Director of Health Financing Job at Palladium Group

Palladium is a global leader in the design, development and delivery of Positive Impact - the intentional creation of enduring social and economic value. We work with foundations, investors, governments, corporations, communities and civil society to formulate strategies and implement solutions that generate lasting social, environmental and financial benefits.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Position: Director of Health Financing 

Job ID: req19222
Job Location: Abuja

Project Overview and Role

• The USAID Integrated Health Program Nigeria, implemented by Palladium, is an integrated health program with an expanded effort with the Government of Nigeria (GON) to identify and support rapid scale-up of proven interventions through improvement of service delivery and strengthening of health systems.
• It focuses on six service delivery intervention areas: maternal health, newborn health, family planning, child health, malaria, and nutrition.

 Primary Duties and Responsibilities

• Palladium is recruiting a Director of Health Financing who will work on the USAID/Nigeria Integrated Health Program (IHP) to provide senior level leadership to design and lead activities related to health financing for universal health coverage.
• Specifically, this position will provide national and global content knowledge and best practices, technical assistance, and support for the development and execution of health financing and financial risk protection activities. 
• Areas of expertise include fiscal space analysis, budget tracking, bottleneck analysis, system of health accounts, resource needs and financing gap analysis, domestic resource mobilization, risk pooling and health insurance, resource optimization, designing costed packages of services and strategic purchasing.
• Methodologies that may be applied include systematic literature reviews, health financing and budget performance tracking, financial and BHPCF/health insurance enrollment and utilization data analysis, PHC level business plans and expenditure tracking, accountability dashboards, public-private partnerships, qualitative and quantitative surveys, governance/regulatory assessments, innovative financing and financial feasibility of proposals for expansion of health programs and risk-pooling schemes.
• The candidate will be required to Identify innovative solutions for increasing enrollment and achieve other health financing results in social health protection schemes/ financial risk protection schemes.
• The candidate will also be required to determine methods and procedures on new assignments, and both implement and manage other staff or consultants in carrying them out.
• The Director of Health Financing will provide technical assistance to and build capacity of country policymakers, state program managers and decision-makers; design and or conduct studies; and write position papers, reports, and technical briefs to inform relevant audiences.
• These responsibilities will require a person with knowledge on national and state governments as well as the private health sector participation. This position requires frequent travel to the five IHP target states. This position reports to the Deputy Chief of Party.
• The position is based in IHP's Abuja Country Office in Nigeria.

Reporting and Supervision:

• This position reports to the Deputy Chief of Party and provides supervision to the Senior Health Finance Advisor and technical guidance and oversight of IHP’s state health financing advisors.

Responsibilities

• Provides health financing expertise/technical assistance and expert technical guidance based on proven global and in-country approaches to National and State activities of the project, working with other technical staff and host country government institutions.
• Works with the national and state level actors to establish and or strengthen multi sectoral health financing technical working groups (TWGs) to institutionalize ongoing health financing reforms.
• Provides technical advisory support to the state’s contributory health agencies, state health trust fund agencies, and other relevant stakeholder platforms for the empanelment of public and private healthcare facilities, operational efficiencies for premium payments and reimbursements to health facilities for services.
• Designs and executes the overall health financing strategy for the project and support the MEL team to track the achievement of project results for health financing under the USAID contract.
• Provides remote and on-the-ground technical, managerial, and operational oversight, capacity building and mentoring to specific health financing and financial risk protection activities in States settings related to areas of core expertise.
• Analyzes the economic and financing implications of implementing enhanced health systems, economic incentives, and increasing access to and improving quality of primary healthcare services, including integrated reproductive/family planning, maternal and newborn health, child health, nutrition and malaria.
• Provides expert technical guidance towards the design and effective implementation of state contributory health schemes for: increased enrollment of formal and informal sector beneficiaries into the state health insurance scheme and BHCPF through salary deductions, individual premium payments, or contributions; improved revenue generation for the BHCPF and the SHIS equity fund; increased risk pooling and shift to strategic purchasing.
• Provides technical support to the National Steering Committee of the Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF) to ensure funds flow through the NHIS and NPHCDA gateways to the states and to Primary Healthcare Centers.
• Provides guidance to NPHCDA, FMOH and state governments regarding budgeting and for service delivery activities and HRH, and innovative financing.
• Uses various quantitative and qualitative techniques to perform financing and policy analysis tasks. Conducts health financing core analytics, expenditure analyses, economic evaluations, implement optimization and efficiency plans,  and develop resource mobilization plans for sustainable health financing systems.
  Participates in and prepares necessary technical and program-related reports, including presentations, quarterly and annual reports and white papers.
• Organizes and facilitates approved health financing activities including trainings, conferences, workshops, and meetings. Is responsible for the development of health financing activity-specific work plans and budgets.
• Ensures quality of services and compliance per project requirements.
• Provides functional guidance to outside vendors/grantees working on health finance related tasks to ensure deliverables are met within timelines and budgets.
• Represent IHP at health financing meetings/events and actively participate in the national Health Financing Technical Working Group, the NPHCDA, the FMOH/DHPRS health financing Division and other relevant technical committees.
• Documents health financing success stories/lessons learned and produces abstracts and publishable health financing materials including policy briefs and peer-reviewed articles.
• Performs other related duties and responsibilities as assigned

Required Qualifications

• Advanced Degree (MA, M.Sc, PhD) in Economics, Health Economics, relevant Social Sciences or Public Health with academic specialization in health financing, social health protection schemes/financial risk protection or commensurate work experience in health finance.
• At least 20 years of proven health finance experience and broad knowledge in Nigeria’s governance and health finance landscape OR advanced degree with 12+ years of experience.
• Sound knowledge of methodologies used in health finance research, economic analysis, cost-effectiveness analysis, return on investment analysis, quantitative analysis, and statistical/econometric analysis.
• Proven experience in identifying innovative solutions for increasing enrollment and achieving other health financing results in social health protection schemes/ financial risk protection schemes.
• Knowledge of relevant literature and state of the art interventions related to topic areas.
• Demonstrated problem solving, analytic, financial, and evaluative skills.
• Attention to detail and ability to effectively and efficiently perform multiple tasks and balance competing priorities often within a required timeframe and able to work under pressure.
• Proven leadership skills and experience in facilitating Communities of Practice
• Strong written and oral communication skills for high-level policy audiences (writing examples may be required).
• Fluency in English required, and local languages (Hausa) preferred.
• Ability and willingness to travel up to 50% of the time within Nigeria, including to states in the north.

Professional Expertise / Competencies Preferred:

• Proactive and independent self-starter with an ability to take initiative and/or respond independently to situations.
• Professional and mature demeanor and conduct.
• Ability to provide technical guidance to a team of state health facility advisors
• Ability to respond and adapt quickly to changing requirements and competing demands.
• Appropriate software skills necessary to conduct research, and to conduct analysis of study data, such as STATA, SPSS, or equivalent.