STOP Spillover Regional Lead Asia (RLA)

BACKGROUND

The spillover of infectious agents from animals to humans in recent decades has had a significant impact on the health of humans, animals, and our environment. To minimize the impact of future pandemic threats, the Southeast Asia One Health University Network (SEAOHUN) was established in 2011 to develop the next generation of skillful and competent One Health (OH) workforce with support from the U.S. Agency for International Development and its One Health Workforce Next Generation project.

Since its establishment, SEAOHUN has expanded network membership from 10 universities in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam to 87 universities in eight countries, including the four founding countries plus Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, and the Philippines. The expansion was made possible with the support of Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), U.S. Department of State (DOS) through its Lower Mekong Initiative (LMI), and USAID. Our university members come from multiple disciplines connected to the health of humans, animals, and the environment.

Our educational programs promote and facilitate collaborative activities and projects among the countries with an emphasis on improving One Health workforce capacity with cross-sectoral competencies to effectively prevent, detect, and respond to all hazards and emerging threats. Examples of our educational initiatives include the development of One Health core and technical competencies, curriculum development and strengthening, introducing innovative teaching methodologies such as One Health problem-based learning cases, building research capacity to provide an evidence-base for One Health advocacy, One Health student clubs, and scholarship and fellowship programs to support long-term capacity development.

The SEAOHUN Secretariat based in Chiang Mai, Thailand, is a facilitating and coordinating body of all the country networks. The Secretariat facilitates SEAOHUN Executive Board meetings, regional activities, and fosters the establishment of One Health university networks in Southeast Asia, as well as partnerships with national, international and non-governmental organizations collaborating to combat all hazards and emerging threats. The Secretariat represents interests of its country networks at international meetings/conferences/forums of Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) Detect 1 and Detect 5 packages, ASEAN+3 Field Epidemiology Training Network (FETN), the Tripartite (FAO/OIE/WHO), among the others. Since July 2019, SEAOHUN has partnered with Pfizer Thailand to address the growing threat of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in Thailand.

For more information, you may visit https://www.seaohun.org/ and http://facebook.com/seaohun

SEAOHUN is one of the Tufts University Consortium partners to implement the USAID STOP Spillover program in Asia. The goal of the program is to enhance the capacity of local, national and regional institutions in countries across Africa and Asia to understand the Spillover Ecosystem and to use existing and new evidence to advance, deploy, and assess interventions to reduce the spillover of emerging zoonotic viruses at high-risk animal-human interfaces while reducing amplification and spread. The program aims to reduce the risk of zoonotic viral spillover beyond capacity building and strengthening laboratory and surveillance efforts, to include characterization of risks based on environmental, ecological, gender, behavior, socio-cultural, economic and political factors.

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

The STOP Spillover RLA will be under the overall administrative supervision of the Executive Director of SEAOHUN Secretariat. As a member of the Management Executive Committee (MEC) of the STOP Spillover, the RLA will programmatically be guided by this committee, and the STOP Spillover Project Director. The RLA will be expected to coordinate all regional activities in several countries in Asia and execute assigned tasks by the MEC in coordination with the SEAOHUN Secretariat.

The STOP Spillover project is scheduled to continue till the end of September 2025. This is a full-time position, renewed yearly, based on performance evaluation, and availability of funds.

The Regional Lead Asia will ensure high quality, efficiency and timeliness of all activities. As outlined below:

· Manage up to five Asian country teams to effectively implement global/regional/country activities according to the work plan and budget.

· Work collaboratively with a regional veterinarian of SEAOHUN STOP Spillover project to provide technical guidance and assistance to country teams and other project partners.

· Ensure the quality and timeliness of programmatic reporting required by the Prime and donor.

· Establish good working relationships with SEAOHUN network members, partners, and donors.

· Promote sustainability of STOP Spillover program in Asia providing effective networking, coordination and linkages to other relevant programs, partners and counterparts.

· Represent SEAOHUN in meetings, conferences, and other events as related to STOP Spillover project and others as assigned.

· Perform tasks that aligns STOP Spillover project tasks with SEAOHUN’s strategic goals.

QUALIFICATIONS AND REQUIREMENTS

• Master’s degree in public health, human health, veterinary health, biology, biotechnology, agriculture, environment, or other related area. A professional degree (DVM/MD) and/or PhD will be a considerable advantage.
• 15+ or more years of progressive work experience that involves direct leadership of professional and support staff, program/technical oversight, and project/grant management.
• Good understanding of One Health concepts, knowledge of the fundamentals of infectious diseases, including detection, control, prevention, and management, risk analysis and public health or ecosystems health.
• Demonstrated ability to convert technically complex concepts into plain and actionable language.
• Experience working with government agencies, intergovernmental agencies, academic institutions, international agencies (WHO, FAO, OIE, others) or NGOs is required.
• Working knowledge in the health sector in multi-country projects and working in South and/or Southeast Asian countries are essential.

· Experience with USAID-funded projects is highly desirable.

• Proven effective communication skills in English, both written and oral. This includes networking, negotiation, and diplomatic skills.
• Ability to work both independently and in a team in a multicultural environment is necessary.
• Skills in Microsoft Office/Google, email, and Internet navigation are required.
• Willingness to undertake regional and international travels
• Has adequate home office facilities if desired to work remotely.