Extended Term Consultant
| Job #: | req25421 |
| Organization: | World Bank |
| Sector: | Health/Nutrition/Population |
| Grade: | EC3 |
| Term Duration: | 1 year 0 months |
| Recruitment Type: | Local Recruitment |
| Location: | Manila,Philippines |
| Required Language(s): | English |
| Preferred Language(s): | |
| Closing Date: | 12/27/2023 (MM/DD/YYYY) at 11:59pm UTC |
Description
Do you want to build a career that is truly worthwhile? 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.Visitwww.worldbank.org.
East Asia Pacific (EAP) Region context:
EAP is a large and diverse region, ranging from Small Island States of the Pacific, currently IDA recipients, to large MIC countries and IBRD borrowers such as the Philippines, Indonesia, and China. Despite substantial economic growth and poverty reduction, the EAP region faces huge development challenges. Growth has been uneven across and within countries, institutions still need strengthening, and most countries are heavily affected by climate change. The World Bank plays a significant role prioritizing global public goods, including climate, biodiversity, clean water, and health. The COVID pandemic, and more recently food and energy price increases, are compounding the impact of the global economic slowdown. The World Bank is seen as a premier development institution in the Region, with a leadership role on analytical and advisory services as well as financing.
East Asia and the Pacific Region: https://www.worldbank.org/en/region/eap
Health, Nutrition and Population (HNP) Global Practice (GP) context:
The central contribution of the HNP GP to the World Banks 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. Our GP includes staff members in Washington, DC, and many country offices. The HNP Global Practice works with and across multiple sectors, recognizing that HNP outcomes often depend on actions 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.
Health, Nutrition and Population Global Practice: https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/health
Country Context: Philippines, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea
Philippines
At the national level, the Philippines has sound, comprehensive health strategies and policies. Yet decentralization and extreme devolution of responsibilities for health financing and service delivery to local government units (LGUs) have resulted in systemic inefficiencies and inequity in access to health services, leading to poor health outcomes. The delivery of equitable health services has long been a challenge; this is due to geographical variation in access to care, a fragmented health systems environment, under-resourced primary health care, and varying pandemic preparedness at the local level. Coverage of basic health programs lags behind middle-income country comparators, with immunization coverage at its lowest point in twenty years, poor maternal health outcomes, and high levels of malnutrition. The Philippines has a stunting prevalence of almost 30%, categorized as very high based on the WHO classification of public health significance of undernutrition rates. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated childhood undernutrition.
The World Bank is supporting the digitization of the country’s healthcare system and prioritizing the improvement of access to essential health services. This is being done through various lending operations and technical assistance in the post-COVID era.
Malaysia
Malaysia has a dual-tiered system of healthcare services: one led by the government and funded by taxpayers, and the other provided by the private sector. Like other upper-middle-income countries (UMIC), the rapid demographic transition and growing burden of non-communicable diseases are the biggest threats to the financial sustainability of the current healthcare system. Digital health tools and investments in digital solutions could help address some of the challenges of maintaining and expanding Malaysia’s healthcare services and ensure quality, affordability, and patient-centric healthcare.
The World Bank is providing Technical Assistance (TA) to the Government of Malaysia for conducting a Supply and Demand Study (as a Reimbursable Advisory Service or RAS). The main objective of this study is to develop a Health Resource Master Plan that includes a comprehensive and integrated analysis of Malaysia’s healthcare facilities, equipment, and human resources in terms of supply and demand. This analysis will be followed by a gap and projection analysis for selected scenarios of service delivery redesign (SDR) until the year 2045. The specific objectives of the overall Supply and Demand Study are: (1) review and map the current state of the health systemincluding supply of current healthcare facilities, medical equipment, human resources for health, facility utilization information, ICT infrastructure, data sources, and governance and management, and demand side characteristics, including sociodemographic information, data sources, and health indices in Malaysiausing an interactive tool/dashboard and geographical information system (GIS); (2) recommend standards for healthcare services based on population needs and disease burden at the state and local levels, and suggest key planning units which will be used for gap and projection analysis; and (3) conduct a gap and projection analysis to support development of a Healthcare Resource Master Plan, and map results using an interactive tool/dashboard and GIS.
Papua New Guinea (PNG)
Papua New Guinea (PNG) is a lower-middle-income country with a population of approximately 10 million. It is mostly rural and has difficult terrain and inadequate transportation infrastructure, making it hard for many people to access healthcare services. Poor health outcomes, such as high rates of maternal, infant, and under-five mortality, contribute to low productivity, particularly in a country where many rely on subsistence farming. One of the key themes in the national health strategy is using digital technology to overcome geographical barriers and human resource gaps, as well as to enhance transparency and accountability in public service delivery.
The PNG Health Programmatic Advisory Services and Analytics (ASA) includes helping to advise the Ministry of Health (MOH) in digital health and leveraging digital tools that can be tested by MOH in selected provinces through its World Bank-supported investment project (IMPACT Health), for potential scalable application. Specific objectives include: (i) measuring the performance of the health sector at the provincial level through the integration of different data systems (service delivery, financing, human resources, logistics management, other) and the use of that data for better accountability and planning; (ii) strengthening supervision of primary health care facilities through digitally-facilitated checklists that help to systematize supervision and measure and benchmark progress; (iii) developing an integrated picture of different revenue sources that are meant to finance health services at a local level (given that health financing is highly fragmented and PHAs do not often have full information on the resources available to finance local health services); and (iv) strengthening service delivery by using an online system to help collect and monitor the physical status of health facilities in order to direct available funding (foreign and domestic) to the most pressing needs. In the process of actively engaging in these areas, the Ministry of Health also seeks general strategic advice in digital health and development.
Duties and Accountabilities
The World Bank is seeking an Extended Term Consultant (ETC) to advise the Governments of the Philippines, Malaysia, and Papua New Guinea, among others, on improving health outcomes and service delivery with a particular focus on leveraging digital tools to improve the transparency, accountability, quality, and relevance of information available to health providers, planners, and policymakers.
The position will be based in Manila, Philippines for the duration of the contract for one year with possibility to extension on annually basis up to 3 years under Extended Term Consultant contract.
Specific responsibilities include:
Contribute to the design of lending operations to advance digital health solutions to improve health service delivery, data governance, use and transparency.
Conduct desk reviews, key informant interviews, and field visits to understand the countries digital health landscape, including but not limited to existing information systems, health data structures and governance, and digital health literacy.
Develop and maintain knowledge about national and digital sector strategies, implementation progress, and information management eco-systems of each country specific to the health sector.
Provide strategic advice to relevant stakeholders on reforms and interventions to advance digital transformation in the health sector, improve system quality and efficiency, and provide options for strengthening the impact and sustainability of investments in digital health.
Advise the World Bank team and the Governments on appropriate design and implementation approaches, platforms, and technologies to respond to the key issues being addressed through the Banks health portfolio, considering global best practice, local country context and capacity, and sustainability.
Support the development of demonstration models and prototypes, particularly with respect to the integration and use of data across different information systems, for analyzing the performance of the health sector.
Support the improvement of data analytics and data use for decision making at national and local government levels.
Strengthen the capacity of stakeholders in data quality assurance, data analytics for evidence-based decision making, and information system/digital tools maintenance.
Assist the World Bank task team leader in supervising other consultants mobilized to provide specific expertise in digital health.
Contribute to presentations, reports, mission aide memoires, briefings and similar materials.
Provide other support on digital health to WB task teams as needed.
Selection Criteria
Master’s degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, or a related field.
Minimum of Eight years of professional experience in information and communication technologies (ICT), including at least 5 years working in inernational development contexts.
Demonstrated success in analyzing, designing and/or developing management information systems in the health, social protection and/or education sectors, and presenting findings in concise deliverables (e.g. reports and presentations).
Demonstrated experience in integration of data for the purpose of performance tracking and management dashboards.
Advanced knowledge of best practices for the design, development, deployment and maintenance of scalable, interoperable and effective management information systems in developing country contexts.
Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to identify and address technical challenges.
Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to collaborate effectively with cross-functional teams.
Excellent written and oral presentation skills.
World Bank Group Core Competencies
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 theWorld BankandIFC, including our values and inspiring stories.
Note: The selected candidate will be offered a one-year appointment, renewable at the discretion of the World Bank Group, and subject to a lifetime maximum ET appointment of three years. If an ET appointment ends before a full year, it is considered as a full year toward the lifetime maximum. Former and current ET staff who have completed all or any portion of their third-year ET appointment are not eligible for future ET appointments.