Senior Health Economist (Senior National Consultant) at Malaria Consortium

Malaria Consortium is one of the world’s leading non-profit organisations specialising in the comprehensive prevention, control and treatment of malaria and other communicable diseases among vulnerable and under privileged populations. We increasingly find our work on malaria can be effectively integrated with other similar public health interventions for greater impact and therefore expanded our remit to include child health and neglected tropical disease interventions.

We are recruiting a suitable candidate to join our team in the capacity below:

Job Title: Senior Health Economist (Senior National Consultant)

Location: Osun
Activity Timelines: May - July-2023
Total TA days: 11.5 days

Job Summary

• We require qualified health economists that will carry out cost-description of the introduction and roll-out of PMC and a cost-effectiveness analysis of the PMC intervention, including a cost-benefit analysis.

Purpose / Scope of Assignment

• Malaria Consortium received funding to carry out an effectiveness-implementation hybrid project on feasibility and effectiveness of on PMC in Nigeria. It is aimed at generating the required evidence to inform policy and possible scale up of PMC in Nigeria, and ultimately contribute towards a reduction in under 5 mortalities in the country.
• The cost analyses will be done from a health systems perspective that entails quantification of what it will cost the Ministry of Health/NMEP to carry out the intervention and focusing on direct costs (medical and non-medical).
• Costing will involve the quantification of inputs and assignment of appropriate resource values; discounting future costs and assigning appropriate annualized costs to capital inputs; and valuing resources when market prices deviate from the actual value of resources. Direct costs will include:
  • Capital costs (e.g. Planning costs, Consensus building and meetings, Initial training, Vehicles, Equipment and furniture), and
  • Recurrent costs (e.g., Personnel (including additional cost for administering drug), Fuel/Maintenance of vehicles, Office/warehouse rental, Supplies/overheads, and Management cost).
  • The data should be used for the cost description, cost-benefit, and cost-effectiveness analyses.

Scope of Work
Phase 1: May 2023 - July 2023:

• This will be the formative phase with key activities such as: protocol development, development of costing assumptions, tools development and training on the data elements that should be collected and tools by the project team and determine the periodicity of recording of the data.
• To begin, hold an inception meeting with stakeholders to ask what question on cost do we want to answer? or does NMEP/NPHCDA need to answer for policy decision-making? Would we need to provide costs for the scheduled and unscheduled delivery per child? the additional cost of integrating within EPI and delivery of EPI-only? and then the cost-effectiveness of the different models? All these will be detailed in the protocol in phase 1.

Specific Tasks for Senior Health Economist (Senior National Consultant) (1)

• Indicative schedule for costing data collection and to carry out cost analyses involving cost description, cost-benefit, and cost-effectiveness of PMC:

Phase 1: May 2023 - July 2023:

• Develop costing assumptions and tools for data collection for the cost analyses
• Develop protocol for cost effectiveness analysis

Deliverables
Phase 1: May 2023 = July 2023:

• Protocol for cost effectiveness analysis
• Tools for data collection for cost effectiveness analysis
• A short inception report to define the scope of work, proposed timeline outlining the approach to be taken, key assumptions and trained project team members
• Consultancy report.

Qualifications and Experience
Health Economist (Senior National Consultant):

• Holds a Post graduate Degree in Health Economics or related field with a minimum of 15 years National and/ or regional consultancy expertise
• At least 10 years of experience in collecting costing data and carrying out budget impact and cost effectiveness analysis, developed costing assumptions and tools for data collection for cost effectiveness analysis, collected routine project implementation costing data, carried out budget impact analysis, and conducted cost effectiveness analysis.
• At least 3 previous similar contracts executed by the firm.
• Demonstrable track record of similar work in the past five years
• Demonstrated experience in liaising with government; and managing relationship with stakeholders and partners at health financing, budgeting, implementation science, and policy levels.
• Familiarity with cost data collection
• Experience in health financing and budgeting
• Highly experienced and skilled team members with:
• Professional qualifications in health economics and related field
• Professional certification in health financing and budget management
• Demonstrated experience in health economics.
• Fluency in written and spoken English.
• Working knowledge of data analysis software package.
• Working knowledge of at least one data capture package.
• Excellent organizational and time management skills are required.
• Ability to work both independently and as a member of a team and to handle multiple priorities is required.
• Experience as a trainer and/or supervisor for quantitative and qualitative data collection, management, and/or analysis is preferred.
• Excellent analytical, writing, synthesis, communication, and facilitation skills.
• Experience of working with partners at international, regional, and national levels.
• Proven academic experience, including pieces of research, publications, and written reports.
• Familiarity with the Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) and malaria programs.
• Proven experience in writing reports for public health programs or projects in Nigeria or similar developing country context.

Desired:

• Access to a qualitative software such as Atlas ti and have excellent capacity in the use of the software for coding and analysis.
• Extensive knowledge of the Nigerian public health sector.
• A proven ability to work as part of a team.
• Experience in setting up and facilitating meetings.
• Ability to work with little or no supervision.
• Good writing and reporting skills.
• Good presentation skills.
• Excellent writing and oral communication skills in English.

Application Closing Date
11th May, 2023.