Position Title: Country Engagement and Partnerships Coordinator
Workstream: Country Engagement (60%) Partnerships and Resource Mobilization (40%)
Reports to: Health Financing Manager, Anglophone Region
Matrix reporting: Dotted line to the Partnerships & Resource Mobilisation Lead
Travel: Up to 25% of the time, mostly within Sierra Leone
Duty Station: Freetown, Sierra Leone. Sierra Leonean nationals are strongly preferred.
ABOUT FINANCING ALLIANCE FOR HEALTH (FAH)
Financing Alliance for Health partners with African governments to “focus financing to achieve improved health for all”. We do so through working on five key outcomes:
- Mobilizing more funding for health;
- Directing More Funding to primary and community health, which have the highest returns on investment;
- Ensuring Money is spent effectively, efficiently;
- Building Government Capacity & Ownership; and
- Shaping the Regional Health Financing Environment. Our work aims to increase accessto and utilization of quality primary health services for every household, ultimately reducing morbidity and mortality. We believe in the transformative power of community health workers (CHWs), who not only improve health outcomes but also create thousands of jobs, primarily for women, marginalized individuals, and youth. FAH also plays a critical role in the Africa Frontline First (AFF) Initiative, a collaborative Catalytic Fund and a network of technical assistance providers to scale and strengthen integrated and sustainable community health delivery in Sub-Saharan Africa. AFF support 17 countries in building high-functioning, resilient, country-led community health service delivery systems, including an expanded and institutionalized workforce of 200,000 CHWs by 2030.
POSITION SUMMARY
The Country Engagement and Partnerships Coordinator will dedicate time to business development and to direct support for FAH’s country program in Sierra Leone. Part of the role is situated within the Partnerships and Resource Mobilization (PRM) team, where the Coordinator will actively identify and track funding opportunities, develop concept notes and proposals, and maintain a current prospect pipeline for the Anglophone cluster. Particular focus will be placed on opportunities that enable technical assistance to the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Finance in Sierra Leone.
The other part of the role will provide direct support to the Health Financing Technical Advisor in Sierra Leone, contributing to country engagement activities. This includes preparing for and documenting meetings with government counterparts, drafting briefs and technical notes, supporting costing and budget exercises, and ensuring timely follow-up on agreed actions.
Through this dual mandate, the Coordinator will strengthen FAH’s global resource mobilization efforts while advancing country-level partnerships and technical collaboration with government stakeholders.
The Coordinator will report to the Health Financing Manager for the Anglophone Region, with dotted–line relationships to the Partnerships & Resource Mobilization (PRM) Lead for business development priorities. Quarterly priorities are jointly set and reviewed monthly, and the Coordinator is expected to raise any conflicts between proposal deadlines and country support to ensure balanced delivery across both workstreams.
KEY ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
Country engagement support to Sierra Leone (about 40% of the role)
- Support to the Technical Advisor. Provide day-to-day drafting, analytical and coordination support to the Health Financing Technical Advisor against the agreed Sierra Leone workplan.
- Government meetings. Help prepare for and document engagements with the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Finance and other ministries, departments and agencies. Draft agendas, take the record, and keep the action list moving until items close.
- Analysis. Contribute to costing exercises, funding gap and resource mapping work, budget and expenditure reviews, and investment cases for primary and community health.
- Country programme writing. Draft technical briefs, presentations, policy summaries and donor reports for the Sierra Leone programme, and keep programme records in order.
- Partner coordination. Stay in contact with donors, implementing partners, civil society and academic institutions working on health financing in Sierra Leone so that FAH knows what others are doing and avoids duplicating it.
- Tracking delivery. Follow milestones and indicators in the country workplan and say something early when a deadline looks like it will slip.
- Events. Organize the practical side of workshops, government retreats, field visits and convenings held in country.
- Business development and proposal writing (about 60% of the role)
- Tracking opportunities. Follow calls, concept note windows and pipeline announcements from bilateral and multilateral funders, foundations, philanthropies and development finance institutions. Keep a working list of prospects that are relevant to primary and community health financing in Sierra Leone and the wider region and flag the ones worth pursuing early enough for the team to act.
- Funder research. Read what funders publish about their strategies, eligibility rules and reporting requirements, meet their country’s staff where that is possible, and write short notes on where FAH fits and where it does not.
- Writing. Produce first drafts of concept notes, expressions of interest, full proposals, and technical annexes. Much of this involves turning costing work, budget analysis and health financing evidence into text a busy reviewer can follow.
- Managing submissions. Run the schedule for each bid, including the compliance checklist, who drafts which section, when internal review happens, and what the funder’s portal will accept. Collect inputs from technical, finance, and monitoring colleagues, and submit on time.
- Budgets. Work with the Grants and Subcontracts Specialist so that the budget and the narrative tell the same story and the value for money argument holds up under scrutiny.
- Positioning FAH. Prepare briefing packs, capability statements and meeting notes for engagements with funders and prospective consortium partners in Sierra Leone and regionally. Attend those meetings with senior colleagues and handle the follow-up.
- Turning opportunities into country work. Once money is secured, or looks likely, work with the country team to define what technical assistance to the Ministry of Health or the Ministry of Finance will actually consist of, so that what was promised in a proposal can be delivered.
- Keeping records. Maintain the proposal library, which covers templates, boilerplate text, past performance records, staff CVs and funder correspondence. Write up what worked and what did not after each submission.
QUALIFICATIONS
Essential
- A bachelor’s degree in public health, health economics, development studies, finance, communications or a related field.
- Minimum 3 years of relevant work experience, of which at least two years spent writing proposals, grant applications or similar fundraising material in an NGO, consulting, government or development setting.
- At least one funded application the candidate contributed to, with a clear account of which parts they wrote.
- Strong written English. Shortlisted candidates will sit a short writing exercise.
- Familiarity with the requirements of major funders, for example the Global Fund, Gavi, the World Bank, the Global Financing Facility, UN agencies, bilateral agencies or private foundations.
- Working competence in Excel, including the ability to read a budget and sense-check a costing.
- Knowledge of the health sector in Sierra Leone, its institutions and its donor landscape.
- Ease in the company of senior government officials, and discretion with sensitive information.
- The organizational habits needed to hold two sets of priorities without dropping either.
- Proficiency in Microsoft Office and common online collaboration tools.
- Residence in Sierra Leone and the right to work there. Sierra Leonean nationals are strongly encouraged to apply.
Desirable
- A master’s degree in a related field.
- Knowledge or Previous work with or inside the Ministry of Health or the Ministry of Finance in Sierra Leone.
- Exposure to health financing topics such as costing, public financial management and the budget cycle, domestic resource mobilization, strategic purchasing, or blended finance.
- Experience with community health or primary health care programmes.
- Experience of working in a remote, multi-country team.
FIRST YEAR DELIVERABLES
- A maintained pipeline of funding prospects for Sierra Leone and the region, reviewed with the
- Health Financing Manager Anglophone at an agreed frequency.
- An agreed number of compliant proposals and concept notes submitted on time, with a win rate that improves over the year.
- At least one funding opportunity converted into a defined piece of technical assistance for the Ministry of Health or the Ministry of Finance.
- A proposal library that other members of the team actually use.
- Confirmation of reliable country’s engagement support.
Compensation
This position offers a competitive compensation package linked to the background and experience of the
candidate, benchmarked against the local market in Sierra Leone.
Timing
Applications will be accepted and reviewed on a rolling basis up to 4th September 2026.
Application Requirements
Please submit a resume and cover letter as one pdf document through the link:
Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.
FAH values the diversity of the people it hires and serves within the community. Our diversity is committed to fostering a work environment where individuals’ strengths and uniqueness are recognized, appreciated, respected and responded to in ways that fully develop their potential.
FAH has a zero-tolerance approach to any harm to, or exploitation of, a vulnerable child or adult by any of our staff, partners or representatives. We are committed to preventing all undesirable behavior at work. This includes child abuse and exploitation, sexual harassment and abuse.