Senior Associate – Lead Exposure

Overview

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 India's most significant and most solvable public health challenges. India bears the world's highest burden of childhood lead poisoning, with over 275 million children carry blood lead levels above 5 µg/dL; the national average is 6.2 µg/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.

National Center for Disease Control, as the designated national focal agency under MoHFW, is establishing the National Biomonitoring Programme for Chemical Toxicants (NBPCT). WJCF is embedding a Technical Support Unit (TSU) to serve as the coordination backbone for India's lead mitigation response. This embedded model builds directly on WJCF's track record of high-impact TSU engagements across TB, vector-borne diseases, oxygen, surveillance, and health insurance.

Position Summary

We are seeking a motivated and analytically rigorous Senior Associate to serve as a core member of WJCF's embedded TSU. The incumbent will provide day-to-day technical, coordination, and secretariat support to government counterparts translating high-level intent into structured operational workplans, facilitating inter-ministerial coordination, and helping anchor governance architecture that outlasts individual donor cycles.

The role demands both policy acumen to navigate a complex multi-stakeholder environment and operational discipline to ensure consistent follow-through. The incumbent will report to the TSU Lead and will function under the programmatic guidance of NCDC for TSU activities.

Location: New Delhi (embedded at NCDC / MoHFW)

Travel: Domestic travel to programme states as required

Responsibilities

TSU Secretariat and Programme Operations

• Provide day-to-day secretariat support to NCDC for the NBPCT, including preparation of meeting agendas, data-backed workplans, activity plans, and meeting charters across surveillance, capacity building, and enforcement priorities.
• Support NCDC's National Lead Technical Working Group through data synthesis, expert inputs, documentation, and follow-up mechanisms that convert deliberations into actionable outcomes.
• Support integration of state and laboratory surveillance data into the Integrated Health Information Platform (IHIP) and contribute to dashboard and visualisation design for NCDC decision-making.
• Strengthen NCDC's capacity for data-backed decision-making in hotspot identification, laboratory and referral infrastructure mapping, and partner coordination.
• Consolidate and disseminate learnings from state-level engagement through regional and national workshops.
• Support the Programme in convening and facilitating inter-ministerial consultations on lead and chemical toxicants across environment, industry, labour, food safety, water, and mines ministries.
• Prepare technical inputs, briefing materials, and correspondence for senior decision-making within the ministry.

Programme Planning and Monitoring

• Develop and maintain workplan trackers and milestone dashboards to monitor progress against grant commitments and government-agreed deliverables.
• Support development of costed annual workplans and embed these into the programme's operational budgeting cycle.
• Prepare high-quality progress reports, briefing notes, and strategy documents for donors and government counterparts.

State-Level Engagement

• Lead WJCF's engagement in focal states in coordination with NCDC and state health departments, tailoring activities to each state's readiness and existing ecosystem.
• Support state-level surveillance system strengthening and feed learnings back into the national platform for wider uptake.
• Facilitate alignment between state health and environment departments on lead-related priorities.

Stakeholder and Partner Management

• Build and maintain relationships with NCDC, MoHFW senior officials, state health departments, CPCB, FSSAI, and development partners including WHO, UNICEF, Pure Earth, Vital Strategies, and others active in the lead ecosystem.
• Support advocacy efforts in collaboration with strategic partners, ensuring technical assistance and policy advocacy are complementary

Qualifications

Required

• Postgraduate degree in public health, public policy, environmental science, health management, development studies, or a related field.
• Minimum 6-8 years of relevant experience
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, and quantitative modeling skills
• Ability to build collaborative relationship with internal and external stakeholders, including more senior-level individuals
• Ability to drive forward assigned workstreams effectively (e.g., through thoughtful work planning, priority setting, stakeholder engagement, etc.)
• Entrepreneurial mindset, ability to work independently in ambiguous, semi-structured environments.
• High level of proficiency in Microsoft Office, particularly Excel, PowerPoint, and Word

Preferred

• Experience in environmental health, chemical toxicants, or occupational health programme areas.
• Prior experience in a secretariat or TSU role supporting a government technical programme in public health
• Professional proficiency in Hindi.

To Apply

Please send your CV and a cover note of not more than one page. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis.

Last date to Apply: 3 December, 2026