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Qualifications

Background 

The World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Africa (AFRO) is one of WHO’s 6 regional offices around the world. It serves the WHO African Region, which comprises 47 Member States with the Regional Office in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo. As the lead health authority within the United Nations (UN) system, WHO works with the Member States in the African Region and development partners to improve the health and well-being of people. This involves translation of global health initiatives into regional plans that respond to the specific needs and challenges of countries in the Region. WHO also support countries to achieve better health outcomes through technical and policy advice, development of norms and standards, generation and sharing of knowledge and convening health partners. Together with countries, they attain health objectives by supporting national health policies and strategies.
As part of its mandate, WHO provides technical, operational and logistical support to help governments implement large-scale public health activities, including mass immunization campaigns to prevent or respond to outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases (polio, yellow fever, measles, cholera, etc.). In this context, WHO transfers funds to the Ministries of Health (MOH) to cover various types of operational costs including per diem of frontline workers, car rental, fuel, hall rental…These payments currently rely heavily on cash which generates several problems including but not limited to: Delays in the provision of funds to frontline workers; Lack of transparency and poor reconciliation of funds; Suspicion of leakage of funds; Lack of confidence at the operational level that money will arrive on time and in a transparent way. These problems have, in the past, had a negative impact on the achievement of the technical objectives of the activities.
To address this situation, AFRO and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) agreed that a concerted effort must be made to digitize the payment of operational costs to the extent possible in order to improve the overall quality of health interventions through rapid smooth and secure payments, better traceability of the use of funds, more transparency and confidence.
In addition, from the public health perspective, the World Health Assembly, which is the supreme decision-making body for WHO, passed a resolution in 2018 which urges Member States to prioritize the development and greater use of digital technologies in health as a means of promoting Universal Health Coverage and advancing the Sustainable Development Goals. (71st World Health Assembly, 2018; Geneva, Switzerland).
With the spread of COVID-19 throughout the region, there is now a new sense of urgency to establish and strengthen the use of contact-free digital payments to health and community workers who risk their lives to provide lifesaving vaccines and treatments to communities.

Scope of work

The consultant will support the WHO Country Offices (WCO) and the Ministries of Health (MOH) in designing, setting up and implementing ecosystems that will enable the digitization of health workers payments in the countries. He will perform the following duties:

          1. Technical support to the National Taskforce

Support the establishment and onboarding of a National Task Force (NTF) responsible for the overall management of the project. Assist with the definition of goals, structure, roles, responsibilities, and draft terms of reference of members of the NTF and act as the secretariat of the NTF.

          2. Selection of service providers

Assist in the selection of service providers to be contracted for the project (digital financial services providers and other third parties) including requests for proposals, technical and financial evaluation of proposals, contract negotiation, and preparation of drafting of contracts.

         3. Scoping of beneficiaries’ database

• Support the MOH in defining the scope of the database: categories and number of health workers (civil servants, community health workers, volunteers, etc) across the health system as well as the type of information to be collected.
• Assist the MOH in identifying all the databases of health workers across all health interventions that currently exist or are being created.
• Assist the MOH to assess the relevance and accuracy of information available in existing databases and to determine to what extent this information can be exploited.
• Determine the gap between the current state (existing databases across the health system) and the target state (one database of all health workers across the health system).
• Support the MOH in defining and articulating a strategy and approach to close the above gap.

         4. Configuration and use of the application selected for the enrolment
Work closely with relevant stakeholders to ensure that the application selected for the enrolment is configured and used in accordance with the decisions resulting from the scoping exercise.

         5. Enrolment operations

• Support the identification, recruitment, and training of enrollers.
• Support the MOH in creating/maintaining an enrolment schedule.
• Ensure that the various operations required prior to enrolment such as social mobilization are carried out by the MOH in a timely manner.
• Monitor closely the enrolment operations to ensure compliance with agreed-upon expectations and timeline.
• Work with digital financial services providers, MOH focal persons and WHO to ensure validation of information collected post enrolment using the Know Your Customer (KYC) process of MNOs.

         6. Piloting of digital payments

• Support the end-to-end process of operational costs payment from activity request preparation to clearance by country and regional offices, funds disbursement, implementation, payment of field workers and other operational costs, reconciliation, reporting, and assurance.
• Support MoH and the country office as necessary in addressing issues and ensuring smooth payment of field workers and other operational costs in accordance with agreed-upon expectations and timeline.

         7. Project management

• Serve as a focal point on the project and track the implementation of deliverables by the MOH, WCO as well as all other stakeholders contracted for different components of the project.
• Support the MOH and WHO with project wide communications and regularly update all stakeholders as needed.

        8. Capacity building
Support the capacity development activities of WCO staff and MOH personnel on operational costs payment processes and other thematic through training sessions, workshops, and presentations and prepare reports for Country/Regional Office and partners as may be required.

 Educational Qualifications

• Band B level (P4) and band C (P5) level Consultant

Essential:
An advanced university degree in Business Administration, Finance, Project Management, Information technology or other discipline related to the functions of the position.

Experience

•  Band B level Consultant (P4)

 Essential:  At least 7 years of progressive experience, at the national and international levels, in areas related to the design, setup and implementation of digital financial services in sub-Saharan Africa.
Desirable:  Relevant working experience with governments, international organizations   NGOs or donors.

• Band C level Consultant (P5)

 Essential:  At least 10 years of progressive experience, at the national and international levels, in areas related to the design, setup and implementation of digital financial services in sub-Saharan Africa.
Desirable:  Relevant working experience with governments, international organizations, NGOs or donors.

Languages

Essential: Expert knowledge of French or English and working knowledge of the other language.

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Skills/Knowledge

• Sound knowledge of Sub-Saharan Africa digital payments landscape
• Proven track record in planning, managing and successfully delivering cross-functional projects in international and multi-cultural settings.
• Demonstrated ability to think strategically and re-engineer current processes, with the ability to quickly understand strategic and tactical objectives and formulate comprehensive plans to address challenges/risks.
• Demonstrated capacity to persuade and communicate effectively on complex and sensitive issues.

Location 
On site for insurance purposes: Home based with some travel to countries in the WHO African Region
Travel 
Some of the work can be done remotely while other parts will require travel to countries in the WHO African Region

Remuneration

The pay band (grade) of the consultancy will be fixed based on the level of experience, responsibilities and complexity of tasks assigned as reflected in the terms of reference.

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.
• Consultants shall perform the work as independent contractors in a personal capacity, and not as a representative of any entity or authority. The execution of the work under a consultant contract does not create an employer/employee relationship between WHO and the Consultant.
• WHO shall have no responsibility whatsoever for any taxes, duties, social security contributions or other contributions payable by the Consultant. The Consultant shall be solely responsible for withholding and paying any taxes, duties, social security contributions and any other contributions which are applicable to the Consultant in each location/jurisdiction in which the work hereunder is performed, and the Consultant shall not be entitled to any reimbursement thereof by WHO.