Technical Consultant - Design of the Bauchi State Contributory Health Scheme at Palladium Group

Background

• Palladium is a global impact firm, working with corporations, governments, investors, communities, and civil society to link social progress and commercial growth. With a global network operating in over 90 countries, Palladium is in the business of making the world a better place and for over 50 years, has been formulating strategies, building partnerships, and implementing programs that have a lasting social and financial impact. This, Palladium simply calls "Positive Impact".
• The USAID Integrated Health Program (IHP) is implemented by a consortium led by the Palladium Group and is an expanded effort by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) with the Government of Nigeria (GON) to identify and provide technical support for rapid scale-up of proven interventions through improvement of service delivery and strengthening of health systems. The activity will facilitate seven core intervention areas: health system strengthening (HSS), reproductive health/family planning, child health, maternal and newborn health, nutrition and malaria (RMNCH +NM).
• The Decentralization of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) and consequent establishment of State Health Insurance/Contributory Schemes (SHIS) across the country is one of the key policy thrusts of the Government of Nigeria aimed at reforming the health financing landscape for a stronger health system and improved health outcomes. To realize this laudable reform effort, IHP shall be supporting the Bauchi, Kebbi and Sokoto states to put in place necessary design elements for the effective roll-out and implementation of the various State contributory health schemes (SCHS). In Bauchi state, the law establishing the Bauchi State Contributory Health Scheme (BASCHES) has been passed and an Executive Secretary has been appointed to head the Bauchi State Contributory Health Management Agency (BASCHMA). With support from erstwhile USAID projects, the state has developed several technical documents including the operational guidelines, establishment plan, funds management guidelines, and conducted health financing analytics (Fiscal Space Analysis, Actuarial analysis) to guide evidence based and context appropriate pre-payment design. It is anticipated that the State Contributory Health Scheme will take off before the end of 2019.
• The IHP project which aims to partner the State Government and other stakeholders to sustainably improve health outcomes has identified the establishment of a prepayment health mechanism as an important approach for achieving sustainable financing for health, increasing access to critical health services and improving financial risk protection for the populace. Based on this, IHP further recognizes the need for organizational and technical capacity to effectively implement the BASCHES, hence health insurance operations and technical assistance.

Rationale

• For the BASCHES to be successful, it will be important to bring in as large a contributory population as possible. To start this will be the public sector civil servants and to increase the risk pool, it would be important to start engaging other employer sectors such as labour unions.  In Bauchi, the labour unions represent of 600,000 (9% of total 6.7million population size) of workers and their families.

Objective

• The goal of this consultancy is the development and signing of agreements between BASCHMA and the two organized labor organizations.
• This consultancy aims to provide, together with a health financing expert and IHP Health Financing Advisors, technical assistance to the Bauchi State Contributory Health Scheme to negotiate and achieve buy-in among the public sector and private sector workers’ unions active in Bauchi.

Roles and Responsibilities
Support BASCHMA in the engagement of the organized labour (TUC and NLC) for the civil servants and private employment sector of the BASCHES component:

• Provide guidance and support the development of strategic targeted advocacy and negotiation material and messages for the organized labour sector to get buy in to BASCHES
• With BASCHMA, facilitate advocacy visits to both public and private organized labour unions
• Develop an orientation package for the organized labour leadership
• Assist BASCHMA to organize, facilitate and document a 2-day orientation on health insurance for the organized labour leadership and jointly draft agreements for TUC and NCL.
• Write weekly progress reports on the status of the technical assistance and a final report with all deliverables in word and pdf formats.

Skills and Expertise Required
The consultant should possess the following:

• A Bachelor's degree or its equivalent from a reputable University in Medicine, Sciences, or numerate disciplines such as Actuarial Science, Statistics, Insurance, etc.
• Post graduate qualification (Master’s or PhD) in Management, Public Health, Health Management, Health Economics, Insurance or other related fields
• Certification in and/or professional membership of Health, Management and Health Insurance related bodies shall be an added advantage
• Minimum of 5 years’ progressive experience in the health insurance space, Universal Health Coverage and other related field.
• Experience in developing and delivering capacity building workshops; including on UHC and Health insurance implementation
• Good understanding of current health financing reform initiatives in Nigeria especially at the subnational level;
• Experience carrying out similar assignments in Nigeria particularly at the sub-national level.

Required technical competences:

• Familiar with results-based management.
• Strong proven advocacy and interpersonal relationship skills
• Knowledgeable about change theories and health system approaches
• Expert in Capacity Building through Coaching and Mentoring.
• Strong and proven writing skills with experience writing government policy documents, guidelines, etc.)
• Expert in capacity development for UHC and social health insurance.

Required personal competences:

• Analytical skills
• Leadership and coaching skills
• Good interpersonal skills
• Demonstrated negotiation skills
• Good communication skills (moderation, representation, presentation of results)
• Strong oral and writing skills in English
• Spoken Hausa.