Costing Senior Specialist, Multiple positions

 The RBM Partnership to End Malaria

The past fifteen years have seen tremendous gains in reducing the burden of disease and progressing towards malaria elimination. Since 2000, global malaria deaths have been cut by more than half, saving 7 million lives, primarily among children less than five years of age. Expansions in financing, strong political commitments, novel diagnostic and preventative measures, and multi-sectoral co-ordination have facilitated this progress. Since 1998, RBM Partnership to End Malaria has been central to the global fight against malaria. It has been essential to mobilizing resources and scaling up innovative interventions, putting the world onto a path towards eliminating malaria. The Partnership comprises more than 500 partners committed to end malaria, including malaria endemic countries, their bilateral and multilateral development partners, the private sector, nongovernmental and community-based organizations, foundations, and research and academic institutions.

The Country/Regional Support Partner Committee (CRSPC) provides a platform to engage the RBM Partnership community in coordinating support to countries and regions as they execute their malaria control and elimination implementation programmes. Support is tailored to suit the requirements and existing capacity in each country and region.

The consultant shall work for the RBM Country/Regional Support Partner Committee (CRSPC) to provide technical support to national malaria control programmes in costing different plans and proposals including the national Malaria Strategic Plans, Global Fund funding requests and other proposals for resource mobilization. 

The Costing Senior Specialist shall work for the RBM CRSPC to facilitate and support countries  in costing different plans and proposals including the national Malaria Strategic Plans, Global Fund funding requests and other proposals for resource mobilization. Costing of plans is a complex matter and requires senior and experienced consultants, able to command the respect of senior government officials and partners. 

The Costing Senior Specialist will be expected to visit the country as necessary during the support period. The position is homebased with significant duty travel required.

Assignments could include (but are not limited to) the following, and could be for a particular intervention area or across interventions:

• Conduct a desk review of existing data sources that will inform the costing of the malaria National Strategic Plans (NSP) and or Global fund funding request. This includes reviewing epidemiological and programmatic data, service unit costs, expenditure data, existing budgets and existing commitments, or any other available data that will be required to inform the NSP costing. At this stage data gaps will be clearly identified. 

• Work with national stakeholders and technical counterparts to define the most appropriate method and data source to inform an efficient resource allocation. The consultant will facilitate a discussion to identify the most appropriate methodology and tools to be used for the malaria NSP and funding request costing. The method should ensure that the costing is integrated in the  different steps of the NSP and or funding request elaboration. It should complement impact modeling exercises and sub-national tailoring exercises and inform scenarios to identify the most efficient allocation of available resources and target setting. 

• Lead and/or support the costing  of the NSP and funding requests with the following considerations:

  • applying the most reliable unit cost or input price data including a reliable future projections, including potential efficiency gains or other assumptions 

  • providing clear understanding what is the additional resources needed to scale up services as compared with the status quo (i.e. current program) 

  • Documenting effort made to ensure NSPs are costed in way that it presents strong allocative and technical efficiency at program and system levels should be clearly documented with supporting evidence 

• Participate in a national validation session to go through all cost assumptions and results with national stakeholders and finalize the cost projections. 

• Lead high-level discussions with senior management, partner representatives and other key stakeholders to broker consensus 

Monitoring and Progress Controls

Key Deliverables:

• Costed malaria National Strategic Plans or

• Costed funding requests  or

• Costed proposals for resource mobilization

• End of mission reports analyzing support provided including recommendations for improving future support to countries. 

Education 

• Advanced university degree preferably in Financial Management, Accounting, Auditing, Health Policy and Planning, Health Economics, Public Health or other relevant area or equivalent professional training. Bachelor’s degree may be considered with two additional years of experience.

• Specialization, experience or sound understanding of international development, health policy and programme planning related to public health problems including malaria, is preferred. 

Work Experience 

Essential:  

• At least 7 years of professional experience in financial management or accounting including costing and budgeting of national disease programs; health policy and planning; business analysis in particular in health projects for  development agencies or multinational companies.

Desirable:   

• Strong technical expertise in costing methodologies with experience in costing and budgeting health programs using relevant costing tools, ideally for NSPs and/ or funding requests .

• Experience in applying such models for Malaria is preferable

Language

• English fluency and ability to write clearly and concisely.

• Portuguese or Spanish is fluency highly advantageous

• Please note that UNOPS does not accept unsolicited resumes.

• Applications received after the closing date will not be considered.

• Please note that only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process, which involves various assessments.

• UNOPS embraces diversity and is committed to equal employment opportunity. Our workforce consists of many diverse nationalities, cultures,  languages, races, gender identities, sexual orientations, and abilities. UNOPS seeks to sustain and strengthen this diversity to ensure equal opportunities as well as an inclusive working environment for its entire workforce. 

• Qualified women and candidates from groups which are underrepresented in the UNOPS workforce are encouraged to apply. These include in particular candidates from racialized and/or indigenous groups, members of minority gender identities and sexual orientations, and people with disabilities.

• We would like to ensure all candidates perform at their best during the assessment process.  If you are shortlisted and require additional assistance to complete any assessment, including reasonable accommodation, please inform our human resources team when you receive an invitation.

Terms and Conditions 

• For staff positions only, UNOPS reserves the right to appoint a candidate at a lower level than the advertised level of the post. 

• For retainer contracts, you must complete a few Mandatory Courses (they take around 4 hours to complete) in your own time, before providing services to UNOPS. For more information on a retainer contract here.

• All UNOPS personnel are responsible for performing their duties in accordance with the UN Charter and UNOPS Policies and Instructions, as well as other relevant accountability frameworks. In addition, all personnel must demonstrate an understanding of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in a manner consistent with UN core values and the UN Common Agenda.

• It is the policy of UNOPS to conduct background checks on all potential personnel. Recruitment in UNOPS is contingent on the results of such checks.

Based in Geneva, the Europe and Central Asia Regional Office (ECR) supports UNOPS offices throughout the region through: management, financial and programmatic oversight of global and country-specific portfolios, clusters and operations centres, including hosting services; fund and management advisory services; project implementation; procuring goods and services; and managing human resources.

ECR ensures that projects are executed to the highest standards, providing a shared knowledge base and ensuring that best practices and lessons learned are disseminated between business units and projects across the entire region.

 ECR strategy is to:

• Strengthen UNOPS role in operationalizing the Sustainable Development Goals with particular emphasis on health, environment and economic development.
• Position UNOPS in the Balkan sub-region, the Caucasus and Central Asia.
• Strengthen the implementation of ECR global and regional programmes, with revitalized partnerships in infrastructure, procurement and project management.