Senior Economist

Harvard School of Public Health
Harvard - United States
S: Competitive

Duties & Responsibilities
The Department of Global Health and Population at the Harvard School of Public Health seeks a Senior Economist to join a team working on health care financing in developing countries. The Senior Economist will be expected to lead the technical development of research strategies in health care financing in several countries, working with senior research partners in country, to lead in the development of reports and publishable scientific articles based on the work, and to disseminate results nationally and internationally. Initially, the Senior Economist will work on two projects: the Resource Tracking and Management in India and Ethiopia project (RTM), and the Financial Sustainability Plan and Resource Tracking (Pilot in Tanzania and Ethiopia) project (FSPRT) for which Prof. Peter Berman at HSPH is the Principal Investigator.

The Senior Economist will hold a leadership role on the FSPRT project, working autonomously to execute all activities under the FSPRT project, including; conducting a landscape review on financial sustainability in lower and middle income countries, particularly in relation to increased obligations to support disease control programs and universal coverage, reviewing the current practices of development partners to consider sustainability, proposing operational definitions of financial sustainability, and producing a template for a financial sustainability plan that could assist partners as they consider medium- to long-term reductions in support for long-lasting programs. This position will report to the PI, but is expected to make decisions, consult with local partners, and proceed with the technical requirements of the project largely independently. He/she will be responsible for ensuring that project deliverables are met according to schedule, and will communicate progress in achieving the projects objectives to the donor.

The RTM project focuses on improving primary health care performance through analyzing factors impeding effective and efficient financing and working with national and regional authorities to find solutions. The Senior Economist will initially mainly direct the India activities of RTM. He/she will provide technical leadership in working with Indian partner organizations and government agencies to conduct both national and state level research and analytical activities on RTM. The senior Economist will formulate and guide national level activities including: analyzing the sources and uses of government primary health care expenditures in Indian states including both national and state level financial inputs; estimating state contributions to health expenditures and developing recommendations to strengthen them, developing performance metrics / analysis to better understand service delivery performance related to resource availability, and exploring options to improve National Health Mission (NHM) financial flows from the center to the states. He/she will also lead in the development and oversight of state level activities, including a study of the experiences of financial managers and community actors to determine perceived/real constraints in the flow of funds, its utilization, and the impact of these constraints, analysis to strengthen budget utilization and disbursement at different levels, and performing an equity or benefit incidence analysis on previously collected facility and household data. He/she will be required to effectively manage HSPH's role in complex relationships between the donor, state and federal levels of government in the execution of project activities. He/she will present the findings of this work, on behalf of the project team, in papers, manuscripts and meetings.

Please note that this is a term appointment with a scheduled end date of June 30, 2015.

Basic Qualifications
Masters degree in economics or related field

10+ years of related professional experience

Job summary