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The Missing Billion Initiative is offering PhD students, postgraduate researchers and young professionals who are passionate about the topic of disability and health to join the Missing Billion Initiative as Fellows. During the appointment, you will be able to link your research work to an exciting system-change initiative aiming to improve health access and outcomes for people with disabilities worldwide.
About you
You are a doer at heart who is passionate about disability and/or health policy. You want to expand the impact of your research work by moving it into practice, grow your network, and develop your professional skills and experience in the field. We are looking for curious folks who are not afraid of new challenges and know how to take initiative.
We strongly encourage people with disabilities and from low- and middle-income countries to apply.
What you can expect from the fellowship
Learn from leading academics and practitioners in the field
Receive guidance and mentorship from the leadership team
Have potential opportunities for paid consultancies
Help shape new projects and gain exposure to strategic planning and implementation work
Gain insights into how a system change initiative operates
Develop your professional and communications skills and put your research into practice
By joining the team as a Fellow, you will become an ambassador for the Initiative’s work, resources, and tools. The role and scope are malleable, depending on your interests, research focus, and time available, but may include:
Promoting the Missing Billion Initiative through your existing work
Conducting paid pieces of work as they emerge
Where possible, linking your work to the workstreams and projects of the Missing Billion Initiative
Accessing and learning from the good practices and the emerging community of practice
In the past, Missing Billion Fellows have
Focused their PhD work on applying the Missing Billion Assessment Toolkit within a country of interest
Developed an internal report on disability-inclusive health for a multilateral funding organization (paid consultancy)
Developed a compendium of good practice examples in disability-inclusive health worldwide across all levels of the health system (paid consultancy)
Expanded their network and met new collaborators for academic writing through the Missing Billion community
Supported live webinars organized by the Missing Billion Initiative
Attended invite-only events organized by the Missing Billion Initiative and partners
Duration: 6 to 18 months, with possibility of extension
Time commitment: Outside any paid consultancy work there is no set time commitment, but we believe 2-4 hours per week would be most beneficial for you and our work.
Pay: To be discussed with the Fellow, depending on work status and time commitment.
Location: Remote or possible co-location in London
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Partnership and Communications Associate
Opportunity: Join a mission-driven, entrepreneurial team and help drive it's start-up phase to build out system-changing initiative that will transform health systems for people with disabilities.
Location: Remote. Ideally based in Nairobi, Kenya
Type: Full-time, 6 months contract; possible extension afterwards
Desired start date: November 10, 2025
Background and purpose
There are 1.3 billion people with disabilities globally, and on average they experience a 14-year life expectancy gap as well as a range of poorer health outcomes. Health systems, therefore, need to adapt to better meet the needs of people with disabilities. The Missing Billion Initiative (MBI) is a new agenda-setting initiative that has taken on one of the biggest unaddressed health inequity issues of these times: health access and outcomes for people with disabilities. MBI tackles this by disseminating evidence, developing solutions, and building movements through partnerships.
The Initiative started in 2020, following the 2019 report "The Missing Billion - access to health services for people with disabilities", and is still in start-up phase.
The Missing Billion Initiative is a true example of a catalyst, with a nimble, entrepreneurial, and highly effective team. Join us in driving real change at scale in this long-neglected, yet critical, area of work. You will be working alongside a group of experienced global health experts and leading partners from around the globe in helping to shape this important initiative.
This role reports to the CEO of the Missing Billion Initiative. The role will also work closely with the Heads of Programs and Operations, and at times, the MBI Board members.
Key areas of work
Communication: Serve as MBI’s primary communicator: create, curate, and share updates about MBI’s work, maintain and update website to reflect current projects, news, and priorities, manage MBI’s social media presence (e.g., LinkedIn, Instagram) ensuring consistent branding and engagement, support development and distribution of newsletter (content gathering, editing, layout, distribution), support drafting, editing, and developing reports and other written materials.
Events: Organise all aspects of key movement-building events: define clear objectives and outcomes for each event, aligned with MBI’s strategy, identify and leverage strategic opportunities (partners, themes, audiences) to enhance reach and impact, support MBI leadership in engagement, manage logistics and speakers, prioritising accessibility.
Partnerships: Assist MBI leadership team in identifying, developing, and maintaining both funding- and non-funding partnerships that align with MBI’s mission and strategic goals:help to assess potential partners, their value proposition, and compatibility (values, capacity, reputation), facilitate relationship-building and ongoing communication with partners to ensure mutual benefit, trust, and long-term sustainability, monitor partnership outcomes and performance, gathering feedback, documenting lessons learned, and using these to strengthen future collaborations
Key deliverables (for these first 6 months):
Communication:
o Coordinate and disseminate 2 newsletters
o Update website (maintained on Squarespace) on an on-going basis
o Regular posts (weekly posts, at a minimum) on social media
Movement building events
o Lead on all aspects of the Disability Inclusion Leader cohort for the Skoll World Forum (April 2026) – establish mechanism to identify leaders, select/recruit partners, manage preparation and communication for Leaders, organise logistics (including travel, visa, accommodations)
o Organise 1-2 events to support dissemination and research uptake for the forthcoming Lancet Commission on Disability and Health
Partnerships
o Support the submission of 3-4 partnership and/or project proposals, together with MBI leadership team.
Who You Are
We are looking for an experienced do-er who is excited and comfortable building this organisation with us and who takes initiative in getting things done. The ideal candidate has strong communication, organisational, and administrative skills, is proactive, brings energy to the team, and is curious to learn about the work of the Missing Billion Initiative.
Essential:
Bachelor’s degree, or above
5-7 years of relevant work experience (in a partnership development, communications role)
Excellent written and oral communication skills
Experience working in the health sector or disability-related work
Experience in supporting or developing (social) media communications
Experience in managing websites (with user-friendly platforms like Squarespace)
Experience facilitating/organising events
Comfortable working with common IT-tools, i.e. Microsoft Office, Slack, Zoom.
A high degree of “start-up-drive” and ability to manage and complete tasks independently
Energy and passion for helping build this initiative and being comfortable with start-up nature
Fluency in English (written and spoken)
Desirable
Master’s degree or above in a relevant field
Based in a low- or middle-income country
Demonstrated experience working within the disability sector
Person with disabilities
Experience with a common project management tool like Asana, and working with changing content in Squarespace
How to apply
Please send a short cover letter and a current CV/resume to info@themissingbillion.org with ‘Application: Partnership and Communications Associate’ in the subject line.
The application deadline is October 29th.
Preference is given to candidates with disabilities
The Missing Billion Initiative is fiscally sponsored by Financing Alliance for Health.