Title of the function: Regional Advisor Asia Pacific
Department: MSF Access
Reports to: MSF Access Asia Pacific Head of Hub
Working time: 100%
Location: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
The candidate must be from the Asia Pacific region with at least 6 years’ experience.
I. MSF INTERNATIONAL
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is an international, independent, medical humanitarian organisation that delivers emergency aid to people affected by armed conflict, epidemics, healthcare exclusion and natural disasters. MSF offers assistance to people based only on need and irrespective of race, religion, gender or political affiliation.
MSF International is the legal entity that binds MSF’s 24 sections, 27 associations and 18 branch offices together. Registered in Switzerland, MSF International provides coordination, information and support to the MSF Movement, as well as implements international projects and initiatives as requested.
MSF Access
Médecins Sans Frontières works tirelessly to improve the accessibility, availability, affordability, appropriateness and quality of products for health care for the populations it assists and their communities. While this is a collective effort across the organisation, the MSF Access team plays a central role as it identifies and implements a priority selection of access projects, offers expert support for access activities elsewhere in MSF, and brings together information and analysis relevant to MSF’s access work. The MSF Access team, overseen by an Executive Board, is based around five regional hubs: Kuala Lumpur, Nairobi, Brussels, Dakar and Rio de Janeiro.
II. CONTEXT
MSF Access works on creating accessibility, availability, affordability, appropriateness, and quality of products for healthcare for the populations MSF assists and their communities. MSF has been engaged in a wide variety of ways to improve this access in past decades. The relatively new MSF Access team now supports the movements access to products for healthcare agenda and is overseen by an Executive Board.
MSF Access has the following responsibilities:
Gather input for common priorities for Access and propose them to the MSF movement
Design and implement Access initiatives to respond to the agreed common priorities
Provide, or help to find, support on Access matters to MSF entities that request it
Maintain an overview of Access initiatives across MSF, and report on them annually
Research, and stay informed of, the Access landscape globally
II. PURPOSE
Reporting to the Head of Hub Asia Pacific, the Regional Advisor contributes to furthering the regional context understanding, maintaining and expanding key networks and engagement with relevant stakeholders; in order to support the design and implementation of effective advocacy strategies towards governments, non-governmental stakeholders, pharmaceutical companies, and the research community in Asia Pacific in support of the strategic objectives in the region and globally.
III. MAIN ACTIVITIES
The Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia based Regional Advisor works closely with the Head of Hub Asia Pacific and others in the region. The regional advisor will take the lead on some of the common priorities identified by the MSF movement while collaborating and supporting on other topics.
The main responsibilities include:
Develop systems to continuously monitor and analyze policies and stakeholders on issues relevant to the MSF Access strategic objectives and regional access priorities
Analyze trends and opportunities at regional level (both regional institutions and key countries) and provide strategic advice on new opportunities and threats.
Based on this analysis, work with the MSF Access colleagues, MSF offices and missions in the region to design and implement advocacy strategies relevant to the Access Strategic Plan objectives (global, regional or country specific).
Contribute to the development of specific regional analysis and advocacy strategies by contextualizing relevant global MSF Access strategic objectives and vice versa (using regional perspectives to feed into global Access strategic objectives and advocacy plans).
Develop and strengthen the engagement with key stakeholders in the region relevant to the MSF Access regional and Global strategic objectives and support civil society partnerships if and where relevant
Represent MSF Access in relevant countries, regional and global health actors’ platforms
Act as one of the spokespeople for the MSF Access Kuala Lumpur hub
Support MSF Operations in their understanding of medical-political issues affecting access in the field and support them to define and implement relevant advocacy plans and strategies to overcome concrete access problems.
When requested and relevant, support MSF Access initiatives of MSF sections in the region.
Manage any short-term researcher/consultant on special projects related to the position.