy advocacy_**
- Coordinate with IEC division of state health department to develop a comprehensive community mobilization and IEC strategy that promotes high program coverage, including out-of-school children and private school pilots.
- Support SPM in advocacy for corrective actions around Evidence Action’s Technical Assistance (TA) areas by preparing briefs based on the data and evidence from the field.
- Support SPM in identification and coordination with partners on leveraging all opportunities for disseminating learnings of program to a wider audience through integration of NDD content in school curriculums, operational manuals, issuance of timely directives etc. to enhance program engagement.
- Support SPM in planning and organizing a broad range of advocacy efforts, such as stakeholder meetings and dissemination opportunities.
- Support the SPM in ensuring that all relevant program activities including drug procurement are well planned and sufficiently budgeted under state PIPs.
- Support the state to convene state level program review meetings.

**_Program Design & Development _**
- Coordinate with NO team, work with stakeholders (including departments of Education, Women and Child Development and Health) to ensure that the design and implementation of the programs follow standard protocols, Evidence Action’s operational practices and ensures alignment with Government efforts in order to improve program quality and effectiveness
- Prepare state program implementation plan based on the program design in consultation with the SPM and NO team.
- Support in the design of M&E processes and development of data collection tools, in coordination with the MLE team.
- Provide inputs/support in developing state specific community mobilization, ma