Consultancy opportunity for 3 Senior Health Economics Researchers

Consultancy opportunity for 3 Senior Health Economics Researchers

Company Overview:

Palladium is a global leader in the design, development and delivery of Positive Impact – the intentional creation of enduring social and economic value. We work with governments, businesses, and investors to solve the world’s most pressing challenges. With a team of more than 3,000 employees operating in 90 plus countries and a global network of over 35,000 experts, we help improve economies, societies and, most importantly, people’s lives.

Project Overview

Promoting Results and Outcomes through Policy and Economic Levers (PROPEL) Health is a USAID-funded five-year project awarded to Palladium on September 23, 2022. PROPEL Health aims to improve the enabling environment for equitable and sustainable health services, supplies, and delivery systems through policy development and implementation; adequate, predictable, and sustainable health financing; enhanced government stewardship, transparency, and accountability; and use of evidence-based advocacy approaches at global, national, and subnational levels to promote best practices. It focuses on family planning/reproductive health (FP/RH), primary healthcare, and the integration of FP/RH with HIV and maternal and child health (MCH). The project’s transformational technical strategy prioritizes localizing policy, advocacy, financing, governance, leadership, technical assistance, and capacity development to enhance resilience and sustainability.

PROPEL Health Ghana is serve as the technical and implementation driving force for local Mission’s buy-ins and country-based core-funded activities. The project actively supports USAID’s localization strategy by drawing on local actors and partners to co-create country programs and lead implementation, monitoring, and evaluation.

PROPEL Health Ghana activities focusses on the following broad results areas:

• Support and strengthen Ghana Health Services and stakeholders to develop and execute a new FP Costed Implementation Plan (CIP) to improve FP services, supplies, and information.
• Support GHS, NHIS, and the broader FP community to mobilize domestic resources and review performance of the NHIS FP benefits to strengthen FP self-reliance
• Catalyze and strengthen youth-CSO capacity for engagement in Ghana’s budget processes.
• GHS public financial management (PFM) capacity strengthening including expansion of the Ghana Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS) to all divisions, departments, and facilities nationwide.

Background

Globally, among the 1.9 billion women of the reproductive age group (15-49 years) in 2019, 1.1 billion required family planning (FP); of these, 842 million were using contraceptive methods, and 270 million had an unmet need for contraception. Many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) including Ghana have been challenged with limited fiscal space and policy options to improve the availability, accessibility, accountability, affordability, and reliability of quality FP/Reproductive Health (RH). In LMICs contexts including Ghana where there exist national health financing systems such as a national health insurance scheme, there is often a failure to integrate the financing of FP services, supplies and information into such existing systems such as national health insurance programs, depending heavily on external donor funding for such services. However, a sustainable, resilient, and context-responsive health financing system requires service integration to ensure equitable access to critical healthcare including FP.

General Aim: This project seeks to undertake Operational Research on NHIS FP benefit package and make recommendations for improvement.

Methodology: A concurrent mixed methods study design approach will be used to provide both quantitative and qualitative insight. This involves a separate collection and analysis of quantitative and qualitative data. 

Expected Outcome: This study seeks to advance FP goals and targets in Ghana by creating an enabling environment that fosters sustainable service delivery (public and private users and providers) and addressing both supply and demand side factors that influence FP services uptake as well as estimate the cost of providing FP services under the NHIS benefit package.

Primary Duties and Responsibilities: 

1. The research consultants are expected to undertake the following operational research on behalf of the Ghana
2. National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) and Ghana health services in consultation with the PROPEL Health technical team:
3. Undertake a Knowledge, Awareness, and Behavior/Practice (KABP) of the NHIS FP package with a focus on the demand and supply side actors,
4. Assess healthcare providers’ capacity to deliver the NHIS FP benefit package, and
5. Conduct a cost analysis of NHIS FP services and commodities.

Deliverables

This Consultancy is a milestone deliverable payment. Each consultant will be responsible for one set of deliverables as listed. The maximum level of effort per consultant is 32 days amounting to 96 days for accomplishing all the deliverables. The expected deliverables include the following:

No.DescriptionDeliverableTarget Date 1 Review and finalize the draft methodologies and tools for the operational research Ethically approved research instrument/protocols January 15, 2025 2 Recruit and training data collectors/research assistants on the research methodology Training report including pretesting of protocol January 30, 2025 3 Coordinate field data collection and desk review Field Report February 28, 2025 4 Undertake data Cleaning and Analysis Preliminary presentation of findings (PowerPoint presentation) February 28, 2025 5 Draft report associated with research on objectives 1&2 Draft report shared with NHIA, GHS and PROPEL Health team for review March 28, 2025 6 Draft report associated with research on objective 3 Draft report shared with NHIA, GHS and PROPEL Health team for review April 15, 2025 7 Final report associated with research on objectives 1&2, incorporating all the feedback from reviewers Final Report April 30, 2025 8 Final report associated with research on objective 3, incorporating all the feedback from reviewers) Final Report May 15, 2025 9 Prepare and submit 2 manuscripts for publication (from the operation research) and make a presentation during a local dissemination forum. 2 manuscripts co-authored with NHIA and PROPEL Health team

Final PowerPoint presentation for objective 1, 2 and 3 May 30, 2025

Consultancy Team

The project will be managed by a multidisciplinary team including PROPEL Health, NHIA and GHS technical staff.

Required Qualifications:

• Master’s or PhD Degree in health economics, economics, data science, statistics, or related discipline,
• At least 6 years of professional experience in public health, health economics, health finance, and policy formulation related to developing countries, or experience in other fields related to the duties described above.
• Experience developing similar Research Protocols/Operational Research on FP and NHIS for the NHIA and
• Ghana Health Service is critical.
• At least 3 peer reviewed publications on the Ghana National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).
• Experience in conducting large-scale national surveys.
• Experience working with government stakeholders including the Ministry of Health.
• Strong program management and interpersonal skills are highly desirable.
• Excellent writing, presentation, and organizational skills are required.
• Demonstrated problem solving, analytic, financial, and evaluative skills.
• Professional proficiency in any of the popular statistical tools including STATA and R.
• Meticulous and ability to perform multiple tasks and balance competing priorities effectively and efficiently often within a required timeframe.
• Professional and mature demeanor and conduct
• Ability to respond and adapt quickly to changing requirements and competing demands.
• Ability to take initiative and/or respond independently to situations.
• Fluency English required.

Other Desirable Skills: Initiative, strong conceptual abilities, sound judgment

Disclaimer: This job description is not an exhaustive list of the skill, effort, duties, and responsibilities associated with the position.

Equity, Diversity & Inclusion – Palladium is committed to embedding equity, diversity, and inclusion into everything we do. We welcome applications from all sections of society and actively encourage diversity to drive innovation, creativity, success and good practice. We positively welcome and seek to ensure we achieve diversity in our workforce; and that all job applicants and employees receive equal and fair treatment regardless of their background or personal characteristics. These include: (but are not limited to) socio-economic background, age, race, gender identity and expression, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, nationality, veteran, marital or Indigenous status.

Should you require any adjustments or accommodation to be made due to a disability or you are a neurodivergent individual or for any other circumstance, please email our team at accessibility@thepalladiumgroup.com and we will be in touch to discuss.

Safeguarding – We define Safeguarding as “the preventative action taken by Palladium to protect our people, clients and the communities we work with from harm”. We are committed to ensuring that all children and adults who come into contact with Palladium are treated with respect and are free from abuse. All successful candidates will be subject to an enhanced selection process including safeguarding-focused interviews and a rigorous due diligence process.

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