Health Governance Specialist

The ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine has had a direct and highly negative impact on social cohesion, resilience, livelihoods, community security, and the rule of law. Recognizing the need to urgently address reconstruction, economic recovery and peacebuilding needs in areas affected both directly and indirectly by the conflict, in late 2014 the Government of Ukraine requested technical assistance and financial support from the international community to assess priority recovery needs. In late 2014, the United Nations, the World Bank and the European Union conducted a Recovery and Peacebuilding Assessment, which was endorsed by the Cabinet of Ministers in mid-2015.

In response to the situation, in 2016, UNDP has established a Project Office in eastern Ukraine with a view to consolidate and deliver the various recovery and governance projects through a comprehensive, area-based Recovery and Peacebuilding Programme (RPP) in five conflict-affected oblasts: Donetsk and Luhansk (Government Controlled Areas), as well as Zaporizhzhya, Dnipro, and Kharkiv oblasts. RPP frames UNDP’s interventions in Eastern Ukraine to address the recovery needs of conflict affected population and communities.

The Programme Component has three components focusing on:

• Economic recovery and restoration of critical infrastructure;
• Restoration of governance and support to decentralization reform;
• Strengthening community security and social cohesion.

UNDP Ukraine invites applications from highly qualified and experienced Ukrainian professionals for the posts of the Health Governance Specialists.  -Under the direct supervision of the Programme Coordinator of the Local Governance and Decentralization Reform (LGDR) Component, the Health Governance Specialists in close cooperation with other UNDP Specialists will provide capacity development support and technical assistance on Health care system to regionals and local authorities, and newly amalgamated communities, rayons and the regional civil-military administrations of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts. This position falls under the fourth component of the EU Support to the East of Ukraine – Recovery, Peacebuilding and Governance. Planned outputs and activities under this component are funded by the European Commission.

• Provide expert and technical advisory support to local authorities and communities in development and implementation of the strategy of health through informational, educational and capacity development activities for regional and local authorities, staff of the hospitals and population;
• Develop and conduct the health reform implementation plan on regional level;
• Collect and analyze the official annual data, disaggregated by sex, on Non Communicable Diseases (NCDs), Communicable Diseases (tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, etc.) for adopting the implementation plan;
• Conduct workshops on gender-responsive good governance, budgeting and financial planning of local health care expenditure for local authorities/doctors in profile departments;
• Develop the professional platform for networking and partnership building with national and regional authorities, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), private sector and international development organizations or projects;
• Support in organization of study visits of two sub-national stakeholders to EU country to benchmark and contribute to the evidence base on what is needed in terms of health governance, planning and budgeting, service delivery and quality of services that responds to the needs of women and men;
• Contribute to the development of the Guide on gender-responsive community/local health governance in hospital districts, their development and strengthen their capacity;
• Contribute to capacity assessment, capacity building and technical assistance for improvement of medical services on local level;
• Conduct the trainings on external resource mobilization and grant management for healthcare authorities, and members of territorial communities (hromad);
• Develop pilot “hospital districts” (HDs) activities in Donetsk and Lugansk oblasts and conduct capacity assessment of medical institutions in these targeted hospital districts;
• Support the hospital district boards in developing the five years development plan, based on the international experience;
• Provide the best practice point in these hospital districts and share their experience for other  hospital districts in each region;
• Provide a clear interaction of authorities of territorial communities (hromad) with authorities of hospital districts;
• Contribute to preparation and implementation of communication strategy for promoting health reform efforts based on the principles of gender-responsive and non-discriminatory communications;
• Prepare reports, memoranda, briefs, presentations and other materials related to health policy and reform;Ensure the development of cross-project linkages with other relevant UN projects and programmes and other stakeholders’ projects in order to create synergies;
• Provide and conduct the trainings, seminar, webinar using the international best practices and guidelines for the local authorities, doctors, health care managers, paramedics, students of medical colleges/ universities, journalists;
• Provide substantial inputs to promotion of private medicine development through educating of primary care doctors on establishing of individual enterprise;
• Monitor, coordinate and supervise field activities and provide technical support to ensure the Component objectives are met;
• Ensure that programme contributes to the promotion of gender equality by reaching, involving and benefiting both women and men in its activities (gender mainstreaming);
• Facilitate programme monitoring and evaluation, as well as audit activities;
• Prepare sections of the Programme/Component reports, including progress and annual reports, as well as any ad-hoc technical reports;
• Perform other activities as requested by Programme Coordinator and UNDP Management.

Measurable outputs of the work assignment:

• Full and appropriate implementation of the health care reform support activities within decentralization;
• Results, experiences and lessons learned during implementation of the Health Reform of the local Level of the Programme disseminated at the national and regional levels;
• Reporting and quality monitoring activities completed.

Performance indicators for evaluation of results:

• Respective sections of the annual work plan for the support to the regional health care system and addressing specific needs of the local population component of Programme is fully and timely implemented;
• Funds delivery allocated for health care support activities reached 100%;
• Programme and Component activities are carried out in strict accordance with UNDP rules and procedures.

Corporate Competencies:

• Communication;
• Delivery;
• Innovation;
• Leadership;
• People Management;
• Demonstrating/safeguarding ethics and integrity;
• Promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UNDP;
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability.

Functional Competencies:

• Knowledge Management and Learning;
• Development and Operational Effectiveness;
• Conflict Management;
• Result orientation;
• Teamwork;
• Self –management and emotional intelligence.

Promoting Organizational Learning and Knowledge Sharing:

• Generates new ideas and approaches, researches best practices and proposes new, more effective ways of doing things;
• Documents and analyses innovative strategies and new approaches.

Client Orientation:

• Researches potential solutions to internal and external client needs and reports back in a timely, succinct and appropriate fashion;
• Organizes and prioritizes work schedule to meet client needs and deadlines.

Innovation and Marketing New Approaches:

• Generates new ideas and proposes new, more effective ways of doing things;
• Documents and analyses innovative strategies/best practices/new approaches.

Global Leadership and Advocacy for UNDP’s Goals:

• Performed analysis of political situations and scenarios, and contributes to the formulation of institutional responses;
• Uses the opportunity to bring forward and disseminate materials for global advocacy work and adapts it for use at country level.

Other:

• Ability to implement project/programmes components for results, including the ability to translate strategic aims into achievable annual work plans; and prepare inputs to project/programme reports in a timely manner;
• Ability to carrying out analytical work, preparing brief, reporting and contributing to reports;
• Good interpersonal communication skills;
• Ability to handle politically sensitive issues and establish partnership with government authorities, local authorities and CSO’s and within UNDP;
• Sound judgment and maturity to foster a positive work environment;
• Understanding of and commitment to such UNDP values as gender equality and zero tolerance to any kind of discriminatory and abusive behaviour, including sexual harassment, sexual exploitation and abuse;
• Ability to work effectively as part of a team;
• Familiarity with national legislation in a health care sphere;
• Demonstrated strong analytical, coordination and facilitation skills;
• Excellent usage of computers and office software packages.

Education:

• Masters’ degree or equivalent in Management, Medicine Sciences, Political Science, Public Health, Social Science, or another relevant field.

Experience:

• At least 3 years of relevant experience in the field of public health, social policy or local governance;
• Experience in leading teams  is required;
• Experience in reform (preferably health sector), advisory and advocacy services, and capacity development would be considered as an advantage;
• Work experience within government institutions will be considered as an advantage.

Language Requirements:

• Fluency in English, Ukrainian and Russian is required.

Important applicant information

All posts in the SC categories are subject to local recruitment.

Applicant information about UNDP rosters

Note: UNDP reserves the right to select one or more candidates from this vacancy announcement.  We may also retain applications and consider candidates applying to this post for other similar positions with UNDP at the same grade level and with similar job description, experience and educational requirements.

Workforce diversity

UNDP is committed to achieving diversity within its workforce, and encourages all qualified applicants, irrespective of gender, nationality, disabilities, sexual orientation, culture, religious and ethnic backgrounds to apply. All applications will be treated in the strictest confidence.

Scam warning

The United Nations does not charge any application, processing, training, interviewing, testing or other fee in connection with the application or recruitment process. Should you receive a solicitation for the payment of a fee, please disregard it. Furthermore, please note that emblems, logos, names and addresses are easily copied and reproduced. Therefore, you are advised to apply particular care when submitting personal information on the web.