Health Financing Technical Advisor at Health Systems Consult Limited (HSCL)

Location: Abuja
Reports to: The Associate Director - Health Financing, Abuja

About the Project

• HSCL is a member of the consortium that will be implementing a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) funded Demand Side Financing (DSF) Project in Kaduna and Niger States of Nigeria
• The 3-year DSF Project will provide technical assistance and capacity building services to the iwo states for the design and implementation of DSF scheme(s) to improve access to quality Primary Health Care (PHC) services.

Responsibilities

• The Health Financing Technical Advisor will be responsible for a range of tasks that include, but not limited to the following:
• Provide technical advisory support to the states' contributory health scheme agencies, healthcare financing Technical Working Groups (TWGs) and other necessary stakeholder platforms
• Providing technical support to the government and partners on various aspects of health financing schemes, including technical presentations at TWG meetings, review of facilitation materials, and quality assurance of policy proposals developed by the team members
• Support Kaduna and Niger states as well as the federal government counterparts in the design and implementation of health financing schemes, with a focus on strategic purchasing, sustainable financing and efficient administration mechanisms
• Provide ongoing mentoring and capacity-building through small group technical seminars, periodic training activities and other approaches - on strategic purchasing and other health financing components to state stakeholders and consortium staff as needed.
• Work with the consortium at all levels on all technical aspects of the scheme
• Provide technical advice during health financing policy dialogue with government and non-governmental stakeholders to reinforce the role of demand side financing and strategic purchasing in overall health financing policy framework, design and implementation of state health insurance schemes
• Analytical support to enrollment, claims, and utilization data analysis for PHC services
• Synthesize global and Nigerian evidence regarding health systems and financing reforms and translate into actionable recommendations and evidence briefs
• Provide expert technical guidance for commissioned research and analysis to inform scheme design and implementation, including synthesizing and interpreting existing analyses for the TWG, guidance to formulate research questions for new analyses, quality oversight of research methods and analysis, support to drafting final research reports
• Draft progress summaries, policy briefs, and technical reports as requested
• Communicating results orally and in writing to a variety of policy audiences
• Act as the analytical expert at development partners and government counterpart meetings taking place in the states, and in Abuja, as requested.

Qualifications

• The ideal candidate will be a highly-motivated and collaborative technical expert, who is closely familiar (through work) with Government of Nigeria (GON) healthcare financing reforms and has excellent analytic, communication skills and some stakeholder management experience
• Master's Degree in relevant field (Health Financing, Health Economics, Public Health, Public/Social Policy, Public Administration or similar)
• Minimum of 5 years relevant work experience that demonstrates expertise in health financing (specifically strategic health purchasing and/or provider payment mechanisms) and quantitative and qualitative research
• Strong writer and oral communicator; able to lead the production of highly professional work products
• Strong interpersonal skills
• In-depth knowledge of the Nigerian health system, key health system actors, and state governments
• Previous experience at the state-level strongly preferred
• Proven ability to provide on-the-job capacity building, coaching and facilitation of trainings
• Ability to develop policy briefs, and other advocacy materials, as well as the ability to construct evidence-based arguments and speak to, and demonstrate, strong technical knowledge in health financing
• Proficiency in Microsoft office and one or more of the following statistical languages: SPSS, Stata, SAS, and/or R.
• Ability to engage in technical and policy discussion with representatives of the government and other development partners
• Proven abilities to set priorities, multi-task, and work independently without daily supervision
• Experience executing analyses using medical claims and/or other health financing program data is preferred.