Job Vacancy at Jhpiego: Technical Director, MNCH – Dar es Salaam | October 2026

Job Overview

Job Title: Technical Director, MNCH
Organization: Jhpiego
Project: AFGHS-Jhpiego
Location: Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Employment Type: Full-Time
Job Category: Local
Job ID: 2026-8236
Date Posted: October 8, 2026
Application Deadline: October 15, 2026
Application Link: Apply Online

About Jhpiego and the Project

Jhpiego is an international nonprofit health organization affiliated with Johns Hopkins University. The organization works to improve healthcare outcomes by strengthening health systems and expanding access to quality health services.

The AFGHS-Jhpiego project is funded by the U.S. Department of State (DoS) to support the delivery of lifesaving, comprehensive maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH) and malaria services across Mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar.

The project aims to improve service and data quality, strengthen health-system integration and resilience, facilitate effective transition, and promote local ownership and accountability for sustained health outcomes.

Jhpiego works closely with the Ministries of Health in Mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar, the Reproductive and Child Health Section (RCHS), the National Malaria Control Programme (NMCP), the Zanzibar Malaria Elimination Programme (ZAMEP), and Regional Administration and Local Government (RALG) structures.

Position Summary

The Technical Director, MNCH will provide overall technical leadership, coordination, and oversight for comprehensive maternal, newborn and child health interventions under the AFGHS-Jhpiego project.

The role requires expertise in maternal and newborn health, child health, nutrition, immunization, quality improvement, and related service delivery approaches. The Director will coordinate technical inputs across these areas and provide strategic guidance to ensure coherent, evidence-based approaches aligned with national policies, guidelines, and standards across Mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar.

Working closely with the monitoring, evaluation, research and learning (MERL), community-based health services (CBHS), malaria, and field implementation teams, the Director will promote high-quality implementation and the use of data for performance improvement and adaptive management.

The successful candidate will also support the sustainability, institutionalization, and transition of project-supported MNCH interventions into government systems by strengthening government leadership and technical capacity.

Key Responsibilities

1. Technical Leadership and Quality Improvement

• Provide overall technical direction and oversight for MNCH interventions, ensuring alignment with national policies, project objectives, and global evidence.
• Provide technical leadership across maternal and newborn health, child health, nutrition, immunization, and integrated service delivery approaches.
• Contribute to the design, planning, implementation, and scale-up of MNCH activities to ensure effectiveness, quality, consistency, and responsiveness to national and subnational priorities.
• Lead the implementation and institutionalization of evidence-based quality improvement approaches across project-supported MNCH services.
• Provide technical leadership for high-impact maternal and newborn interventions across the continuum of care, including antenatal care, intrapartum care, emergency obstetric and newborn care, prevention and management of postpartum hemorrhage, essential newborn care, care for small and sick newborns, postnatal care, and referral systems.
• Provide strategic technical guidance for child health, nutrition, and immunization interventions, including integrated management of childhood illness, emergency triage and treatment, routine and intensified immunization, growth monitoring, infant and young child feeding, and management of acute malnutrition.
• Ensure appropriate integration of MNCH services with malaria, HIV, community health, and other relevant service areas.

2. Capacity Strengthening

• Lead assessments of MNCH workforce and clinical capacity needs and develop evidence-based approaches to address identified gaps.
• Strengthen government-led clinical training, mentorship, supportive supervision, and quality improvement systems at national, regional, council, and facility levels.
• Support the development of government trainers, mentors, and clinical champions across priority MNCH technical areas.
• Ensure the use of evidence-based national training materials, clinical standards, competency-based approaches, mentorship systems, simulation and skills-development approaches, and assessment tools.
• Provide technical oversight for pre-service and in-service capacity-strengthening approaches, as appropriate.
• Promote alignment between health workforce competencies and service delivery requirements.
• Work with government counterparts to institutionalize effective training, mentorship, supportive supervision, and quality improvement functions within routine government systems.

3. Workforce Development

• Assess priority institutional and workforce capacity gaps with government counterparts and translate findings into time-bound capacity-strengthening plans with measurable competency or system outcomes.
• Ensure training is linked to post-training mentorship, supportive supervision, workplace application, and measurement of competency or service-delivery improvement.
• Strengthen government-led mentorship, supportive supervision, clinical audit, data review, and quality improvement mechanisms while progressively reducing reliance on parallel project systems.
• Build the technical and leadership capacity of project MNCH staff through clear performance expectations, coaching, delegated leadership, and periodic review of technical deliverables.

4. Government Engagement and Technical Coordination

• Serve as a senior technical resource to relevant Ministry of Health technical units, PMORALG structures, regional and council health teams, and other government counterparts on MNCH programming.
• Maintain strong technical relationships with government institutions, professional bodies, academic and training institutions, implementing partners, and other MNCH stakeholders.
• Represent the project in relevant national technical working groups, task forces, guideline-development processes, and other MNCH coordination forums.
• Provide technical input into national strategies, guidelines, standards, training materials, implementation approaches, and other technical products in collaboration with government counterparts.
• Coordinate with U.S. Department of State implementing partners and other stakeholders to promote technical complementarity, address implementation gaps, leverage resources, and avoid duplication.
• Promote joint planning, implementation, performance review, and problem-solving with government counterparts to strengthen government leadership and ownership.

5. Data Use and Performance Monitoring

• Work closely with MERL staff to strengthen the collection, analysis, interpretation, and use of routine MNCH service delivery and quality data.
• Monitor technical performance against approved targets, milestones, and quality standards, identifying areas requiring technical support or corrective action.
• Support government counterparts in using routine data for planning, performance reviews, quality improvement, targeting technical assistance, and evidence-based decision-making.
• Facilitate routine technical performance reviews with national, regional, council, and project teams to identify gaps, analyze underlying causes, and agree on corrective actions.
• Strengthen government-led data review and performance monitoring processes and promote the use of existing national information systems rather than parallel project systems.
• Use performance data and implementation learning to adapt technical approaches and improve quality, coverage, and outcomes.

6. Sustainability, Transition, and Institutionalization

• Provide technical leadership for the institutionalization and sustainable scale-up of effective MNCH interventions within routine government systems.
• Work closely with the Sustainability and Transition Director and government counterparts to identify technical, workforce, financing, service delivery, data and accountability, and community-level barriers to sustained MNCH implementation.
• Integrate sustainability and transition considerations into MNCH technical strategies, annual work plans, budgets, capacity strengthening, quality improvement, supervision, and scale-up approaches.
• Support the incorporation of priority MNCH interventions and associated resource requirements into national, regional, council, facility, and other relevant government plans and budgets.
• Strengthen government capacity to progressively lead technical planning, implementation, clinical training, mentorship, supervision, quality improvement, performance monitoring, and scale-up of priority MNCH interventions.
• Promote the use and strengthening of existing government structures, systems, tools, and processes while avoiding parallel technical systems.
• Support the implementation and monitoring of agreed transition milestones and readiness criteria, identifying technical gaps that could affect service continuity or quality.
• Ensure transition and scale-up approaches protect continuity, quality, and equitable access to lifesaving MNCH services.

7. Milestone Achievement and Project Performance

• Align MNCH technical activities, technical assistance, resources, and implementation timelines with approved project milestones and payment-linked deliverables.
• Work with the Senior Project Director, MERL, Finance, Sustainability and Transition Director, and field teams to monitor progress against MNCH-related milestones and identify deliverables at risk.
• Lead technical corrective actions where service quality, implementation performance, government capacity, or other technical gaps threaten milestone achievement.
• Ensure MNCH results are supported by complete, accurate, timely, and technically sound evidence and documentation required for milestone verification.
• Contribute to the preparation and technical review of milestone verification packages and the timely resolution of technical questions or verification requirements.
• Ensure MNCH teams understand their contributions to project milestones and remain accountable for agreed technical deliverables and timelines.

8. Documentation, Research, Learning, and Knowledge Sharing

• Document implementation experiences, technical adaptations, challenges, results, and lessons learned across MNCH interventions.
• Identify and disseminate effective tools, approaches, best practices, and innovations that can strengthen quality, scale, institutionalization, and sustainability.
• Promote implementation research, operational learning, and evidence generation to address priority MNCH implementation questions.
• Contribute high-quality technical inputs to project reports, presentations, learning briefs, success stories, and other donor and government deliverables.
• Author or co-author abstracts, presentations, technical products, and peer-reviewed publications in collaboration with government, in-country, and global colleagues.
• Facilitate the dissemination and use of MNCH evidence and learning through national technical forums, professional networks, communities of practice, and other appropriate platforms.

9. Technical Team Leadership and Management

• Provide technical leadership, supervision, mentorship, and guidance to MNCH Technical Advisors, Specialists, Technical Officers, and other assigned technical staff.
• Establish clear technical priorities, expectations, and accountability for quality, performance, milestone achievement, sustainability, and transition.
• Work with Field Team Leads and regional technical staff to ensure technical assistance responds to regional and council needs and is implemented consistently across project locations.
• Promote collaboration and integration across MNCH, malaria, CBHS, MERL, and other project technical and operational functions.
• Support the development of annual work plans, budgets, technical assistance plans, and other implementation documents related to the MNCH portfolio.
• Ensure compliance with national clinical standards, U.S. Department of State requirements, and Jhpiego operational and technical policies.
• Support strategic growth, partnerships, and other project priorities as assigned.

Required Qualifications and Experience

Applicants should meet the following requirements:

• An advanced degree in medicine, nursing, midwifery, public health, maternal and child health, pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, nutrition, or another relevant clinical or public health field.
• At least 9–10 years of progressively responsible experience in MNCH programming, including substantial experience providing senior technical leadership for large-scale health programmes.
• Demonstrated technical expertise in maternal, newborn and/or child health, with a strong understanding of integrated MNCH programming. Experience in immunization and/or nutrition is highly desirable.
• Demonstrated experience designing, implementing, monitoring, and scaling evidence-based MNCH interventions within government health systems.
• Strong experience in quality improvement, clinical capacity strengthening, competency-based training, mentorship, supportive supervision, and/or health workforce development.
• Demonstrated experience working with Government of Tanzania institutions and technical programmes at national and subnational levels.
• Strong understanding of government health systems and experience institutionalizing technical approaches within government policies, plans, budgets, service delivery, workforce, supervision, and data systems.
• Demonstrated experience supporting the sustainability, institutionalization, and transition of donor-supported health interventions to government leadership.
• Experience using routine service delivery and quality data to identify performance gaps, guide technical assistance, and support adaptive management.
• Experience with U.S. Government or other major donor-funded health programmes and an understanding of donor performance, reporting, and compliance requirements.
• Experience managing project milestones, technical deliverables, and performance-linked results is highly preferred.
• Demonstrated ability to lead and mentor multidisciplinary technical teams and work effectively across technical, programmatic, MERL, finance, and operational functions.
• Demonstrated ability to engage effectively with senior government officials, technical working groups, professional bodies, implementing partners, donors, academic institutions, and other stakeholders.

Preferred Qualifications and Skills

• Fluency in English is required; proficiency in Kiswahili is strongly preferred.
• Strong leadership, strategic thinking, negotiation, communication, relationship management, and problem-solving skills.
• Strong technical writing, presentation, facilitation, negotiation, and problem-solving skills.
• Ability and willingness to travel regularly across Mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar.

Salary and Benefits

Jhpiego offers competitive salaries and a comprehensive employee benefits package.

Application Instructions

Interested and qualified candidates should submit their applications through the official Jhpiego recruitment portal.

Applicants must upload one single document containing the following:

1. Cover letter
2. Resume/CV
3. References

Candidates should ensure their applications demonstrate the relevant clinical or public health qualifications, technical leadership experience, expertise in MNCH programming, and ability to strengthen government health systems.

Application Deadline: October 15, 2026

How to Apply

Submit your application online through the following link:

CLICK HERE TO APPLY

For more information about Jhpiego, visit www.jhpiego.org.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Jhpiego is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer. The organization does not discriminate on the basis of gender, marital status, pregnancy, race, colour, ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, veteran status, or other legally protected characteristics.

The successful candidate will be subject to a pre-employment background investigation.

Recruitment Scams and Fraud Warning

Jhpiego warns applicants about fraudulent recruitment offers. Please note:

• Recruiters will never ask for a fee at any stage of the recruitment process.
• All active vacancies are advertised directly on the official Jhpiego careers website.
• Official Jhpiego emails will come from an email address ending in @jhpiego.org.
• Suspicious communications can be reported to Info@jhpiego.org.

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