Matrix Project Officer (Harare)

Pangaea Zimbabwe Aids Trust (PZAT)

Dec. 07, 2023

Job Description

Microbicide Research and Development (R&D) to Advance HIV Prevention Technologies through Responsive Innovation and Excellence (MATRIX) is designed to positively accelerate early R&D for new HIV prevention products by providing an innovative ecosystem in which earlystage HIV prevention technologies can be advanced. MATRIX aims to expedite R&D of products for prevention of HIV in women and meet the unmet needs of women at risk of HIV through engagement of those who are most impacted by HIV by identifying HIV prevention product preferences, needs and priorities to inform technical decisions. This will also be achieved through engaging with relevant end-users and key influencers in relevant locations.

Job Summary

PZAT is looking to engage a full-time Project Officer to manage the day-to-day activities under MATRIX project based in Zimbabwe. S/he will be based in Harare with some travel around the country and the region for end-user consultations and facilitate rapid feedback for product development decision-making.

Duties and Responsibilities

Engage diverse end-users to define priorities and inform targeted investment of R&D resources for technical, financial and policy decisions pertinent to product development.
Develop tools to collect end user perspectives.
Identify end-user perspectives and convey them to product developers to inform introduction, access and uptake.
Provide leadership on end-user engagements in first in human studies.
Ensure high-quality, timely, valid and verifiable data collection and analysis, with rapid sharing of findings to inform HIV prevention product designs across a range of products in the R&D pipeline.
Develop reports to be shared with Products developers and D2D Hub.

The incumbent will:

Be able to represent the organization at national, regional and consortium level.
Be responsive to Product developer needs.
Support the end-user consultations in response to Product Developer needs.
Facilitate rapid feedback on specific products based on Product developer requests.
Attend and contribute to key platforms such as Technical Working Groups related to HIV prevention products.
Participate in regular MATRIX consortium calls.
Demonstrate an in-depth knowledge of the HIV prevention landscape.
Demonstrated experience in analyzing, interpreting, and reporting on end-user. product consultation.
Incorporate lessons learned into Product designs
Proficiency in at least one statistical software package e.g., STATA, SAS, R, excel or SPSS is a must.
Proficiency in at least one qualitative software package e.g., NVIVO, Dedoose or ATLAS is a must.
Ability to rapidly gather end-user in-put on products under development.
Ensure rapid sharing of findings and inform product design.
Willingness to travel.
Excellent writing, reporting and presentation skills, including fluency in English and one or more of the local languages spoken (e.g., Shona and/or Ndebele).

Qualifications and Experience

A degree in social science or public health.
A postgraduate qualification in public health or Social.
Science, is an added advantage.
A minimum of 5 years’ experience conducting research and end-user consultations in developing countries, preferably in a sub-Saharan Africa high disease burden country and providing high-level analysis, interpretation and summaries of the findings for a wide range of audiences.
Proficient in computers and Microsoft packages.
A clean class 4 driver’s license.