Reference Form

Candidate Name: Gerishon Gachoki

Position in Consideration: Deputy Country Representative, South Sudan

Referee Name: Dr. Kediende Chong

Chair, Country Coordinating Mechanism and
Title:
Director General, Ministry of Health, South Sudan
Relationship to Candidate: Past Supervisor

+211912230746
Telephone: Email: mkediende@gmail.com
+211928355324

Please answer the following questions to the best of your ability:

Q. What do you believe are the candidate’s greatest assets and/or strengths in the work
environment?
A. Gerishon is dependable, and self-motivated. He also works very well with partners
with a lot of openness and communicates clearly and regularly. PSI was a PR for the
malaria grant and I am the chair of the Country Coordinating Mechanism (CCM). I
interacted almost daily with Gerishon. I found him to be a brilliant team leader, and
able to manage operations very well across several stakeholders, including managing
other International and national NGOs who were grant sub recipients. He drove
change across the delivery of the program, for example, performance based contracts
for INGOs for LLIN distribution, and increasing iCCM uptake through the Global Fund
grant. He also organized a national wide review of the iCCM project with us at the
ministry and this led to many positive implementation outcomes. I found him to be
very committed and self-driven.

Q. Are there specific weaknesses or challenges that you believe the candidate
possesses?
A. There were no specific weaknesses I found with Gerishon, but I saw him to be very
aware and conscious of himself, and he easily accepted direction. We at the ministry
and the CCM felt we had a good and open partner, willing to listen and who also
communicated clearly back to us, therefore ensuring that there were no
misunderstandings or conflict between his former organization and ourselves.

Q. How would you describe her/his management style? Please share your knowledge of
the candidate’s ability to work with, coordinate, and/or manage multi-disciplinary
and/or multi-cultural teams.
A. Gerishon was a respected person by his workers and also partners who worked with
him. He was comfortable in Juba and also comfortable in the farthest part of the
country. He built relationships with the community, Juba University, and also with the
leadership at the Ministry of Health. He allowed people to participate and provide

1
 feedback to major decisions, and he was also not afraid to share his opinion with us
at the ministry or the CCM.

Q. How well does s/he work under deadlines and pressure?

A. Gerishon met all deadlines. As the PR for the Malaria Grant, reports, disbursement
requests, budget spending reports, alignments requests and implementation
progress reports were always delivered on time and these were of very high quality.
During country dialogue meetings, Gerishon would present on behalf of the
organization and answered questions and provide corrections in the agreed format
and within agreed timelines.

Q. How well does the candidate accept direction and/or feedback from others?
A. Gerishon easily accepts feedback and on many occasions, he would always be in my
office seeking directions and clarifications. We achieved a lot of progress because of
the open and professional environment that he allowed to exist. The donor and the
LFA would also provide feedback and as per the implementing guidelines, Gerishon
would provide the CCM and the MoH with follow-up reports on feedback received
from the Global Fund or the LFA

Q. Please give an example of a difficult situation that the candidate encountered on a

project. How did s/he handle the situation? What was the impact and result?
A. One of the Implementing partners for the Global Fund project was the National
Malaria Control Program (NMCP). Being a government department, some of the staff
were found not to have followed some procedures. What Gerishon did was to
organize a training of the staff in coordination with the Global Fund and the CCM. The
result was that all the NMCP staff were empowered and they could deliver on their
expectations with minimal errors.

Q. On a scale of 1-5, with 1 being the lowest rating and 5 being the highest, please rate
the candidate in the following areas:
A.
Writing Skills:
Initiative: =5
Flexibility: =5
Reliability: =5
Leadership: =5
Professionalism: =5