Digital Health Financing and Investment Consultant

Digital Health Financing and Investment Consultant

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...

Minimum requirements:

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.

• Knowledge of IFI operation cycles and financing instruments, national budget processes and public financial management.

• Working knowledge of how digital health investment is costed and planned, including familiarity with the WHO Digital Implementation Investment Guide, the World Bank Digital Health Blueprint Toolkit and/or comparable approaches.

• Ability to translate digital health architecture and system requirements into investment costing and financing language for non-technical audiences.

• Ability to write concise analytical products for Ministries of Finance, Ministries of Health and IFI task teams.

• Ability to work across several countries and time zones with limited supervision.

• 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.

• Experience supporting health sector investment planning or IFI engagement in Latin Ameri