Founded in 2002, by President William J. Clinton and Ira Magaziner, the Clinton Health Access Initiative, Inc. (“CHAI”) is a global health organization committed to strengthening integrated health systems and expanding access to care and treatment in the developing world. CHAI’s solution-oriented approach focuses on improving market dynamics for medicines and diagnostics; lowering prices for treatment; accelerating access to lifesaving technologies; and helping governments build the capacity required for high-quality care and treatment programs. Since its inception, CHAI’s programs have helped more than 11.8 million people in more than 70 countries have access to CHAI-negotiated prices for HIV/AIDS medicines, saving the global health community billions of dollars. For more information, please visit: www.clintonhealthaccess.org.
In 2005, CHAI signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Government of Malawi (GoM) to strengthen health systems in the most challenged districts, provide national support to HIV/AIDS drug pricing and programmatic work, support the pilot and scale-up of prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) initiatives, expand access to ART for children, strengthen Malawi’s lab system, and scale-up an integrated nutrition Program for children. CHAI’s support to Malawi has expanded to include Human Resources for Health (HRH), Vaccines (pneumococcal and rotavirus), and Health Financing.
At the request of our partner governments, CHAI has developed a health financing program across Africa. Currently, in developing countries, just 40% of the poor have access to basic health services, such as delivering babies in a safe environment. While policymakers are committed to universal health coverage, past growth in funding for health is beginning to slow, resulting in difficult decisions and trade-offs. Our health financing teams work with policymakers in Ministries of Health and key stakeholders to remove financing as a barrier to increased coverage of life saving interventions. We provide decision makers with the necessary programmatic and financial information for evidence-based planning and resource allocation. Furthermore, we help governments move towards a sustainable funding model that is increasingly nationally-owned and managed.
Position Overview
The Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) seeks an Associate, Health Financing based in Lilongwe to help the Government of Malawi address critical funding shortfalls in the health sector. The Associate will report to the Program Manager, Health Financing, within the Evidence for Impact Cluster.
The Associate will support the government of Malawi identify and overcome health systems constraints to the provision of critical services to the entire population, including leading the quantification of key systems gaps and support the use of evidence in health financing policy decisions through targeted use of data. In addition, the Associate will be responsible for supporting the MOH to develop sustainable systems and processes to improve the allocation of donor and government resources to improve availability of services across the country. The Associate will be part of a team that works closely with senior leaders in the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Finance as well as donors, NGOs, and civil society organizations.
This is a challenging but rewarding position which will directly impact thousands of people in need of life-saving interventions. It presents an opportunity to work closely with a government that is committed to finding opportunities for sustainable financing of the health sector, providing strategic advice and developing tools that will deliver improved healthcare for the people of Malawi.
Responsibilities:
Working in close collaboration with MoH, the Associate, Health Financing will:
- Serve as a trusted technical advisor to the MoH on a broad range of health financing and systems issues, enabling MoH to mobilize more resources into the health sector and distribute them equitably, effectively and efficiently;
- Collect, clean and analyze data on various areas of the health sector to quantify the available resources, costs and gaps in the health sector to inform planning, budgeting, and aid coordination;
- Support the annual collection and standardization of donor, government, and partner activity budgets into a common resource mapping database for tracking health sector investments, including support on data dissemination, harmonization with other resource tracking exercises, and institutionalization;
- Support the development of a service readiness assessment at health facilities to identify ways to maximize allocative efficiency and coordination across the health sector;
- Research frameworks and develop a protocol for assessing service readiness at health facilities;
- Manage data collection, cleaning, validation, and analysis of health systems readiness gaps, including the harmonization with existing health systems data systems in Malawi;
- Contribute to the development of a mechanism for coordinating and aligning donor and government funding for health;
- Develop and carry out proposals to build capacity of MoH and increase sustainability of the aforementioned activities; and
- Perform any other duties assigned by the Program Manager
Qualifications:
- Master’s degree in Finance, Business, Economics, Health Economics, Public Health, Public Policy, or similar subject preferred; or Bachelor’s degree with exceptional experience;
- Minimum of 3 years of professional experience, at least two of which should be in consulting, finance, banking, public health, health research, public policy, public sector finance, health economics, health financing, clinical experience, or other relevant private and public sector experience;
- Outstanding analytical skills and advanced technical proficiency with MS Excel and PowerPoint (proficiency levels will be tested during recruiting process);
- Demonstrated experience building and analysing quantitative models with large data sets to inform decision-making;
- Strategically minded, able to think creatively around long-term programme objectives and the detailed steps necessary to achieve these goals;
- Demonstrated ability to deliver excellence in high-pressure situations and adapt to rapidly changing environments;
- Excellent organizational and problem-solving skills without need for extensive structural or operational support
- Strong writer, facilitator and oral communicator able to distill and explain complex concepts to varied audiences.
Advantages:
- Experience working with government ministries (Ministries of Health, Finance, and/or local governments);
- Experience working in resource-limited settings and in a multicultural office environment;
- Experience with VBA coding;
- Clinical expertise or experience working in health service delivery settings;
- Experience conducting large-scale primary research and data collection, cleaning, analysis, and reporting, including the management of research teams; and
- Knowledge, experience and interest in innovative financing approaches for developing countries.
More Information
- Job City Lilongwe
