Designation: Program Director – Public Health Outreach
Location: Ranchi (Jharkhand) / Bhubaneswar (Odisha) / Raipur (Chhattisgarh) / Guwahati (Assam)
No. of Vacancies :4
Project/Unit :Global Alliance for Viksit Bharat (GAVB)
Project Background:
The Global Alliance for Viksit Bharat (GAVB) is a landmark social development initiative designed to uplift 200 million Indians living in multidimensional poverty. With a transformative investment, GAVB concentrates efforts on five priority states—Jharkhand, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, and Bihar (JACOB states)—which are disproportionately impacted by acute poverty.
Health and Education account for 67% of the Multi-dimensional Poverty Index (MDPI). GAVB works closely with state governments to strengthen public health systems, improve service delivery, and enhance community wellbeing. The Communicable Disease (CD) portfolio specifically addresses Tuberculosis (TB) and Malaria—two diseases that disproportionately affect vulnerable populations including tribal communities, urban poor, and migrant workers.
GAVB's approach leverages Digitization, Decentralization, Leadership & Institutions, and Inclusion to enhance health service delivery. Domain expertise with proven solutions lays the foundation for introduction, progression, and gradual integration of innovations into government public health systems.
The CD portfolio aligns with India's national commitments: achieving zero indigenous malaria cases by 2027 (National Strategic Plan for Malaria Elimination 2023-27) and TB elimination by 2025 (National TB Elimination Programme).
The five GAVB states collectively account for 45-50% of India's malaria burden and approximately 270,000+ TB cases annually. The CD portfolio provides strategic support to state governments through enhanced surveillance, improved case management, strengthened supply chains, community mobilization, and policy advocacy—all aimed at accelerating elimination while strengthening foundational health systems.
Job Summary:
The Program Director - Public Health Outreach, reporting to the Core Team Member, will serve as the state’s anchor for driving population-level health outcomes through last-mile system transformation, with a focus on improving coverage, quality, and equity of primary healthcare services. The role will be accountable for translating GAVB’s vision into scalable, state-owned outreach models that strengthen demand generation, early risk identification, and service utilization across RMNCH continuums - particularly for vulnerable and underserved populations.
The Program Director will provide strategic leadership to the Directorate of Health (DoH) and State Health Society (SHS)/ National Health Mission (NHM) in designing and implementing comprehensive public health programs, with a strong focus on preventive, promotive and primary healthcare. This includes strengthening frontline systems by enhancing the capacities of community health workers (ASHAs, ANMs, CHOs), enhancing supervisory support mechanisms, improving last-mile service delivery through outreach service delivery platforms and engaging effective community systems. The role will also focus on improving coverage, equity, and quality of outreach services, particularly for vulnerable and underserved populations in the state.
Additionally, the Program Director will be accountable for end-to-end strategy development and execution for public health and outreach initiatives, ensuring high-quality program delivery, scalable models and measurable impact. The role will provide strong leadership, direction, and oversight to teams, enabling effective implementation and sustained improvements in public health outcomes at scale..
Key Responsibilities:
1. Technical Leadership and Strategy Development
• Serve as a thought partner to state leadership (Mission Director, DHS, DoH, NHM) on primary healthcare transformation
• Support the development and operationalization of state and national-level strategies for community-based healthcare aligned with national guidelines and state priorities.
• Identify systemic gaps in outreach service delivery, community engagement and last-mile service coverage and initiate innovative and scalable solutions.
• Strengthen convergence across departments (ICDS, PRI, etc.) to enhance effectiveness of outreach platforms.
• Anchor cross-portfolio convergence within GAVB (medical services, data systems, HRH).
2. Program Implementation
• Support the implementation and scale-up of high-impact outreach interventions at VHSNDs and HWCs, ensuring delivery of RMNCH and NCD services and health promotion activities.
• Strengthen the execution and governance of VHSNDs to ensure quality service delivery for antenatal care and timely identification of maternal complication, identification and prevention of childhood diseases and promoting healthy spacing options to couples.
• Enhance functionality of HWCs including preventive, promotive and referral services.
• Improve last-mile delivery of services through better microplanning, supportive supervision, and use of community-level data.
• Strengthen supply chain mechanisms to ensure uninterrupted availability of essential drugs, diagnostics, and logistics at outreach points.
• Strengthen referral linkages between community platforms and higher-level health facilities.
3. Community Engagement and Institutional Strengthening
• Leverage community platforms (VHSNCs, SHGs, PRI) as accountability and demand-generation engines, not just awareness forums.
• Design and institutionalize behavior change strategies linked to measurable service uptake
• Facilitate capacity building of VHSNC and JAS members on planning, monitoring and utilization of funds for local health actions.
• Enhance awareness generation and behavior change communication (BCC) strategies to improve health-seeking behaviors at household level.
4. Capacity Building
• Support the design and delivery of capacity building programs for frontline workers (ASHAs, ANMs, CHOs) on screening, mobilization, outreach service delivery and referrals.
• Strengthen institutional capacity of training bodies such as SIHFW and related institutions for sustained capacity building of outreach cadres including FLWs and their supervisors.
• Institutionalize mentoring and supportive supervision mechanisms for continuous skill enhancement of frontline workers.
• Build capacities of block and district officials for planning, supervision and improving outreach services.
5. Monitoring, Evaluation and Digital Strengthening
• Support the development and implementation of monitoring frameworks for VHSND and HWC performance indicators and health outcomes at household level.
• Enable beneficiary-level tracking systems integrating multiple data sources (RCH, HMIS, ICDS, etc.)
• Promote the use of digital tools and platforms for real-time tracking of service delivery, beneficiary coverage and health outcomes.
• Facilitate regular data review and use for decision-making at block, district and state levels using digital tools.
• Support documentation of best practices, case studies and innovations in outreach and community engagement.
6. Policy Influence and Stakeholder Engagement
• Support the Directorate and State Health Society/ National Health Mission in formulating policies, guidelines and operational frameworks for strengthening outreach and community processes.
• Ensure all outreach models are embedded within government systems, with clear ownership, budget lines, and review mechanisms.
• Engage with partners, donors and civil society organizations to align outreach efforts with broader health system goals.
• Influence for increased investments in primary healthcare, community processes and outreach platforms.
Essential Qualification & Experience:
• MBA/ Masters in Social Work/Public Health/Rural Management/ Hospital Management/ PGDM from Tier-1 institutions (IIMs/ IITs/ MDI etc.)
• Minimum 10 years of experience in public health, preferably community health and outreach health service delivery or development setting.
• Experience working with government health programs (NHM, RMNCH+A), NGOs, or international agencies.
• Strong expertise in RMNCH, health systems strengthening and program implementation.
• Proficiency in data analysis, M&E frameworks, and research methodologies.
• Excellent communication, leadership, and stakeholder engagement skills.
• Operations management, engagement with government departments, consultancy will be an added advantage.
Essential Skills:
• Familiarity with government health policies and programs in India.
• Experience in designing and implementing solutions for strengthening service delivery in the outreach at VHSNDs and HWCs.
• Ability to work in low-resource settings and travel frequently to field locations.
• Proficiency in Hindi and English; knowledge of regional languages is a plus.
• Collaboration with multiple internal/external stakeholders (individual and teams)
• Experience working in dynamic work environments with substantive dose of ambiguity
• Basic level quantitative and qualitative analytical skills
Application process: Candidates interested in the role may apply with their updated resumes by filling out the application form here:
https://forms.gle/d6iTiXmGgBu3T5jT8