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Qualifications

1.      Purpose of consultancy

To support the planning, design, implementation, management and enhancement of digital finance solutions for improving the effectiveness of the GPEI and other campaigns by making speedy and transparent payments to vaccinators, CHWs and other service providers and strengthening compliance with WHO financial rules and regulations, policies and standard operating procedures. Key objectives of the consultancy include: 1) To develop and implement a coherent, agile, easily scalable and sustainable strategic approach to digital payments in the country. 2) To ensure rapid, smooth and secure payments by leveraging banking systems, mobile money and other digital payments providers and  3) To simplify processes and improve the efficiency of payment system.

2.      Background  

The Eastern Mediterranean Regional Office (EMRO) of the World Health Organization aims to streamline, fast-track, and directly pay its frontline health workers, vaccinators and other beneficiaries in their bank accounts or mobile money accounts. The Direct Disbursement Mechanism (DDM) that has been implemented in Pakistan and Afghanistan has shown increased transparency, efficiency, and speed of payment directly to community health workers and service providers.

In the new strategy of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative – Delivering on a Promise, covering the period from 2022-2026, there is an impetus to use the collective, accumulated experience and new technologies including of campaign digitization, digital and mobile money payments to health workers and other innovations to enhance worker satisfaction.  More generally, WHO in the region is seeking to reduce its reliance on cash transfers for the delivery of public health activities in favor of robust digital payments solutions.

To widen the coverage of digital payments and make it more inclusive, speedy, and transparent, EMRO is piloting a digital payments project in Sudan and Yemen that will use all players including financial institutions and mobile money providers. This will allow WHO to quickly pay all vaccinators, community health workers (CHWs) and service providers directly in their bank accounts or mobile money accounts in order to improve the effectiveness and transparency of campaigns.

3.      Work to be performed

Develop the digital finance roadmap and operational plan for the Country Office,  consistent with the EMRO digital finance strategy and lead the roll out of digital payment activities in the designated country.

Assess local context, regulatory framework and digital payment ecosystem to advise WHO country office on the most appropriate digital inclusive payment services and solutions.

Coordinate with the Regional Digital Finance team, IT team and Country Office Program and Finance team and ensure proper coordination, implementation and supervision of digital payment project activities for standard deliverables, timelines, coherence and compliant actions in the designated country.

Lead the roll out of implementation of digital payment solution in the country for ensuring digitization of campaigns, health workers and service providers database, and capturing all necessary information for ensuring seamless digital payments.

Provide expertise for awareness building, capacity development, partnership development and enabling processes and systems that will promote digital payments in the country.

Coordinate the end-to-end process of digital payments, starting from campaign planning, digitizing health workers and providers database, capturing evidence of service delivery, preparation of payment proposals, secured implementation of payments through digital payment providers, payment of field workers and service providers, reconciliation, reporting and assurance.

Support implementing partners, country office and regional office as necessary to ensure smooth, rapid and secure payment of operational costs and its sustainability.

Act as a focal point for the mobile network operators, financial institutions and other parties (consultants, accounting firm, third parties etc.) contracted for the project. Responsible for the close monitoring of service delivery, addressing disbursement issues and ensuring smooth payment of field workers and other service providers in expected and timely manner.

Support the continuous improvement of processes around digital payments by providing expert knowledge and support on the development and enhancement of appropriate policies, procedures, guidelines, tools and systems, while ensuring that adequate levels of innovation and automation are applied from time to time.

Support and facilitate capacity development of country office staff, MoPH, and implementing partners on digital payments through trainings, webinars, workshops and presentations.

Prepare financial and monitoring reports for Country Office, Regional Office and HQ as may be required.

Key deliverables:

Digital payment roadmap for the assigned country is developed by identifying key partners, technologies, solutions and systems.

A database of vaccinators and health service providers is developed along with necessary detail and KYC information and validation.

Systems, policies, procedures and work methods are developed and deployed for supporting digital payments in the assigned country.

Key contributors (data registry staff, finance and operations leads / staff, campaign planners and executors, attendance verifiers, treasury / imprest staff) are trained in the digital payment processes and tasks.

Speedy and seamless payments are directly delivered to vaccinators and beneficiaries in their accounts within a maximum of 10 days from the service delivery event.

Digital payment system is running on sustainable basis in the country after handing over all processes to the country office regular staff.

TIME PERIOD:

Eleven months.

Consultant will be required to prepare a detailed monthly plan describing specific deliverables and timelines.

4.      Qualifications, experience, skills and languages

Educational Qualifications:

–       Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Economics, Banking, Business Administration, International Development, or other similar areas.

–       Master’s degree in the above areas or professional accreditation in banking, finance, accounting, project management or related area will be an asset.

Experience:

–       5 to 7 years of relevant professional experience required in digital finance, financial inclusion, cash transfers, G2P payments, development finance, retail banking with management of bulk transfers and payments.

–       Leadership on digital finance, policy, financial inclusion, cash transfer, G2P payments along with change management will be highly desirable.

–       Experience of WHO’s strategic priorities, program implementation and processes will be an added advantage.

–       Demonstrated writing and communication skills, negotiation, facilitation of policy dialogue at different levels and influencing different stakeholders such as Governments, Banking Institutions, Mobile Money Institutions is highly desirable.

Languages and level required:

–       Proficiency in reading, writing, and speaking English is required.

–       Proficiency in Arabic is an asset.

5.      Location

Any country in the EMRO region.
Sudan (Khartoum) / Yemen (Sana) / Somalia (Mogadishu) have been initially identified for the roll out of the Digital Payment project.

The consultant will be paid per diem for the duty station

6.      Medical clearance

The selected Consultant will be expected to provide a medical certificate of fitness for work.

7.      Travel

The Consultant is expected to travel within Sudan or EMRO region for which  the travel cost as per WHO Policy will be reimbursed, if the travel itinerary is pre-authorized by the technical supervisor.

Additional Information

• This vacancy notice may be used to identify candidates for other similar consultancies at the same level.
• Only candidates under serious consideration will be contacted.
• A written test may be used as a form of screening.
• If your candidature is retained for interview, you will be required to provide, in advance, a scanned copy of the degree(s)/diploma(s)/certificate(s) required for this position. WHO only considers higher educational qualifications obtained from an institution accredited/recognized in the World Higher Education Database (WHED), a list updated by the International Association of Universities (IAU)/United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The list can be accessed through the link: http://www.whed.net/. Some professional certificates may not appear in the WHED and will require individual review.
• For information on WHO’s operations please visit: http://www.who.int.
• WHO is committed to workforce diversity.
• WHO has a smoke-free environment and does not recruit smokers or users of any form of tobacco.
• Applications from women and from nationals of non and underrepresented Member States are particularly encouraged.

·         WHO prides itself on a workforce that adheres to the highest ethical and professional standards and that is committed to put the WHO Values Charter into practice.

• WHO has zero tolerance towards sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA), sexual harassment and other types of abusive conduct (i.e., discrimination, abuse of authority and harassment). All members of the WHO workforce have a role to play in promoting a safe and respectful workplace and should report to WHO any actual or suspected cases of SEA, sexual harassment and other types of abusive conduct. To ensure that individuals with a substantiated history of SEA, sexual harassment or other types of abusive conduct are not hired by the Organization, WHO will conduct a background verification of final candidates.