Description
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, costed before they are procured and built on shared foundations that later investments can reuse.
The High-Impact Solutions for Scale programme works through two components. In eight countries, country offices are supporting governments to prepare investment-ready digital health blueprints (costed, government-endorsed roadmaps carrying the functional and interoperability requirements that finance ministries and lenders need), timed to the financing windows and preparation cycles of the World Bank, regional development banks and Gavi. In three further countries, the programme funds the operationalization of a health information exchange (HIE), such as registries, terminology services and interoperability components, without which point-of-care applications end up joined through workarounds and duplicated databases at high and recurring cost.
Success is measured by the financing that follows these two components, and the national systems it builds. UNICEF country offices retain government relationships and programme accountability throughout, with technical backstopping from the Health Centre of Excellence and a set of institutional technical partners. Therefore, UNICEF's role shifts from implementing on behalf of governments to accompanying them as a trusted technical adviser through the design, financing and early delivery of systems they steward, whatever the mix of financing behind them. This consultancy strengthens country offices’ ability to position digital health within larger financing operations by providing time-bound analytical, financing, costing and investment planning support.
This consultancy has two purposes. The first, which accounts for most of the assignment, is to provide participating country offices with the analysis, technical input and coordination on digital health financing that most of them do not have in-house, given limited programme staff and digital health expertise. The second is to help UNICEF build credibility and working relationships with IFIs, including regional development banks such as IDB, CAF, ADB and AfDB, by demonstrating a model of technical accompaniment that can extend to other countries with comparable financing opportunities. Currently, UNICEF staff hold these relationships at headquarters, regional offices and country offices, among Health Section colleagues in Panama, Nairobi and Bangkok. The consultant will support UNICEF staff to facilitate and follow through on this ongoing engagement.
The consultant will lead technical support to the digital health financing and investment advisory support across the programme. This includes mapping and tracking the financing windows open to participating countries, preparing analysis and briefs that position digital health within IFI operations and national budget cycles, and contributing investment cases that Ministries of Health, Ministries of Finance and lenders can use. The consultant will work closely with the UNICEF Health Economics and Financing (HEF) team, Health Section colleagues in the COEs, and with IFI teams whose operations cover the participating countries. The assignment requires periodic face-to-face engagement in Panama and working hours that overlap substantially with Latin America and the Caribbean. Fluency in Spanish is required.
If you would like to know more about this consultancy, please review the complete Terms of Reference here: ToRTMC0007656.pdf
To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have...
Education: Master’ in Health economics, health financing, economics, public policy, public health, international development or a related field. A first-level university degree with two additional years of relevant experience may be accepted in place of an advanced degree.
Work Experience: At least eight years of progressively responsible experience in health financing, health sector investment planning or development finance in low- and middle-income countries, including at least five years working with or within the World Bank or regional development banks on health sector operations (preparation, appraisal or financing instrument design), and a record of producing costed investment cases, financing strategies or national health or digital health roadmaps for governments.
Skills: Knowledge of IFI operation cycles and financing instruments, national budget processes and public financial management.
Language Requirements: Fluency in English and Spanish is required. Spanish is a screening requirement, and candidates without it are not evaluated further. French is an advantage.
Desirables: Experience in one or more regions of the participating countries.