Technical Assistant – Health Systems & Programme Implementation

KAINUWA SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT FOUNDATION (KSDF)

TERMS OF REFERENCE (TOR)

Technical Assistant – Health Systems & Programme Implementation

Duty Station	KSDF Abuja Office
Employment Level	Technical Assistant – Junior / Early-Career Technical Professional
Reports to	Program Manager
Functional Relationships	Program Director; Programme Leads; SDIU/HDIU Team; FMoH Technical Advisers; Finance & Operations; government and partner counterparts
Contract	Initially 12 months, renewable subject to performance and programme requirements

Background

Kainuwa Sustainable Development Foundation (KSDF) is implementing and supporting an expanding portfolio of health systems strengthening, primary healthcare, institutional capacity-building, and social-development interventions. Current and emerging areas of work include:

• The Gombe State Execution Grant and technical support to the State Delivery/Health Delivery Implementation Unit (SDIU/HDIU).
• Health-facility performance, PHC functionality, implementation discipline, quality improvement, and accountability initiatives.
• Technical assistance to the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, including Health Systems Strengthening (HSS) and Human Resources for Health (HRH).
• Community and charitable health interventions, education support, and other social-development activities.
• Research, policy development, evidence synthesis, proposal development, stakeholder engagement, and implementation support to government institutions and partners.

The growing breadth of this portfolio requires reliable day-to-day technical coordination, documentation, evidence synthesis, implementation follow-up, field coordination, and structured programme management assistance. KSDF therefore requires a Technical Assistant – Health Systems & Programme Implementation based in its Abuja Office.

Role Rationale

This role is designed as a cross-cutting technical programme position rather than a clinical nursing post. It translates frontline clinical(Primary health care) and community-health experience into practical programme implementation, technical documentation, research, stakeholder coordination, quality improvement, and health-systems support across KSDF investments.

Capability Area	How the Role Uses It
PHC & frontline insight	Applies practical understanding of service delivery, maternal and newborn health, community health, quality of care, infection prevention, referral pathways, and frontline operational realities.
Programme implementation & coordination	Supports workplans, technical activities, field implementation, action follow-up, programme coordination, and delivery of assigned technical tasks.
Technical documentation & research	Prepares meeting packs, technical notes, minutes, action matrices, briefs, workshop reports, literature summaries, and structured follow-up for programme teams.
Community & stakeholder engagement	Supports outreach, community engagement, beneficiary case support, stakeholder consultations, workshops, and documentation of charitable and social-development activities.

The Technical Assistant will provide day-to-day technical, programme coordination, documentation, research, field implementation, stakeholder engagement, and administrative support across KSDF’s health and social-development programmes. The role will strengthen the ability of senior technical staff to manage multiple investments by ensuring that routine technical work, research, documentation, stakeholder follow-up, meeting preparation, field coordination, and narrative reporting are undertaken consistently and to a high standard.

Key Responsibilities

General Technical Programme Support

• Support technical staff in planning and implementing KSDF programmes and technical assistance activities.
• Undertake background research and evidence reviews for programme activities.
• Assist in preparing technical notes, briefing papers, presentations, and reports.
• Support development and review of programme workplans, activity schedules, budgets, and implementation plan and schedules Including other programme documents.
• Maintain trackers for technical deliverables, milestones, decisions, and agreed actions.
• Follow up internally with responsible personnel on technical assignments and deadlines.
• Assist in coordinating and consolidating technical inputs from programme teams, consultants, and partners.
• Support preparation of technical meetings, workshops, and stakeholder engagements.
• Draft meeting minutes, aide-memoires, action matrices, and follow-up notes.
• Maintain organised electronic repositories of programme and technical documents.
• Support preparation of donor/partner updates and routine technical correspondence.
• Participate in field visits and implementation activities as required.

SDIU/HDIU and Gombe Execution Grant Support

• Support preparation for routine SDIU/HDIU implementation and performance-review meetings and related technical engagements.
• Assist in preparing agendas, briefing notes, meeting packs, and technical materials required for implementation and performance-review meetings.
• Support review and organisation of technical submissions, meeting papers, and programme documents requiring management follow-up.
• Maintain action trackers arising from performance reviews, workshops, and technical meetings.
• Follow up with relevant programme personnel on agreed activities, owners, and deadlines.
• Support documentation of implementation bottlenecks, corrective actions, and resolutions.
• Assist with preparation of presentations, briefing notes, technical summaries, and meeting packs.
• Participate in facility/LGA implementation visits, stakeholder consultations, and learning visits, and document agreed follow-up actions.
• Support preparation of narrative sections of quarterly and milestone Execution Grant reports and maintain well-organised supporting documentation for assigned deliverables.
• Assist with documentation of lessons learned, achievements, case examples, and emerging implementation issues.
• Support coordination between KSDF, government agencies, implementing partners, and technical consultants.

Federal HSS/HRH Technical Assistance

• Support preparation of HSS and HRH technical meetings, consultations, workshops, and working sessions.
• Undertake targeted background research requested by senior technical advisers.
• Assist in reviewing, organising, and summarising national and subnational health policy and strategy documents.
• Support evidence synthesis, literature reviews, and preparation of technical background notes.
• Assist with documentation relating to HRH strategy, workforce planning, governance, and institutional strengthening.
• Maintain workplan, consultancy, and deliverable trackers.
• Coordinate documentation received from consultants and government counterparts and maintain orderly technical repositories.
• Support technical working-group meetings, workshop reports, consultation summaries, and follow-up of agreed actions.
• Assist in preparing and formatting technical products, presentations, and briefing materials.

The Technical Assistant will support, but will not independently lead, complex HRH policy analysis, workforce planning, or senior policy advisory work.

PHC, MNCH and Community Health Support

• Provide implementation support to PHC-related activities and selected health service-delivery initiatives.
• Assist technical teams in reviewing programme approaches from a frontline service-delivery perspective.
• Support maternal, newborn, child, and reproductive-health activities where relevant.
• Participate in technical reviews of service-delivery processes, referral pathways, workflow, and facility functionality where required.
• Assist with preparation of PHC implementation tools, checklists, and orientation materials.
• Support community-engagement, health-education, and outreach activities.
• Participate in field implementation and learning visits, documenting frontline service-delivery challenges, agreed actions, and technical support needs.
• Support quality-of-care and infection-prevention activities where appropriately assigned.

Technical Research and Knowledge Management

• Conduct targeted literature, policy, and document searches under supervision.
• Compile reference materials and prepare concise summaries of policies, guidelines, and programme reports.
• Assist with rapid evidence reviews, benchmarking exercises, and meeting background notes.
• Maintain structured electronic reference libraries and programme knowledge repositories.
• Assist with drafting programme concepts, technical proposals, and selected narrative sections of reports.
• Document programme learning, best practices and support development of case studies, success stories, and learning products.
• Document, implementation challenges, and recommendations for programme improvement.
• Maintain appropriate document version control and archives of technical outputs.

Workshops, Meetings and Stakeholder Coordination

• Support preparation of agendas, participant materials, presentations, and meeting packs.
• Coordinate technical inputs required ahead of meetings and workshops.
• Take structured meeting notes and prepare action matrices with owners and deadlines.
• Track post-meeting commitments and follow up on assigned actions.
• Support documentation of workshops, consultations, and technical working-group meetings.
• Maintain stakeholder contact and engagement records where required.
• Support professional and effective communication with government, partners, consultants, and other stakeholders to to facilitate timely implementation

Health Commodities and Programme Logistics Support

• Support technical planning for programme commodities, supplies, and relevant equipment required for programme activities.
• Help programme teams define commodity and equipment requirements for workshops, outreach activities, and field implementation.
• Liaise with Operations and Procurement colleagues to ensure technical specifications and quantities reflect programme needs.
• Document and promptly escalate operational concerns relating to commodity availability, usability, or equipment readiness raised during implementation.
• Provide appropriate frontline clinical input on the use, handling, storage, and readiness of relevant medical supplies and equipment within the limits of the role.
• Support preparation of commodity-related technical checklists, job aids, and activity documentation.

These responsibilities are technical support functions and do not replace KSDF’s formal procurement, logistics, finance, or asset-control processes.

Quality Improvement and Frontline Clinical Perspective

• Support development and use of simple quality-improvement tools and practical facility-support checklists.
• Participate in technical walkthroughs and reviews of selected service-delivery processes.
• Support documentation of quality-of-care, infection-prevention, workflow, staffing, referral, and commodity gaps where relevant.
• Help programme teams understand practical frontline operational challenges and identify issues for escalation.
• Support documentation of improvement actions and relevant capacity-building activities.

The position is not primarily a practising nursing role; its purpose is to translate frontline clinical experience into stronger programme implementation and health-systems support.

Documentation and Programme Administration

• Maintain organised programme files, technical workplans, calendars, and deadline trackers.
• Support preparation of technical correspondence and maintain action logs and decision registers.
• Compile supporting documents required for programme and donor reporting.
• Contribute and assist with formatting concept notes, briefs, technical reports, presentations, and workshop materials.
• Coordinate document reviews and maintain appropriate version control.
• Undertake other programme and technical assignments reasonably required by KSDF management

Key Deliverables

1. Up-to-date workplans, technical action matrices, and assignment schedules.

2. High-quality documentation of assigned technical meetings, consultations, and workshops.

3. Timely preparation of meeting briefs, presentations, and supporting technical materials.

4. Regular programme implementation summaries and follow-up notes.

5. Well-organized supporting-document files for assigned programme deliverables.

6. Technical background notes, rapid evidence summaries, and document syntheses as requested.

7. Timely SDIU/HDIU performance-review support and follow-up of agreed actions.

8. Field implementation, supportive-supervision, and activity reports.

9. Documentation and narrative-reporting support for quarterly/milestone Execution Grant requirements.

10. Documentation and coordination support for FMoH HSS/HRH activities.

11. Reports and records from assigned charitable/community interventions.

12. At least two programme case studies, lessons-learned notes, or knowledge products annually.

13. A properly maintained electronic technical-document repository with clear version control.

Key Performance Indicators

Performance Area	Indicative KPI
Technical assignments	At least 90% completed within agreed timelines and to the required standard.
Meeting documentation	Minutes/action matrix completed and circulated within 48-72 hours unless otherwise agreed.
Action follow-up	At least 90% of assigned actions followed up within each agreed review cycle.
Programme documentation	Supporting documents for assigned deliverables are complete, organised, and readily retrievable.
Field implementation support	Activity/debrief reports completed within the agreed post-activity timeline.
Writing quality	Technical and narrative outputs require minimal substantive correction after supervisor review.
Deliverable coordination	No avoidable missed programme deadlines attributable to poor follow-up or coordination.
Stakeholder coordination	Agreed stakeholder actions are documented, communicated, and followed through consistently.
Research support	Technical summaries are accurate, concise, appropriately referenced, and responsive to the assignment.
Professional development	Demonstrable improvement in programme management, HSS concepts, policy analysis, technical writing, and facilitation.

Qualifications and Experience

Essential

• Registered Nurse or other recognised health professional qualification.
• Bachelor’s degree in Nursing, Public Health, Health Sciences, or a related discipline desirable.
• Practical experience in healthcare delivery, public-health programming, or community-health activities.
• Good written and verbal communication skills.
• Basic competence in Microsoft Word, Excel, and related office applications.
• Ability to organise, review, and summarise technical information.
• Ability to work effectively within multidisciplinary teams and across multiple projects.
• Strong organisational skills, attention to detail, and willingness to travel within Nigeria.

Desirable

• Experience with donor-funded projects or development-sector programmes.
• Exposure to government health programmes and stakeholder engagement.
• Experience in field programme implementation, community engagement, supportive supervision, or quality improvement.
• Knowledge of PHC, MNCH, community health, or health promotion programming.
• Experience supporting workshops, trainings, or technical meetings.
• Experience supporting programme documentation, technical reporting, stakeholder follow-up, or implementation coordination.
• Experience in medical inventory or logistics management.
• Familiarity with health systems strengthening concepts and programme implementation.

Required Competencies

Technical Competencies	Behavioural Competencies
Health programme implementation	Strong organisational ability
PHC and community health	Attention to detail
MNCH and frontline service delivery	Professionalism and integrity
Basic HSS concepts	Confidentiality and sound judgement
Technical research and evidence synthesis	Initiative and reliability
Technical documentation and narrative reporting	Strong follow-through
Stakeholder coordination and workshop support	Teamwork and collaboration
Community engagement and health promotion	Respectful stakeholder engagement
Quality improvement and supportive supervision	Adaptability and willingness to learn
Microsoft Office and records management	Ability to work under pressure

Recommended Development Plan

The role should be deliberately developmental. During the first 12-18 months, KSDF should progressively build the Technical Assistant’s capability in programme management, PHC systems, HSS, technical writing, policy analysis, government engagement, grant management, HRH, quality improvement, stakeholder coordination, workshop facilitation, and strategy development.

Programme management	Health systems strengthening	Technical writing
PHC service delivery	Health policy analysis	Stakeholder engagement
HRH fundamentals	Quality improvement	Grant / donor reporting
Implementation research	Workshop facilitation	Presentation skills

Recommended Organizational Positioning

The position should sit within KSDF’s technical/programme function rather than Administration. The officer should work closely with senior technical personnel and be deliberately exposed to the SDIU/HDIU, Execution Grant, FMoH HSS/HRH assignment, and selected charitable/community programmes. The role should complement, not substitute for, specialist clinical, policy, finance, procurement, operations, or senior advisory functions.

Employment title: Technical Assistant – Health Systems & Programme Implementation Internal title: Technical Programme Assistant