Global Financing Facility

World Bank Group Context

Established in 1944, the WBG is one of the largest sources of funding and knowledge for development solutions. It is governed by 188 member countries and delivers services out of 120 offices with nearly 15,000 staff globally. The vision of the World Bank Group (WBG) is to end extreme poverty and promote shared prosperity by fostering income growth of the poorest people in countries. To achieve that vision the WBG leverages the combined strength of the WBG institutions and their ability to partner with the public and private sectors to deliver customized development solutions backed by finance, world-class knowledge and convening services. It has three components: (1) maximizing development impact by engaging country clients in identifying and tackling the most difficult development challenges; (2) promoting scaled-up partnerships that are strategically aligned with the goals; and (3) crowding in public and private resources, expertise and ideas.

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 as a result of illnesses. In the quest for UHC, the HNP Global Practice is building on progress made in the framework of the Millennium Development Goals, an array of analytical and advisory services, strategic partnerships with partner institutions and other financing agencies, and an active lending portfolio. The HNP Global Practice includes staff members in Washington, DC, and many country offices.

Global Financing Facility Context

The global community has made considerable progress over the past 25 years in improving the health and well-being of women, children, and adolescents. Rates of preventable death have dropped significantly in many countries and improvements have been seen across a range of key measures of health and well-being. But the progress has not been enough: too many women, children, and adolescents have been left behind, dying and suffering from preventable conditions, in considerable part because of a large financing gap, estimated at US$33 billion annually.

The Global Financing Facility in Support of Every Woman Every Child (GFF) was launched at the Financing for Development Conference in Addis Ababa in July 2015 as part of a global conversation about how to finance the SDGs, which requires a shift from thinking about billions of dollars to recognizing that we need trillions to achieve the ambitious targets that we have agreed upon. This shift is only possible through new approaches to financing that recognize that countries themselves are the engines of progress and that the role of external assistance is to support countries both to get more results from the existing resources and to increase the total volume of financing. Over the past two years, the GFF has created a new model with countries in the driver’s seat that brings together multiple sources of financing in a synergistic way to support national priorities. A key element of this model is drawing on the other sectors that influence health and nutrition outcomes, such as education, water and sanitation, and social protection. The GFF supports countries to get on a trajectory to achieve the SDGs by: 

• Strengthening dialogue among key stakeholders under the leadership of governments and supporting the identification of a clear set of priority results that all partners commit their resources to achieving;

• Getting more results from existing resources and increasing the total volume of financing from four sources: domestic government resources, financing from IDA and IBRD, aligned external financing, and private sector resources; and

• Strengthening systems to track progress, learn, and course-correct.

The GFF recently launched its first replenishment for the GFF Trust Fund to respond to the demand from countries that want to be part of the GFF. It seeks to mobilize an additional US$2 billion to enable the GFF process to be expanded over the period 2018–23 to 50 countries facing the most significant needs. The opportunity for impact is enormous: these countries collectively account for 96 percent of the US$33 billion annual financing gap and 5.2 million maternal and child deaths each year, with billions of dollars lost each year to poor health.

The GFF partnership, including its external relations strategy, is led by the GFF director; the day-to-day management of the GFF team is the responsibility of the GFF practice manager. The GFF secretariat, which is based at the World Bank and is situated in the HNP Global Practice, works to deliver on the GFF objectives. This includes working with countries to develop quality investment cases, managing the GFF Trust Fund, technical assistance to regional teams, and support to the GFF Investors Group, the governance mechanism for the GFF.

Results driven approach:

The GFF is dedicated to improving country-level health data collection and financial information management systems (resource tracking) to improve advocacy efforts and program management decisions at all levels in the healthcare system. Our aim is to increase the demand for high quality data and meaningful country driven data-use for improved RMNCAH-N outcomes and health financing reforms. Our focus is to stregthen national systems, working in collaboration with other health stakeholders to avoid duplicity and invest in catalytic systems areas to increase data quality, use and demand. 

Duties & Responsibilities:

The GFF is seeking a qualified candidate to bring a fresh perspective on efforts to support results monitoring and resource tracking systems to support GFF-funded countries to achieve improvements in maternal, child health and nutrition outcomes and reduction in morbidity and mortality. The GFF is rooted in analytics and results driven, with a focus on the intersection between health financing and routine health outcomes monitoring. The successful candidate will provide support to national GFF country platforms and World Bank task teams to develop monitoring strategies and identify gaps in health information systems and resource tracking systems that focus on health and nutrition priority, successfully monitor and evaluate the impact of these investments, and create learning opportunities that benefit the wider partnership. This position is pivotal to the success for the GFF approach and plays a key role in monitoring the success of of the health financing reforms and improved country programming. This position reports to the GFF manager and works closely with the results lead on the GFF secretariat.

Responsibilities of the Unit:

The GFF secretariat is responsible for supporting the activities of the GFF, including managing the GFF Trust Fund and supporting the GFF Investors Group, the governance mechanism for the GFF. The secretariat is based at the World Bank, situated in the HNP Global Practice. The GFF monitoring team is responsible for supporting countries to develop and monitor their RMNACH-N investment case by assessing the cost-effectiveness of RMNCAH-N program and identifying areas for improvement during implementation for real-time course correction. As well as to ensure accountability to those affected by RMNCAH-N outcomes as well as to those providing resources (governments at all levels, CSO, donors, other stakeholders).

Scope of Work:

a. Provide country support Support the development and implementation of strong monitoring frameworks for GFF investment case with a focus on alignment of donor investments to national priorities; and generate evidence around resource mobilization, allocation, utilization, productivity, and targeting to develop health financing reforms.

b. Support GFF countries to assess the effectiveness of RMNCAH-N program and identifying areas for improvement during implementation for real-time course correction.

c. Support GFF countries invest in strong financial information systems (resource tracking systems) to monitor and achieve health-financing reforms and increase the total volume of funding allocated to health and in specific RMNCAH-N.

d. Support GFF countries to monitor domestic resources (budgets) and donor funds in resource tracking systems to ensure that budget allocations are aligned and integrated.

e. Where applicable, support the development of results-linked expenditure systems to monitor RMNCAH-N outcomes and impact.

2. Develop an inventory of existing resource tracking systems (including budget, disbursement and expenditure) for purpose, reliability, timeliness, usability and transparency, focusing on strengthening existing systems and developing new systems in GFF countries, where desirable.

3. Monitor RMNCAH-N efficiencies and resource use: based on existing literature determine best practices to monitor allocative and technical efficiencies and what different activities are implemented across countries.

4. Coordinate with the World Bank teams working directly on financial management, resource tracking linked to RMNCAH-N results with the BOOST initiative.

5. Coordinate with the World Health Organization (WHO) and other partners, working directly on expenditure and resource monitoring aligned with systems of health accounts (SHA) linked to RMNCAH-N results.

6. Provide recommendations for integration and architecture of HMIS systems, specifically focused on data exchange and access between financial systems and routine HMIS; experience with interoperability of systems to increase the national demand for high quality of data and meaningful country owned data use  

7. Provide recommendations for data use recommendations of resource tracking data and results data, improving access, use and translation into policy and programmatic adjustments.

8. Develop together with the results monitoring and health financing team, relevant metrics and evaluation approaches to enable results and performance-based financing approaches can be used to improve RMNACH-N.

9. Manage individual consultants and consulting firms to develop financial monitoring systems in GFF-supported countries, including technical and analytical expertise to the Ministry of Health (MOH) and Ministry of Finance and development partners to better place monitoring of health financing reforms for improved RMNCAH-N outcomes.

10. Represent the GFF in external forums and/or partnerships as needed in close collaboration with the World Bank health financing specialists.