Job Description

Position: Technical Advisor, Health Workforce Financing & Analytics

Team: CHAI Rwanda Health Workforce

Role: Full Time

Location: Kigali, Rwanda

Contract date: May 2021

Level: 5

 Overview

The Clinton Health Access Initiative, Inc. (CHAI) is a global health organization committed to saving lives and reducing the burden of disease in low-and middle-income countries, while strengthening the capabilities of governments and the private sector in those countries to create and sustain high-quality health systems that can succeed without our assistance. For more information, please visit: http://www.clintonhealthaccess.org.

 CHAI Health Workforce Background

A skilled health workforce is the backbone of every health system and therefore an essential precondition for progress toward universal health coverage (UHC). However, the WHO estimates that there is a global shortage of 18 million health workers. The gap is most acute in Africa (with a shortage of 4.2 million), which bears 24% of the global burden of disease yet has only 4% of the world’s health workforce.

CHAI assists governments to develop their health workforces by enhancing their capacity to train highly qualified health workers and by strengthening national systems to finance, deploy, and manage those health workers.

CHAI’s approach to national heath workforce strengthening emphasizes three strategies: (i) improving the quality and strategically increasing the scale of education for health workers, (ii) expanding and optimizing health workforce financing, and (iii) providing technical assistance to governments to strengthen their overall health workforce planning and management systems.

Two key principles guide CHAI’s approach to workforce development. The first is focusing on the right kind of health workers—from community health workers to midwives, nurses, health managers, general physicians and medical specialists—based on national need and service delivery objectives. CHAI’s approach also emphasizes sustainability by building the institutional capacity of the schools and universities where health workers are trained, training new generations of health professions educators, and developing systems and individual capabilities within governments to better plan and manage their own health workforces.

CHAI’s health workforce programs vary by country, as they reflect the major barriers and opportunities to workforce development in that specific context, as well as the priorities of the host government. Currently, CHAI is focused on health workforce programming in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Position Overview

The government of Rwanda developed the National Strategy for Health Professions Development (NSHPD) 2020-2030, a 10-year plan to strengthen and expand the Rwandan health workforce though improved and expanded pre-service training. The strategy outlines national health workforce targets for 37 cadres of providers, and the necessary inputs to training institutions to scale up enrollment and graduation to meet those targets. The government has created a Human Resources for Health Secretariat (HRH Secretariat) to manage implementation of the strategy. The HRH Secretariat has requested CHAI’s support to set up the Secretariat team and functions, and initiate implementation of the NSHPD.

The Technical Advisor for Health Workforce Financing and Analytics will work with the CHAI Rwanda Health Workforce team to support the HRH Secretariat on a variety of financial and non-financial analytics workstreams, including resource mobilization, wage bill forecasting, information management and systems development, and health technology assessments. It is expected that the responsibilities will remain flexible to respond to the needs and requests of the HRH Secretariat while the objectives of the NSHPD are achieved.

In the first years of the NSHPD, the HRH Executive Secretariat must secure resources from development finance partners to implement the national strategy, requiring an extraordinary amount of scoping, documentation, and analyses to successfully mobilize and unlock resources from bilateral, multilateral and private foundation funders.

This role will support the HRH Secretariat to develop an accurate forecasting on wage bill expansion necessary to hire graduates of the prioritized training programs, and work with the Secretariat to ensure these costs are included in annual government budgets. The role will work with the secretariat to build data and analysis systems and capabilities to routinely update and share summaries with relevant stakeholders at ministries of health, education, labor, and finance.

Excellent analytical, organizational, communication and cultural sensitivity skills are required as this role will be working closely with government and external partners. Passion for results and a commitment to excellence are needed, in addition to sound technical skills from a background in analytics and health financing. Although categorized as a “technical adviser,” this role is not limited to advising and will be required to develop documentation and deliverables as requested by the secretariat of the health workforce team.

This position will work in direct support of the HRH Secretariat and MOH, while formally reporting to the CHAI Rwanda Health Workforce team lead and will coordinate with the Health Workforce Global Team, CHAI Rwanda and CHAI Global Sustainable Health Financing teams, and other teams at CHAI as needed.

This position is based in Kigali, Rwanda and may require some national travel.

This role is anticipated to start in January 2021 through at least December 2021. Extension of this role is at the discretion of the CHAI Rwanda Health Workforce team leadership and contingent on performance and funding availability.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop workforce financing analyses to inform government decision makers on key areas of implementation of the NSHPD
• Develop accurate forecasting of wage bill expansion necessary to hire graduates of the prioritized training programs
• Facilitate analysis and communication as needed to ensure workforce training and employment and educational activities are budgeted for in annual government budget
• Support development of government data management and analysis systems, especially as they relate to workforce training, deployment, and financing
• Support the government to mobilize an estimated US$200M+ of external resources towards the delivery of the NSHPD by
  • engaging and supporting government champions and stakeholders with briefs, analysis, recommendations;
  • drawing linkages between NSHPD and other national government strategies and initiatives to ensure coherent government resource mobilization efforts;
  • scoping potential funding institutions and opportunities and developing concept notes and briefs recommending government course of action to engage and access funds;
  • develop proposal narratives, budgets, and requisite analyses needed by government to submit to funders to access funds
• Develop internal and external documents, briefs, memos, and presentations to clearly articulate output of analytical work and ensure clear communication and implications for decision makers
• Partner closely with designated counterparts in the HRH Secretariat, MOH, and MOE/University of Rwanda and engage in intentional bi-directional capacity building
• Support measurement & evaluation technical advisor by providing additional analytics capacity as needed
• Collaborate with Sustainable Health Financing Team to develop linkages where necessary between workstreams to ensure delivery of team objectives
• Other tasks as deemed necessary by the health workforce team lead to ensure successful completion of team deliverables, including in areas not explicitly covered in the above responsibilities

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent with 5+ years of work experience
• Extensive experience conducting financial analyses and resource mobilization
• Demonstrated ability to be self-directed and work collaboratively and effectively in high-pressure, fast-paced environment and handle multiple tasks simultaneously
• Exceptional diplomatic and interpersonal skills, and an ability to collaborate effectively with a wide range of partners and stakeholders
• Excellent project management skills, specifically demonstrated experience in delivering complex projects with extended timescales
  • Proven track record in managing challenging multi-stakeholder situations to achieve intended results
• Demonstrated quantitative and qualitative analysis skills with proficiency in relevant software packages
• Excellent organizational, problem solving and analytical skills
• Strong oral and written communication skills, including the ability to effectively synthesize large amounts of information and potentially complex analyses for consumption by a wide audience
• High attention to detail

Preferred Experience

• Master’s degree in health economics or relevant subject matter with 3+ years of work experience; or relevant PhD degree with 2+ years of work experience
• Experience living or working in resource-constrained country
• Experience working closely with and in support of government partners
• Experience developing and implementing M&E systems for large, complex programs
• Knowledge of global health workforce challenges and solutions