As a United Nations agency, UNFPA has a unique role and mandate to support countries to meet their family planning needs and, as part of the wider UN mandate, to help ensure that all women and men, girls and boys can achieve their potential and realize their rights. UNFPA is currently refreshing its family planning strategy and operationalizing an action plan to accelerate progress towards the three transformative results in UNFPA’s strategic plan (2022-25), one of which is to end unmet need for family planning. Through this strategy, UNFPA will promote sustainable financing in sexual and reproductive health including family planning by supporting countries to take greater responsibility for cost sharing and budget strengthening and by advocating for the inclusion of Sexual Reproductive Health and family planning services in the basic package of services, especially in the Universal Health Coverage context. UNFPA Supplies Partnership – a multilateral, multi-donor, UNFPA-managed thematic fund is a key vehicle for UNFPA to advance its family planning mandate.
The Health Financing Adviser will provide technical leadership and guidance in all areas that relate to global, regional, and in-country family planning and reproductive health budgeting and financing, supporting incorporation of reproductive health and family planning commodities into Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and social protection schemes including planning, allocation and spending on reproductive health and family planning services and commodities by national governments. Other areas include public expenditure management, innovative financing, improved budget management processes and broader political economy analysis in relation to SRH financing and economics. S/he will provide technical leadership and guidance to build health financing capacity across the organization to support implementation of UNFPA Strategic Plan (2022-2025) and UNFPA Family Planning Strategy including the introduction and greater engagement in innovative financing modalities. It is a role that requires a combination of technical knowledge, experience, leadership, and strategic thinking.
Education:
Post-graduate University Degree or equivalent in public health, public administration, health financing, health economics or related fields.
Knowledge and Experience:
10 years of increasingly responsible professional experience in the substantive technical area, of which seven years at the international level
Direct experience working with public expenditure management
Hand-on experience working on health systems reforms in low or lower-middle income countries
Experience with framing the relationship between health and development, the social and economic determinants of health and the impact of health investments on national economies.
Experience in developing policy on issues related to health systems and health care expenditures and financing policies, on the inter- relationships between macroeconomic policies and health and health care issues
Knowledge of and experience with innovative financing mechanisms for health or related programs
Knowledge in the use of global and regional databases on national accounts, government finances, national health expenditures, consumer price indexes, household surveys and other social and economic indicators
An acknowledged expert and recognized authority in the technical area
Strong track record of technical leadership
Extensive network within the development community
Field experience is desirable
Languages:
Fluency in English; knowledge of other official UN languages, preferably French and/or Spanish, is highly desirable for this role as interface with bilateral and multilateral partners
