UNOPS National Health Economist Analysts Jobs in Nairobi Kenya

Vacancy Code: VA/2014/B5303/6185
 

Position Title: National Health Economist Analyst, Multiple positions
 

Department / Office: AFO, KEOH, Kenya
 

Duty Station: Nairobi, Kenya
 

Contract Type: Local ICA Specialist
 

Contract Level: LICA Specialist-8
 

Duration: 3 Months 

United Nations Core Values: Integrity, Professionalism, Respect for Diversity

Background Information - UNOPS

UNOPS mission is to serve people in need by expanding the ability of the United Nations, governments and other partners to manage projects, infrastructure and procurement in a sustainable and efficient manner.

Within these three core areas of expertise, UNOPS provides its partners with advisory, implementation and transactional services, with projects ranging from building schools and hospitals, to procuring goods and services and training local personnel. 

UNOPS works closely with governments and communities to ensure increased economic, social and environmental sustainability for the projects we support, with a focus on developing national capacity.

Working in some of the world’s most challenging environments, our vision is to advance sustainable implementation practices in development, humanitarian and peacebuilding contexts, always satisfying or surpassing partner expectations.

We employ more than 6,000 personnel and on behalf of our partners create thousands more work opportunities in local communities. Through our headquarters in Copenhagen, Denmark and a network of offices, we oversee activities in more than 80 countries.
  
Background Information - Job-specific

Children ( < 18 yrs ) who comprise about 50% of the population in Kenya are among the most vulnerable segment in the society. In this respect, the Kenya Government is obligated to ensure there is a protective environment for the survival and fulfilment of their rights.  

The Government of Kenya is signatory to various international conventions including the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UN-CRC) that obligates states to take and implement legislative, administrative, and budgetary as well as other measures to fulfil child rights. 

Specifically under article 4 of the CRC, Kenya is obligated to “undertake such measures to the maximum extent of their available resources in order to ensure rights of children are fulfilled. Notably CRC recognizes a budget-related measure as one of the most important means to fulfil all child rights including the right to good nutrition.

Unfortunately, information on the cost of scaling-up high-impact nutrition intervention in Kenya is approximated, incomplete and not disaggregated. It is therefore critical that standard basic unit costs are established in order to inform county-level costed plan development, program effectiveness (including Value for Money analysis) and budgetary analysis for nutrition.

The proposed consultancy will therefore aim at establishing unit costs for all the high-impact nutrition interventions and nutrition-specific interventions that are facility- and community-based, i.e., the interventions implemented through health system. 

This work is expected to feed into the broader costing of interventions that have an impact on nutrition outcomes which in turn will inform the development of an expenditure tracking tool and public expenditure analysis.
 

The 2 national level consultants will be remotely supervised by the Emergency Nutrition Officer, UNICEF Kenya Country Office. 

The position requires up to 80% field travel to arid, semi-arid and non-arid counties of Kenya. Administrative and logistic support for travel will be done by UNICEF (through UNOPS contract).

Functional Responsibilities

Under the supervision and guidance of the Emergency Nutrition Officer, the incumbent will;

• Carry out field level development of a nutrition service costing tool which includes:

1. Cost of High-Impact Nutrition Interventions implemented through the health system (Vitamin A supplementation, Deworming, Iron Folate supplementation, IMAM detection, referral and treatment, IYCN counselling and support). Unit cost of each intervention should be categorized based on county profile (to  be clustered around key characteristics, e.g., arid, semi-arid, urban and non-arid)
2. Cost by service delivery mechanism: Cost of delivering nutrition services through health facilities, community strategy or population-based services, e.g., campaigns
3. Cost of the function of the supportive system: Cost of program management, coordination, logistics, infrastructure, information and Human Resource support.

• Carry out desk reviews of available datasets on actual costs for nutrition and health service delivery (particularly from the Kenya Health Strategic Plan Two).
• Assist in development of the cost structure for the 3 costing modules i.e., nutrition intervention, service delivery mechanism, and supportive system and the development of the costing methodology.
• Carry out the field level data collection to establish the unit cost for each intervention and strategies including service delivery bottlenecks. This will include organising and leading consultations with key stakeholders through structured workshops and day-to-day engagement at national and county levels.
• Carry out data entry and quality checks according to the data entry formats defined.
• Assist in the development of the costing tool (excel matrix) and guidelines
• Perform other related duties as required.

Competencies

• Organizing and Quality Orientation
• Creativity and Innovation
• Communication skill
• Excellent analytical and facilitating skills
• Excellent knowledge of Microsoft Excel
• Excellent English writing skills
• Workshop facilitation skills
• Costing skills
• Organising and Quality Orientation
• Creativity and Innovation
• Communication skills

Education

• Master University degree in Social Sciences, preferably in Health Economics, Business Management/Finance or similar fields.
• A Bachelor degree plus 2 additional years of relevant professional years of experience may be accepted in lieu of the Master Degree

Experience

• Experience in costing and analysing nutrition strategic plans and interventions required.
• Experience working with costing tools such as Onehealth Tool, desirable.
• Experience conducting and facilitating sensitivity and bottlenecks analysis, desirable.

Contract type, level and duration

• Contract type: Local Individual Contractual Agreement (LICA)
• Contract level: LICA 8
• Contract duration: 3 months

For more details about the ICA contractual modality, please follow this link:

https://www.unops.org/english/Opportunities/job-opportunities/what-we-offer/Pages/Individual-Contractor-Agreements.aspx
 

Additional Considerations

• Please note that the closing date is midnight Copenhagen time (CET)
• Applications received after the closing date will not be considered.
• Only those candidates that are short-listed for interviews will be notified.
• Qualified female candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.
• For staff positions UNOPS reserves the right to appoint a candidate at a lower level than the advertised level of the post
• The incumbent is responsible to abide by security policies, administrative instructions, plans and procedures of the UN Security Management System and that of UNOPS. 

CLICK HERE to apply online

Deadline: 12 Nov 2014

It is the policy of UNOPS to conduct background checks on all potential recruits/interns.

Recruitment/internship in UNOPS is contingent on the results of such checks.