Center for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention Director

The Director of the Center for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention provides the strategic, technical, and managerial leadership for the communicable disease programs and projects assigned to the Center. The role is responsible for turning the Center’s institutional framework into actionable annual plans with measurable results, while ensuring that its four technical areas work as an integrated whole.

The Director works closely with EMPHNET’s centers, departments, programs, and country offices to ensure high-quality support to countries and partners, meet technical and contractual commitments, and make effective use of available resources. The Director is also responsible for building and leading a multidisciplinary team capable of delivering sustainable results, while respecting national authorities’ leadership of their own programs and policies.

Scope of Work

The assigned vacancy will include the following tasks, activities, duties, and responsibilities:

Technical

1. Strategic Leadership and Planning: Lead the establishment and operation of the Center, and oversee the development of its annual workplan, budget, and performance indicators. Translate EMPHNET’s 2025–2030 Strategy, country priorities, and commitments to partners into a well-defined portfolio of programs and projects with clear priorities, expected results, and accountabilities.

2. Technical Leadership: Provide technical direction and ensure consistency across the Center’s areas of work, including immunization and vaccine-preventable diseases; priority, emerging, and re-emerging communicable diseases; influenza and infectious respiratory diseases; neglected tropical and vector-borne diseases; and laboratories, biosafety, and biosecurity.

3. Program and Project Management: Oversee the design, implementation, and monitoring of programs and projects, ensuring clear scopes of work, deliverables, timelines, and roles. Address implementation gaps and risks in coordination with the relevant departments and country offices.

4. Quality of Technical Support: Approve, or recommend for approval, technical products before release. Ensure that guidance, tools, and recommendations are grounded in the best available evidence and established practices, and put in place documented processes for technical review and quality assurance.

5. Performance Monitoring and Accountability: Establish a framework for tracking deliverables, results, and performance indicators. Provide concise periodic reports on progress, risks, and decisions requiring attention, and lead an annual review of the Center’s portfolio, using the findings to inform the following year’s plan.

6. Team Management and Capacity Development: Recommend the Center’s staffing structure and allocate responsibilities based on available resources. Directly supervise the technical area leads, set and review performance objectives, identify capacity gaps, and foster a collaborative working environment that promotes accountability, learning, and multidisciplinary collaboration.

7. Partnerships and Resource Mobilization: Build and maintain technical relationships with ministries of health, national institutions, partners, donors, and funding organizations. Identify opportunities for collaboration and funding, and lead the development of technical components for proposals and joint initiatives in coordination with the relevant teams within EMPHNET.

8. Research, Development, and Knowledge Management: Identify research and programmatic priorities and gaps; guide the development and adaptation of guidance, tools, and methodologies; document experience, lessons learned, and good practices; and support the use of data and applied research to drive practical improvements in programs.

9. Institutional Integration: Establish clear working arrangements with the Public Health Emergency Management Center and the teams responsible for surveillance and data, research, workforce development, communication and community engagement, One Health, and Field Epidemiology Training Programs, ensuring clear responsibilities and avoiding duplication of effort.

10. Outbreak and Emergency Support: Provide specialized disease- or laboratory-related technical expertise for clearly defined assignments under the coordination of the entity responsible for managing the event. Ensure that the scope, duration, deliverables, and respective responsibilities are agreed in advance.

11. Governance and Risk Management: Ensure compliance with EMPHNET’s policies and procedures and with donor and funder requirements. Manage technical and operational risks, uphold standards of integrity and confidentiality, appropriately manage conflicts of interest, and escalate matters that fall outside delegated authority in a timely manner.

12. Representation and Executive Communication: Represent the Center at meetings, committees, and events within delegated authority. Prepare accurate technical and executive briefings and maintain regular communication with senior management, partners, and country offices.

Job Specification

Education and Specialization:

• At least a master’s degree in public health, epidemiology, infectious diseases, preventive medicine, global health, laboratory sciences, or a related field. A medical degree, clinical specialization, or PhD is an additional advantage, depending on the candidate’s professional background.

Experience:

• Minimum years of experience: 15 years.

• Experience field:

  • At least 15 years of progressively responsible professional experience in public health, including a minimum of seven years in communicable disease prevention and control programs and at least five years in a leadership or management role involving the supervision of multidisciplinary teams.

  • Demonstrated practical experience in at least three of the Center’s four technical areas, along with the ability to lead subject-matter experts and a sound understanding of how the other technical areas relate to one another.

  • Experience designing and managing multi-country or multi-institutional programs or projects, including planning, budgeting, risk management, monitoring and evaluation, quality assurance, and reporting to donors and funding organizations.

  • Experience working with ministries of health, public health institutes, and regional and international organizations, with a demonstrated ability to build and effectively manage strategic relationships with national authorities and local and international partners.

  • A proven track record in developing relevant technical proposals, mobilizing resources, and building partnerships that have resulted in programs, funding, or measurable expansion.

  • Demonstrated ability to use data, evidence, and applied research to inform decisions and improve programs, as well as the ability to review complex technical products and exercise sound technical judgment.

  • Fluency in spoken and written Arabic and English, including the ability to prepare reports, presentations, and executive briefings. Willingness to travel as required.

Other Related Experience:

• Regional experience in the Eastern Mediterranean Region or in low- and middle-income countries, including fragile and conflict-affected settings.

• Direct experience in immunization programs; preparedness and response to emerging diseases; influenza and respiratory diseases; neglected tropical and vector-borne diseases; or laboratory systems, biosafety, and biosecurity.

• Experience working with international health financing mechanisms or partnerships, including managing grant requirements and ensuring technical and contractual compliance.

• Documented contributions to the development of policies, technical guidance, guidelines, or relevant scientific publications and applied research.

• Experience establishing a technical unit or center, reorganizing a portfolio of programs, or leading organizational change, including bringing separate teams or projects together under a unified framework.

Functional Competencies:

• Technical Judgment

• Results-Based Management

• Working in Complex Environments

• Strategic Leadership

• Team Leadership

Behavioral Competencies:

• Partnership and Influence

• Executive Communication

• Integrity and Accountability

---

EMPHNET maintains a strict zero-tolerance policy toward all forms of abuse, exploitation, harassment, misconduct, and harm. All staff, associates, and partners are expected to uphold the highest standards of ethical conduct and safeguarding, ensuring that all individuals we work with or serve are protected and treated with dignity and respect, in full alignment with EMPHNET’s safeguarding policies. Read more about it here.