Senior Health Specialist/Economist at World Bank: (Deadline 30 June 2022)

Senior Health Specialist/Economist at World Bank: (Deadline 30 June 2022)

Description

Working at the World Bank Group provides a unique opportunity for you to help our clients solve their greatest development challenges. The World Bank Group is one of the largest sources of funding and knowledge for developing countries; a unique global partnership of five institutions dedicated to ending extreme poverty, increasing shared prosperity and promoting sustainable development. With 189 member countries and more than 120 offices worldwide, we work with public and private sector partners, investing in groundbreaking projects and using data, research, and technology to develop solutions to the most urgent global challenges. For more information, visit www.worldbank.org

EASTERN & SOUTHERN AFRICA REGION CONTEXT

Home to about 700 million of Africa’s people, Eastern and Southern Africa is a geographically, culturally and economically diverse region of 26 countries stretching from the Red Sea in the North to the Cape of Good Hope in the South. Children under 18 make up almost half of the total population. The sub-region boasts of some of the world’s richest human and natural resources and, apart from South Africa, the countries are predominantly raw material exporters.

The sub-region harbors some of Africa’s protracted conflicts, rendering many of its countries fragile, while significant gaps in education, health, and skills development continues to keep people from reaching their full potential. This creates a huge development challenge, impacts heavily on the lives and livelihoods of people, and hinders regional integration and trade. But it also creates an opportunity to work closely with country leaders, civil society, development partners, and young people to chart a brighter course for the future.

The World Bank’s Eastern and Southern Africa Region, comprised of approximately 1,207 staff mostly based in 26 country offices, has been helping countries realize their considerable development potential by focusing on the following priorities:

• Creating Jobs and Transforming Economies: We are working with countries across Africa to stimulate job creation and economic transformation by leveraging all sources of finance, expertise, and solutions to promote investment.

• Building up the Digital Economy: We are supporting Africa’s vision to ensure that every African individual, business, and government is connected by 2030 – a vision that, if realized, can boost growth by up to 2 percentage points per year, and reduce poverty by 1 percentage point per year in Sub-Saharan Africa alone.

• Institutions more Efficient and Accountable: Our support is helping governments strengthen public policy processes, manage resources effectively, and reinforce fair and reliable delivery of public services.

• Investing in People: We are at the forefront of helping African countries accelerate human capital gains and empower women by improving their access to education and skills acquisition, sexual and reproductive health services, and employment opportunities. With the influx COVID-19, we are mobilizing financial support and timely analysis and advice to countries across the sub-region deal with the pandemic.

• Supporting Climate Change Mitigation and Adaption: In the face of increasing climate-related risks, we are working with African countries to advance efforts to adopt renewable energy, climate-smart agriculture, and green infrastructure. A number of East African countries are currently facing a debilitating Desert Locust infestation, threatening the already precarious food security situation. The Bank has put together a program to help affected countries deal with the scourge.

• Addressing the Drivers of Fragility, Conflict, and Violence: Given the cross-border nature of conflicts in Africa, we are employing an approach that simultaneously focuses on the drivers of fragility while also supporting well-targeted regional initiatives to create opportunities for peace and shared prosperity.

• Building Partnerships and Working across the African Continent: We are scaling up our work on regional integration, taking a holistic view of the continent that covers both North and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Eastern and Southern Africa (E AFR) Region: https://www.worldbank.org/en/region/afr/eastern-and-southern-africa

HEALTH, NUTRITION AND POPULATION GLOBAL PRACTICE CONTEXT

The central contribution of the Health, Nutrition, and Population (HNP) Global Practice to the World Bank’s twin goals is to enable the achievement of Universal Health Coverage (UHC), in which all people are effectively covered by essential health services, and nobody suffers undue financial hardship because of illnesses. The HNP Global Practice includes staff members in Washington, DC and many country offices. The HNP Global Practice works with and across multiple sectors, in recognition of the fact that HNP outcomes often depend on actions that lie outside the HNP sector. The HNP Global Practice supports country and regional efforts to: (i) improve health outcomes, especially for the poor and most vulnerable; (ii) expand access to high-quality HNP services, interventions and technologies that give the most value for money; (iii) strengthen health systems for results; (iv) establish and improve health financing mechanisms that promote efficiency, equity and sustainability of investments; (v) strengthen heath-relevant institutions within and outside the health sector; (vi) harness multisectoral policies and investments for better health outcomes; and (vii) develop and learn from rigorous impact evaluations. The HNP Global Practice works with and across multiple sectors, in recognition of the fact that HNP outcomes depend on actions that lie outside the HNP sector.  At the country level, HNP works closely with the Government and Health Partners (HP) seek ways to further improve the effectiveness of health sector spending program by improving the benefits from the available resources. HNP is seeking to hire a health specialist/economist to be based at the Rwanda Country Office in Kigali.

UNIT AND COUNTRY CONTEXT

The HNP team in Africa is divided into four units, two for Eastern and Southern Africa and two for Western and Central Africa. Each of the units covers threes CMUs. HAEH2 covers the DRC, Kenya, and South Africa CMUs, which collectively comprise of thirteen countries across Eastern and Southern Africa and is responsible for a large program of operational and analytic work. The World Bank Group is seeking a qualified professional to support the Rwanda HNP portfolio, including but not exclusively on the following:

• Stunting Prevention and Reduction Project, for which development objective is to contribute to the reduction in the stunting rate among children under five years of age (with a focus on under two) in 13 targeted districts.
• COVID19 Emergency Response Project, for which the development objective is to prevent, detect and respond to the threat posed by COVID-19 and strengthen national systems for public health preparedness in the Republic of Rwanda.
• Rwanda Digital Acceleration Project, co-implemented by Rwanda Information Society Authority (RISA) and Development Bank of Rwanda (DBR), the development objective is to increase access to broadband and selected digital public services and strengthen the digital innovation ecosystem. The project will support the digitization of selected public services, including health.
• Human Capital for Inclusive Growth – Development Policy Financing, for which the development objective is to support economic stability and inclusive growth in Rwanda by (i) promoting long-term fiscal sustainability, (ii) enhancing coverage and equity in access to critical social sector programs, (iii) enabling learning and development of children, and (iv) strengthening decentralized capacity and accountability for accelerated human capital development and other grants and funds to support analytical work in the social sectors.

The Position

The unit is looking for a motivated individual to join the Rwanda team as a Senior Health Specialist/Economist primarily supporting the HNP and selected HD portfolio of projects and analytical work in the country.  The position is based in Kigali, Rwanda.

This is a nationally recruited position in Rwanda, remuneration is based on the national market and Rwandan currency. Applicants based in Rwanda who are familiar with local conditions will have an added advantage in the selection process.

If the selected candidate is a current World Bank Group Staff Member with a Regular or Open-Ended appointment, s/he will retain his/her Regular or Open-Ended appointment. If the selected candidate is a current World Bank Group Staff Member with a Term appointment that expires later than the end date of this appointment, s/he will retain the duration of his/her current Term appointment. All other candidates will be offered a 4-year term appointment.

Duties and Accountabilities:

The Senior Health Specialist/Economist will have the following key responsibilities, inter alia:

• Provide implementation support, as needed, to the Bank’s HNP portfolio in Rwanda, which includes support to the HQ and local teams working on: (i) the COVID19 Emergency Response Project; (ii) the Stunting Prevention and Reduction Project; (iii) the Rwanda Digital Acceleration Project; (iv) the Human Capital for Inclusive Growth – Development Policy Financing; (v) Japan Social Development Fund (JSDF) – Support to female-led community-health workers (CHW);

• Support the government team to monitor and track progress on the implementation of activities under the above indicated projects; identify bottlenecks; and propose remedial actions.  This would involve close collaboration with the RBC/MOH teams responsible for the projects; conducting periodic visits to the target districts supported under the projects; participating and organizing Bank implementation support missions; and coordinating with other development partners supporting the projects including in the districts;

• Represent the WBG in national platforms, including development partner and RBC/MOH/NECDP meetings and report back to the task teams on major issues;

•Contribute to the technical discussions and monitoring of the Bank portfolio in close
collaboration with the relevant government agencies and development partners;

• Assist the task teams with policy dialogue, communications, and interactions with government counterparts, country stakeholders as well as development partners;

• Contribute to sector-specific inputs for various operational products/outputs (e.g., sector/country briefings, background reports, portfolio performance reviews, etc.);
• Contribute to and participate in missions of the health and HD teams in Rwanda as directed; and

• Respond to ad hoc information requests from internal and external parties.

The work will be substantive in nature, requiring frequent missions in the field and interactions with various external and internal counterparts in Rwanda.

The Senior Health Specialist/ Economist will report to the HNP Practice Manager for HAEH2. As a field-based staff member, the selected Senior Health Specialist/Economist will work closely with the respective Task Team Leaders from HNP GP and other GPs as well as with staff of the  Country Management Unit (CMU).  The Senior Health Specialist/Economist will be subject to all World Bank regulations and guidelines applicable to staff.

Selection Criteria

• At least a Master’s degree in health economics, public health, or a related field. A PhD would be considered an added advantage.

• At least 10 years of full-time professional experience. Experience in health economics, pandemic response, and Universal Health Care issues. Experience working in Rwanda is a must.

• At least 5 years working for international development institution (public, NGO or private) or academia.

•Consistent record of working on health, nutrition, and population issues.

• Demonstrated expertise in policy dialogue and the ability to interact effectively with Government officials and a range of partners at various levels.

• Ability to analyze cross-sectional household and administrative data as well as budgetary and other relevant data.

• Familiarity with statistical analyses, econometric methods, and related software, preferably STATA.

• Demonstrated track record of synthesizing complex analytics and results into user-friendly outputs, including PowerPoint presentations, Policy Briefs and Working Papers.

• Shown analytical skills linking strategic and quantitative analysis, and the ability to inform high-level policy dialogue through strong communications (including writing) skills, including data visualization skills.
• Respectful and client-engagement skills and demonstrated success working with multi-disciplinary teams.

• Strong interpersonal and communication skills.

• Ability to work independently with limited supervision and handle multiple tasks, meet changing priorities, and deliver high-quality analysis and work on-time.

• Willingness to travel extensively in country and possible to other countries as necessary, including to remote rural areas.

• Fluency in English (excellent oral and written communication skills) is required, with ability to prepare documents on complex subjects, speak and write persuasively, and present ideas clearly and concisely.

• Fluency in French is preferred.

In addition to the above, the selected candidate is expected to demonstrate the following WBG core competencies:

• Integrative Skills – Understands core issues and knows where to get additional expertise when needed.

• Knowledge and Experience in Development Arena – Understands policy making process and role of the health sector in that process.  Is able to find relevant information and examine similar policy questions in multiple regions and to distill operationally relevant recommendations and lessons from this analysis for clients.

• Policy Dialogue Skills – Identifies and assesses policy issues and communicates findings/points of view verbally and through economic reports and papers.  Plays an active role in the dialogue with the government and/or other stakeholders as part of Bank teams.

• Client Orientation – Maintains client relationships in the face of conflicting demands or directions and provides evidence-based advice and solutions based on sound diagnosis and knowledge.

• Drive for Results – Identifies the needed resources to accomplish results involving multiple stakeholders and finds solutions to obstacles affecting key deliverables.

• Teamwork (Collaboration) and Inclusion – Shows leadership in ensuring the team stays organized and focused, and actively seeks and considers diverse ideas and approaches.

World Bank Group Core Competencies

The World Bank Group offers comprehensive benefits, including a retirement plan; medical, life and disability insurance; and paid leave, including parental leave, as well as reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities.

We are proud to be an equal opportunity and inclusive employer with a dedicated and committed workforce, and do not discriminate based on gender, gender identity, religion, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or disability.

Learn more about working at the World Bank and IFC, including our values and inspiring stories.

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