View Vacancy - BK - Prosperity Fund Health Adviser, C4

The main purpose of the job is to provide high quality policy and technical advice on, and help define and implement a multi-million multi-year Prosperity Fund programme supporting healthcare outcomes in Thailand, which:

• Reduces poverty and stimulates inclusive, sustainable economic growth
• Opens new markets for international businesses, including UK companies
• Is aligned with equivalent UK programmes in other middle-income ODA-eligible countries
• Is coherent with wider Embassy/HMG efforts to build healthcare links with the UK
• Has impact and is good value for money.

Roles and responsibilities / what will the jobholder be expected to achieve?

Prosperity is one of the UK’s three Foreign Policy Priorities.  We seek to ‘build the UK’s prosperity by increasing exports and investment, opening markets, ensuring access to resources, and promoting sustainable global growth’.

One tool for achieving this objective is a £1.2bn five-year Cross-Government Prosperity Fund, which was launched in April 2016 to help promote economic growth in developing countries.  The purpose of the Prosperity Fund is to:

• Promote economic reforms and remove barriers to trade
• Strengthen policy capacity and build strong institutions
• Develop sectors which support growth such as healthcare

In ASEAN, a country grouping of 600 million consumers and growing, improving healthcare outcomes particularly in the non-communicable diseases area is a crucial element of national health strategies.  As part of this, we plan to invest in a multi-million pound and multi-year Prosperity Fund programme on healthcare, which is a priority sector for UK Ministers. Your job is to provide high quality policy and technical advice on, and help design and implement this programme.  Broadly speaking this will take place in three stages:

Stage I: Transition.  We expect this stage to last until December 2018.

• Contribute to finalising a global health business case, including annexes (such as the economic appraisal, logical framework, theory of change, risk assessment).
• Run small-scale transition activity (such as pre-implementation outreach to government, private sector, academic institutions).
• Contribute to a London-led procurement exercise to contract a lead global programme implementer(s). For example by contributing to drafting a terms of reference or Memorandum of Understanding.
• Build a strong network for the Embassy amongst healthcare policy makers, and providers in Government (Federally and regionally), civil society and business.
• Develop strong relations with healthcare policy leads in London and other priority Prosperity Fund countries.
• Use this network and knowledge to draft or update a cross-cutting Embassy Health Strategy, which coordinates with DIT healthcare opportunities, and work done by others on Newton Fund and Fleming Fund.

Stage II: Inception (Phase 1).  We expect this stage to last until June 2019.

Support the programme implementing entity by,

• Connecting the global programme implementers with the right organisations at post.
• Ensure that the programme is de-conflicted with, but complements other Prosperity Fund work at post on areas such as energy, financial services, future cities and the business environment
• Identify opportunities to link the programme further to national health policy making and updating of health, medical and related regulations.
• Secure buy in from government partners and seek opportunity to get financial or contributions in-kind.

Stage III: Implementation (Phase 2).  We expect this stage to last until March 2021.

 Support the programme implementing entity by,

• Ensuring that the programme is run effectively, monitored intensively, and that risks are mitigated appropriately.

Lead on the following tasks,

• Continue de-conflicting the programme with other UK-funded work at post.
• Ensure that the UK gets due credit for successes, and that posts’ contribution to the overall programme’s annual reviews has impact
• Deploy Embassy diplomatic levers to support the programme’s primary aim of reducing poverty
• Deploy Embassy commercial levers to support the programme’s secondary aim of opening new markets, including the UK.

Throughout this period you will also need to ensure the programme implementers in inception and implementation are,

a)     Complying with the International Development Act, including the International Development (Gender Equality) Act 2014; meets the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC)’s criteria; is untied; meets UK government transparency commitments on ODA spend; and complies with HMG audit requirements.

b)     Identify and manage risks to successful programme implementation.

You will lead on,

c)      Keeping abreast of health policy developments in Thailand, the UK and internationally (for example World Health Organisation, World Bank and Asian Development Bank policy and operational reviews), using this knowledge to spot opportunities for sharing lessons and best practice with other ASEAN and prosperity fund priority countries.

d)     Build links across the Embassy, by chairing or co-chairing a health Virtual Team consisting of programme, policy and commercial colleagues.

e)     Deepen the Embassy’s health engagement beyond the capital cities to state/regional levels.

f)       Maintain a strong network with colleagues in the UK, and counterparts in ASEAN and other priority health Prosperity Fund countries, adapting the programme on the basis of lessons learnt (this may involve international travel).

g)     Support the wider Prosperity team, and take on Embassy corporate roles.

We are looking for a proactive, creative self-starter who can prioritise to operate in a fast-paced environment, largely unsupervised, delivering to deadlines.  S/he will need excellent interpersonal and communications skills to build strong relations within the Embassy, in the region and with stakeholders in the UK. 

• Qualified to degree level (ideally but not limited to health policy or economics or health economics or development economics or sociology or political science or business studies).
• Knowledge of the healthcare sector from having worked in the public/private sectors
• Passion for health policy and healthcare, and a desire to improve health outcomes.
• At least 4 to 5 years experience working in the public or private sectors.
• Experience in developing policy advice/analysis; delivering successful programmes and managing budgets
• A strong understanding of poverty, inequality and gender issues
• Computer literate, working with Microsoft Windows and able to manage information effectively with available computer systems
• Excellent written and spoken English

The successful candidate will be expected to embody the UK Civil Service code.