Program Officer, Lead Exposure

Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI); New Delhi; On-site; INR 600,000 - 900,000; Full time

Job summary

CHAI, in collaboration with WJCF, is seeking a Program Officer to lead district-level lead elimination efforts in India. The role involves developing governance mechanisms, building partnerships, and delivering technical products to support program planning, implementation, and monitoring.

The position is based across Mohali, Bathinda, Patiala, Delhi NCR, Rewari, Jhajjar with travel within states and occasional trips to New Delhi.

Qualifications

• Strong stakeholder-management skills.
• Experience engaging with government departments is preferred.
• Ability to plan, implement and monitor district-level health programs.

Responsibilities

• Support the District Magistrate and district administration in planning, implementing and monitoring district-level lead elimination action plans.
• Map health and environmental indicators and undertake field data collection, validation and analysis.
• Build and maintain relationships with key stakeholders across government and partners, and sensitize them on lead poisoning and elimination efforts.
• Coordinate inter-departmental activities and organize capacity-building sessions for district stakeholders.
• Prepare project documentation and reports, with regular updates on progress.

Job description

WJCF is an Indian non-profit organisation committed to saving lives by reducing the burden of disease and strengthening government-owned, high-quality health systems. Since 2007, WJCF has combined data-driven approaches and deep public health expertise with strong government partnerships to design, implement, and scale solutions across India s national and state health programmes. We work for and at the service of governments - supporting the Ministry of Health Family Welfare and State Departments of Health to build systems that are strong, sustainable, and led by Indian institutions.

As an Indian organisation, WJCF brings an unmatched depth of contextual understanding of India s health system architecture, policy landscape, and implementation realities across diverse geographies and population groups. This local institutional credibility, combined with global technical rigour, is central to WJCF s effectiveness as a partner to governments and donors.

Our work is built around four complementary roles: as a Trusted Government Partner, co-designing programmes and strengthening health system architecture; as an Operational Partner, translating strategies into effective on-the-ground delivery; as a Market Shaper, improving the availability and affordability of health commodities; and as an Ecosystem Catalyst, convening governments, development partners, academia, and the private sector to drive solutions at scale.

WJCF s programme portfolio spans thematic areas like hepatitis, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, vector-borne diseases), syphilis, cervical cancer, diabetes, maternal and childhood anaemia, immunisation, under-5 diarrhoea and pneumonia, sexual and reproductive health, Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri - Jan Arogya Yojana (AB PM-JAY), Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM), hypoxemia and oxygen, safe drinking water, sickle cell disease, presbyopia, lead poisoning, and cross cutting thematic areas like AI and Health, integrated disease surveillance, and climate and health. We currently support programmes across 19 states and union territories, with teams working at national, state, district, and sub-district levels.

Our people are our greatest asset. WJCF brings together a talented, diverse team of professionals from public health, analytics, consulting, healthcare, the development sector, and academia, all united by a shared commitment to improving health outcomes for the people of India. We are entrepreneurial, action-oriented, and deeply grounded in the communities and systems we work in. Our field teams collectively bring hundreds of years of experience managing public health programmes across the country.

WJCF collaborates with a range of international and domestic partners and donors to advance its mission, including an affiliation with the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), a global health organisation with which WJCF shares a common mission and values.

Programme Overview

Lead poisoning is one of Indias most significant and most solvable public health challenges. India bears the worlds highest burden of childhood lead poisoning, with over 275 million children carrying blood lead levels above 5 g/dL; the national average is 6.2 g/dL and 23 States exceed the threshold (NITI Aayog and CSIR review, 2022). Lead exposure causes irreversible neurological damage in children, contributes to an estimated one million cardiovascular deaths annually in adults (Larsen et al., 2023), and generates compounding intergenerational risks.

The National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), as the designated national focal agency under the Ministry of Health Family Welfare, is establishing the National Biomonitoring Programme for Chemical Toxicants (NBPCT). WJCF is embedding a Technical Support Unit (TSU) nationally and a state-level teams in select states. The state teams will work alongside the State Health Department, the State Pollution Control Board (SPCB), and allied departments to build the governance architecture, program roadmap, set up an inter-departmental coordination mechanism, develop state-adapted protocols, and operationalise all NBPCT program activities.

Position Summary

WJCF is seeking a highly motivated, entrepreneurial professional with strong credentials and exceptional stakeholder-management skills for the role of Program Officer. He/She will own WJCFs engagement in the State- building the relationships, governance mechanisms, technical products for the program and contributing to the planning, implementation and monitoring of district lead elimination action plans.

The role requires developing a deep understanding of the district s health system architecture, pollution control and environmental regulatory machinery, budgeting cycles, and political economy, and use that to convert a nascent national programme into a functioning district response.

The incumbent will function under the programmatic guidance of the State Health Department. The District Coordinator will also support the State in implementing the lead elimination programme at the district level.

Location: Mohali, Bathinda, Patiala, Delhi NCR, Rewari, Jhajjar

Travel: To program districts within respective State, and occasionally to New Delhi

Responsibilities

• Support the District Magistrate and district administration in planning, implementing and monitoring district-level lead elimination action plans.
• Support the Ministry and State in implementing project activities and achieving district-level project objectives, including providing regular updates on progress and challenges.
• Map health and environmental indicators and undertake field-level data collection, validation, analysis and identification of lead exposure hotspots.
• Build and maintain relationships with key stakeholders, including government officials, medical institutions and other relevant partners, and sensitise them on lead poisoning and lead elimination.
• Facilitate inter-departmental coordination across Health, Food, Environment, ESIC, Labour, Mines Minerals and other relevant departments.
• Organise and support capacity-building activities, including training programmes, workshops and stakeholder consultations for district-level stakeholders.
• Prepare and maintain project documentation, including reports, presentations, briefs, capacity-building materials, databases, trackers and other records.
• Undertake extensive field travel within the assigned district and occasional travel within the state or to New Delhi, and perform other project-related responsibilities as assigned.

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