Associate: Public Health Role Available at UNHCR

Position Title: Associate: Public Health

Employer: UNHCR

Employment: Full-Time | Contract

Place of Work: Jijiga - Ethiopia

Posted date: 9 hours ago

Deadline: October, 03/2025 (13 days left)

Terms of Reference

General Background and Operational Context

• Ethiopia, situated in the Horn of Africa, faces multifaceted humanitarian challenges stemming from internal conflicts, climate shocks, and regional instability. As of 2025, it hosts over 1 million refugees mainly from South Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea, and Sudan, ranking as the second-largest refugee-hosting country in Africa
• The country is highly vulnerable to climate change, with displaced people and host communities experiencing frontline impacts of rising temperatures. Research shows that climate change will heavily affect human health and global healthcare systems. Displacement, health, and climate are deeply interconnected, highlighting the urgent need to strengthen Ethiopia’s overstretched health services while minimizing environmental harm caused by the health sector and humanitarian response.
• The growing burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) poses a significant challenge due to limited capacity for prevention and management within both national and humanitarian health systems. Currently, donor funding for NCDs accounts for only 1-2% of the total health development assistance, with humanitarian health responses focusing mainly on communicable diseases and acute emergencies.
• Ethiopia maintains an open-door policy for refugees and asylum seekers, though refugee management remains encampment-based with limited access to essential services and notable public health needs. The 2024 Humanitarian Response Plan cites 21.4 million people requiring humanitarian aid, including 4.4 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) driven by conflict and climate-related droughts and floods.
• UNHCR’s 2025–2029 multi-year strategy prioritizes inclusion into national systems, climate action, and sustainable programming aligned with Ethiopia’s Global Refugee Forum commitments. Public health programming is foundational, aiming to strengthen primary health care, NCD management, mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS), and nutrition for refugees and host populations.
• The Public Health Associate role is crucial in supporting UNHCR’s strategic health objectives by ensuring equitable access to quality health services for refugees and integrating refugee health needs into national systems. UNHCR, under its global mandate, collaborates with governments and Ministries of Health to provide comprehensive primary healthcare and lifesaving medical services at the same standard for refugees and nationals alike, supporting health facilities and community programs in refugee settlements and host communities.
• Despite assistance, refugees, especially in urban areas, still face financial barriers to accessing primary and hospital care. UNHCR focuses on enhancing refugee inclusion in national strategies, such as health insurance and social protection schemes. A health system strengthening approach, in collaboration with national authorities and WHO technical support, is essential for integrating refugees in national health responses.
• Ethiopia is at a pivotal moment concerning durable solutions, with progress at national and local levels toward policies fostering refugee inclusion and a ‘solutions from the onset’ approach to emergencies. This includes reinforcing national services such as health to serve both refugees and host communities. Support for this transition is strong, aligning with responsibility-sharing principles in the Global Compact on Refugees. However, recent funding cuts by major donors affecting Ethiopia, the broader region, UNHCR, and the humanitarian-development sectors pose uncertain challenges.

UNHCR is launching a new initiative to strengthen NCD care for refugees and host communities in Ethiopia. Partnering with Novo Nordisk A/S (NNAS), the Novo Nordisk Foundation (NNF), and the World Diabetes Foundation (WDF), this initiative aims to tackle the growing NCD burden sustainably and in a climate-resilient way.

The initiative’s focus areas include:

• Integrating NCD prevention and care into Ethiopia’s national primary healthcare system.
• Addressing NCDs through a comprehensive approach encompassing mental health and nutrition.
• Supporting the shift from parallel humanitarian health services to inclusive national health systems.
• Promoting environmentally sustainable healthcare infrastructure and supply chains.

Purpose and Scope of Assignment

The Public Health Associate, as a member of a multidisciplinary team, will ensure that UNHCR’s public health programs adhere to minimum UNHCR and global health standards to reduce avoidable morbidity and mortality among populations of concern (POC) and contribute to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The primary purpose of this position is to provide technical leadership and support for the project’s implementation, overseeing coordination with partners and stakeholders. Additionally, the role will ensure that all activities align with national frameworks, UNHCR Ethiopia’s Multi-Year Strategy, and the project’s rules and conditions.

Standard Job Description

Public Health Associate

Organizational Setting and Work Relationships

• The Public Health Associate is a member of a multidisciplinary team and contributes to ensuring that UNHCR's public health programmes meet minimum UNHCR and global health standards in order to minimise avoidable morbidity and mortality among forcibly displaced and stateless persons and towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
• Public health programmes include primary health care, secondary health care, sexual and reproductive health (including HIV), nutrition, mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS). The incumbent provides effective guidance and support to partners on UNHCR’s responses in public health
• S/he will contribute to advancing the concepts found in UNHCR’s Global Public Health Strategy as well as the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) and the mainstreaming/inclusion of refugees into national health programmes and systems.
• The Public Health Associate is usually supervised by a more senior public health staff or in the absence thereof, by operations/programmes staff.
• All UNHCR staff members are accountable to perform their duties as reflected in their job description. They do so within their delegated authorities, in line with the regulatory framework of UNHCR which includes the UN Charter, UN Staff Regulations and Rules, UNHCR Policies and Administrative Instructions as well as relevant accountability frameworks. In addition, staff members are required to discharge their responsibilities in a manner consistent with the core, functional, cross-functional and managerial competencies and UNHCR’s core values of professionalism, integrity and respect for diversity.

Duties

• Assist the implementation of public health programmes with partners and health authorities in a multi-sectoral and coordinated manner.
• Assist efforts towards public health programming towards greater inclusion and access of refugees to national health systems.
• Participate in relevant coordination and collaboration structures as requested.
• Participate in emergency responses to new refugee influxes and disease outbreaks.
• Support gathering information for relevant assessments and identification of needs.
• Work closely with programme and other units as applicable in programme planning and monitoring.
• Support intersectoral collaboration throughout all stages of programme cycle between public health, and other sectoral areas to promote synergies and maximise impact.
• Assist in the use of the relevant UNHCR Health Information System suite of tools and surveys to support in analysis, interpretation, reporting and use of public health data.
• Assist in capacity strengthening of partners to ensure the technical integrity of public health programmes.
• Support the identification and management of risks and seek to seize opportunities impacting objectives in the area of responsibility. Ensure decision making is risk based in the functional area of work. Raise risks, issues and concerns to a supervisor or to relevant functional colleague(s).
• Perform other related duties as required.

For positions in country operations

• Assist in efforts to enhance the technical integrity of health care services and that they are based on Ministry of Health, UNHCR and/or internationally recognized and most up-to-date standards and policies.
• Assist in the process of preparing and processing medicine and medical supply orders with partners.
• Assist in ensuring community engagement and community participation in health programming.
• Monitor and support compliance with UNHCR Public Health Administrative Instruction/standard operating procedures.

For positions in regional bureaux

• Assist in the coordination of public health programmes across the regional bureau and with country operations including assimilation and documentation of better practice/lessons learnt for dissemination.
• Support effective collaborative approaches across the departments in the bureaux and with HQ.

Minimum Qualifications

Years of Experience / Degree Level

For G6 - 3 years relevant experience with High School Diploma; or 2 years relevant work experience with Bachelor or equivalent or higher

Field(s) of Education

Not applicable.

Certificates and/or Licenses

Medicine; Nursing; Public Health; Epidemiology;

(Certificates and Licenses marked with an asterisk* are essential)

Relevant Job Experience

Essential

Experience in public health programming as well as understanding of health systems and health system building blocks. Experience with data collection and analysis in position(s) where the ability to draft clear, concise documentation was essential.

Desirable

Experience in public health emergency preparedness and response. Experience in humanitarian settings. Experience with coordination and stakeholder engagement to achieve public health goals. Experience with health information systems. Experience with the provision of quality-assured medicines and medical supplies.

Functional Skills

PM-Project monitoring and evaluation

PH-Public Health Epidemiology 

MD- HIV/AIDS situation management

MD-Reproductive Health

PH-Community Health - Health Data Collection/Analysis/Interpretation 

(Functional Skills marked with an asterisk* are essential)

Language Requirements

For International Professional and Field Service jobs: Knowledge of English and UN working language of the duty station if not English.

For National Professional jobs: Knowledge of English and UN working language of the duty station if not English and local language.

For General Service jobs: Knowledge of English and/or UN working language of the duty station if not English.

Competency Requirements

All jobs at UNHCR require six core competencies and may also require managerial competencies and/or cross-functional competencies. The six core competencies are listed below.

Core Competencies

• Accountability
• Communication
• Organizational Awareness
• Teamwork & Collaboration
• Commitment to Continuous Learning
• Client & Result Orientation

Cross-Functional Competencies

• Planning & Organizing
• Stakeholder Management
• Technological Awareness