ThinkWell is hiring a Technical Advisor (TA) – Health financing, to provide technical assistance and guidance across a range of ThinkWell’s projects in Kenya, including the Strategic Purchasing for Primary Health Care (SP4PHC) project, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation that is supporting countries to improve how funds are allocated to healthcare providers to achieve the goal of universal health coverage (UHC). S/he brings strong analytical and quantitative skills, research capacity (typically in costing, health financing and program analysis) as well as a solid understanding of the design, implementation, and evaluation of health financing policy reform.
ThinkWell works with the Ministry of Health (MoH), the Social Health Authority (formerly NHIF) 10 Counties and other stakeholders on healthcare financing reforms with the potential to accelerate achievement of UHC. The TA facilitates discussions, shares evidence, and proposes ideas with these government agencies/departments and other stakeholders to optimize the health financing function and related processes to promote strategic purchasing for primary health services in Kenya. The TA has experience providing technical advisory services at the national and county level and the political skills necessary to manage a range of national- and county-level partnerships.
The TA is a senior member of the team and is expected to supervise a team of 2-4 Program Analysts/Coordinators.
S/he is based in Nairobi, and reports to the Senior Country Program Manager.
RESPONSIBILITIES
Technical leadership
•Develop strategic interventions to ensure effective delivery of technical assistance to government (National and County) on health financing reforms.
•Manage the implementation of the assigned projects/activities ensuring quality delivery of the project’s goals and objectives, and within the set timelines.
•Provide technical support to county teams to ensure high quality program execution and results across projects, including supervision for the County Analysts/Coordinators.
•Work with the County Coordinators/Analysts to institute PHC financing reforms and innovations including but not limited to review of mechanisms used to allocate funds to facilities with the aim of incentivizing quality and performance to catalyze progress towards strategic purchasing for primary health services.
•Support the review of public finance management procedures to ease flow of funds to the PHC frontlines.
•Work with the County Coordinators/Analysts to provide technical support in the development of county annual work plans and budgets particularly on use of evidence to inform investment priorities in the health sector.
•Participate in the recruitment, support, and mentorship for team members in the area of technical specialty.
•Support the country leadership to build the project portfolio in technical specialty area in collaboration with ThinkWell’s business development unit called Design Lab, and other colleagues.
Organizational Representation; internal and external
•Develop strong working relationships with the National Government, Sub-national Governments, and other related agencies to strengthen health systems especially on health financing; UHC implementation, supply chain management and other areas Thinkwell works on such as HRH and private sector engagement.
•Represent ThinkWell in various meetings and platforms.
Monitoring, Evaluation, and learning
•Develop detailed workplans for the assigned projects and provide technical guidance to the program Analysts/Coordinators for the same in their respective counties.
•Liaise with the SI lead for monitoring and evaluation for the assigned projects and strategic interventions to ensure compliance to quality standards while meeting the set deadlines.
•Develop concept notes, protocols, and tools necessary to collect and analyze data to facilitate learning and to inform program strategy as required.
•Develop high quality reports for both internal and external (donor) use as required.
Intellectual and strategic communication
•Generate learning agenda from data insights and implementation experience and develop plans to ensure timely completion of knowledge products.
•Publish papers, articles, and blogs. Present in conferences, technical working groups and other fora on ThinkWell project-related technical innovations, priorities, and results. Build ThinkWell reputation as a thought leader in the field.
•Communicate with other ThinkWell technical advisors in the country and globally to build, share, exchange and disseminate technical knowledge.
Requirements
1. Master's degree in the relevant field (typically health economics, public health, health systems management, health sciences etc.) and 6+ years of experience;
2. Substantive, relevant work experience in health systems with a development agency, NGO or government, particularly on health financing policy reform. Adept at communicating technical information to non-technical audiences.
3. Previous experience and proven track record in providing technical advice to government at the national and or county level on health systems strengthening with a focus on healthcare financing, strategic and operational planning and public financial management in the health sector;;
4. A strong understanding of the current Healthcare financing landscape in Kenya at both national and at a county level;
5. Excellent technical writing skills;
6. Demonstrated interest and ability in growing staff, mentoring and coaching junior professionals;
7. Demonstrated ability to engage effectively with external strategic partners, donors, and stakeholders;
8. New business development, proposal writing and fundraising experience;
9. Full fluency in English and Kiswahili;
10. Outstanding cross-cultural communication skills, including the ability to relate respectfully with staff at all levels, ages, genders, nationalities and orientations as well as across work areas;
11. Ability and willingness to travel up to 25% of time.
