Offshore U. S. /Third Country National Personal Services Contractor as Malaria Resident Advisor

The U.S. President's Malaria Initiative (PMI)—led by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented together with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)—delivers cost-effective, lifesaving malaria interventions alongside technical and operational assistance to support Côte d’Ivoire to end malaria.

The USAID/PMI Resident Advisor (Advisor) will work in the Health Office and will report to the Deputy Health Office Director.

Despite years of strong economic growth, Côte d’Ivoire continues to face significant health challenges. The HIV adult prevalence rate is 2.2% (Spectrum 2021), and malaria is the third cause of death for children under five and the top reason for medical consultations and hospitalizations. Côte d’Ivoire also suffers from neglected tropical diseases (NTD) and other major infectious diseases, namely dengue, yellow fever, and tuberculosis, and the maternal mortality rate is 385 deaths/100,000 live births (DHS 2021).

Given this context, the USAID’s Côte d’Ivoire health sector portfolio has expanded in recent years from exclusively HIV/AIDS related activities to a broader health sector platform. Côte d’Ivoire was selected as a President’s Malaria Initiative country in 2017. A heightened emphasis has been placed on strengthening local capacities in leadership, governance, and sustainability of health programs, systems and services. In addition to malaria and HIV, Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA), family planning, and maternal and child health activities are ongoing, and benefit from collaboration and integration, especially in support of primary and community health care.

Malaria continues to be a major public health problem in Côte d’Ivoire and is responsible for approximately 4.6 million confirmed cases reported in 2020 in the general population. Fourteen of the country’s 113 districts have a high level of endemicity with 300 to 499 cases per 1,000 persons. The national annual incidence rate is 441 cases per 1,000 among children under five years of age and 173 cases per 1,000 persons in the general population. Malaria parasite prevalence among children under five years of age, as measured by rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs), was 37 percent in 2021 (DHS 2021).

In December 2022, Cote d’Ivoire was selected as a Primary Impact focus country - an effort to accelerate access to and utilization of quality primary and community health services. The goals of Primary Impact and PMI are inextricably linked and PMI’s activities are the ‘engine’ of USAID’s efforts to improve primary and community health care for the people of Côte d’Ivoire. As such the PMI team generally, and the Advisor, specifically, are expected to play leading roles, both programmatically and for monitoring, evaluation and reporting, to ensure accountability.