Health Economist - New Delhi, India - IFC Systems Corporation

IFC Systems Corporation

Verified Company

New Delhi, India

2 weeks ago

Posted by:

Deepika Kaur

beBee Recuiter

Description

Health Economist

Job #:

- req21832
Organization:

World Bank
Sector:
Health/Nutrition/Population
Grade:
GF
Term Duration:
4 years 0 months
Recruitment Type:
Local Recruitment
Location:
New Delhi,India
Required Language(s):
English, Hindi
Preferred Language(s):

Closing Date:

4/10/2023 (MM/DD/YYYY) at 11:59pm UTC
Description

Health, Nutrition and Population (HNP) Global Practice Context:

The central contribution of the HNP Global Practice to the World Bank's twin goals is to enable the achievement of Universal Health Coverage (UHC), in which all people are effectively covered by essential health services, and nobody suffers undue financial hardship because of illnesses.

Regional context:
South Asia (SAR)
The World Bank Group serves eight client countries in the South Asia Region, home to nearly 1.8 billion people.

Clients range from large rapidly growing sophisticated middle-income countries to IDA countries to fragile and small island and landlocked states.

Over the past few years, work has focused on the response to the COVID-19 crisis.

In FY22, the region delivered $10.7 billion in financing for client countries and a wide range of ASAs and engagements with countries.

The focus for the post-pandemic recovery lies on economic recovery and prudent fiscal and debt management; private sector expansion and job creation; climate resilience and improving human capital.

The region will continue to support progress on structural reforms and invest in inclusion, gender equality, productive jobs, climate resilience and digital economy.

Country context:
India

With a current population of over 1.3 billion people, India is slated to be the world's most populous country by 2025 and the third largest economy in the world by 2030 In recent decades, the country has made notable progress on sustaining rapid economic growth and reducing poverty and vulnerability.

However, progress on improving population health has been mixed. India's health system performance has varied widely over time periods, states, and indicators. The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that India's hard-won gains in health outcomes are fragile.

Regarding health system performance, India lags behind both global and regional comparators. Two key issues stand out. First, childhood stunting rates of 35 percent are among the highest in the world.

Second, India's health system also fares poorly in terms of providing financial risk protection against catastrophic and impoverishing medical expenses.

The COVID-19 lockdown exposed the lack of pandemic preparedness, and health coverage for the informal sector.

In recent years India's World Bank HNP portfolio has grown significantly, with 11 projects currently under implementation amounting to over four billion dollars in IBRD/IDA resources, and others in the pipeline for the coming year.

In addition, we have a vibrant and multi-faceted policy engagement in HNP with both the central government and state government levels as well as different development partners.

The World Bank in India:

Unit Context:

South Asia Health (HSAHN):
South Asia has been the fastest-growing region in the world in recent years.

This has led to impressive declines in poverty and to improvements in key HNP outcomes such as life expectancy and under-five mortality rates With the right facilitative policies in place, most countries in the region are poised to reap a potential demographic dividend.

Nevertheless, key challenges remain and new ones are emergent across the region:

inequalities remain large and persistent, malnutrition remains a huge problem, financing for health remains largely out-of-pocket, and health systems are ill-equipped to face a growing burden from non-communicable diseases and from new risk factors related to urbanization and air pollution.

We have an active and growing portfolio in the region, with lending operations, technical assistance, and analytical work focusing on improving health financing, service delivery, and governance both from within the sector and via support for multi-sectoral engagement.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted South Asia's major weaknesses in public health, including disease surveillance and diagnostics, as well as in health service delivery in terms of quality of care and surge capacity.

The HSAHN team includes around 28 staff based in SAR countries and Washington DC. To strengthen the team, the WBG is recruiting a locally-recruited Health Economist based in Delhi.

The Health Economist will support the World Bank's HNP portfolio, including the ongoing policy dialogue with counterparts and partners, preparation of analytical products, and the preparation and supervision of operations in the sector, as well as engagement on the broader human capital agenda.

Duties & Responsibilities:

The Health Economist will report to the HSAHN Practice Manager in Washington DC and will be responsi