Semera Sr. Public Health Associate at UNHCR

Position Title: Semera Sr. Public Health Associate

Employer: UNHCR

Employment: Full-Time | Contract

Place of Work: Semera - Ethiopia

Posted date: 8 hours ago

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

Terms of Reference

General Background and Operational Context

Ethiopia, located in the Horn of Africa, faces complex humanitarian challenges driven by internal conflict, climate-related shocks, and regional instability. As of 2025, it hosts over 1 million refugees, mainly from South Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea, and Sudan, making it the second-largest refugee-hosting country in Africa.

The country is highly vulnerable to climate change, with displaced populations and host communities on the frontlines of its effects. Studies indicate that rising global temperatures will have significant impacts on human health and healthcare systems. The interconnection between displacement, health, and climate highlights the urgent need to strengthen Ethiopia’s overstretched health services while minimizing the environmental footprint of the health sector and humanitarian response.

A growing burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) presents a major challenge, compounded by limited capacity for prevention and management within both national and humanitarian health responses. Currently, donor funding for NCDs represents only 1-2% of health-related development assistance, while humanitarian health efforts primarily focus on communicable diseases and acute emergencies.• Ethiopia maintains an open-door policy for refugees and asylum seekers despite ongoing challenges. However, the operational environment is characterized by camp-based refugee management, limited essential service access, and significant public health needs. The 2024 Humanitarian Response Plan identifies 21.4 million people in need of humanitarian aid, including 4.4 million internally displaced persons (IDPs), driven by conflict and climate events such as droughts and floods.

UNHCR’s multi-year strategy (2025–2029) prioritizes inclusion into national systems, climate action, and sustainable programming aligned with Ethiopia’s commitments under the Global Refugee Forum. Public health programming is central to this strategy, aiming to enhance access to primary health care, NCD management, mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS), and nutrition services for refugees and host communities.

The Senior Public Health Associate will play a vital role in supporting UNHCR’s strategic health goals by ensuring equitable access to quality health services for refugees and integrating refugee health needs into national systems. UNHCR holds a global mandate to assist governments in providing international protection and durable solutions for refugees. Together with partners, including Ministries of Health, UNHCR ensures persons of concern have equal access to comprehensive primary health care and lifesaving medical services comparable to nationals. Support extends to health facilities and community health programs within refugee settlements and host communities.

Despite assistance, refugees, especially those in urban areas, continue to face financial barriers to accessing primary healthcare (PHC) and hospital services. UNHCR is focused on enhancing refugee inclusion in national strategies, including health insurance schemes and social protection. A health system strengthening approach is essential, working collaboratively with national authorities and technical support from WHO to integrate refugees into national response frameworks.

Ethiopia stands at a key juncture, with notable progress at national and local levels fostering a policy environment that promotes refugee inclusion and a "solutions from the onset" approach. This approach involves reinforcing national services, including health, for both refugees and host communities. Momentum supporting this transition is strong, reflecting the responsibility-sharing principles of the Global Compact on Refugees. However, the impact of recent funding cuts by major government donors affecting Ethiopia, the broader region, and UNHCR’s operations remains uncertain.

UNHCR is launching a new initiative to strengthen non-communicable disease (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 effort aims to address the growing NCD burden in a sustainable and climate-resilient way.

The initiative focuses on:

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

Purpose and Scope of Assignment

The Senior 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 to minimize 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 the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) and the mainstreaming/inclusion of refugees into national health programmes and systems. The Senior Public Health Associate is normally supervised by head of field office.

Standard Job Description

Senior Public Health Associate

Organizational Setting and Work Relationships

The Senior 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 Senior 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

• Support the implementation of public health programmes with partners and health authorities in a multi-sectoral and coordinated manner.
• Contribute to 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.
• Ensure implementation of relevant UNHCR Health Information System suite of tools and surveys to support in analysis, interpretation, reporting.
• Undertake and/or support 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

• Support public health emergency preparedness and response planning.
• Support 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.
• Support the process for preparing and processing medicine and medical supply orders with partners.
• Ensure 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

• Support 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 G7 - 4 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 and Organizing

Stakeholder Management

Technological Awareness