Senior Health Specialist/Senior Economist - Health Value Chains

Job #:
req38108

Organization:
World Bank Group

Sector:
Health/Nutrition/Population

Grade:
GG

Term Duration:
3 years 0 months

Recruitment Type:
International Recruitment

Location:
Washington, DC,United States

Required Language(s):
English

Preferred Language(s):
Spanish, French

Closing Date:
8/31/2026 (MM/DD/YYYY) at 11:59pm UTC

Description

Opportunity

The P&R of Mixed Health Systems program, within the Health P&R team, is seeking to hire a Senior Economist / Senior Health Specialist, based in Washington, D.C., to serve as a technical specialist on health value chains and to coordinate delivery and assure quality of the program's Health Value Chains work area.

The team brings together specialists across pharmaceutical regulatory policy, market shaping and procurement, supply chain, manufacturing, industrial development, trade facilitation, and skills. The postholder is accountable for converting their combined expertise into a coherent, sequenced offer that regional teams use - the diagnostics, tools, evidence base, and hands-on support through which the WBG delivers on securing access to health commodities through stronger supply chains and regional manufacturing.

Health value chains - the systems through which medicines, vaccines, diagnostics, medical devices, and related health products and services are developed, financed, manufactured, regulated, procured, and delivered - are central to the availability, affordability, quality, and resilience of healthcare in developing countries. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the fragility of globally concentrated supply chains and the risks that heavy import dependence poses to health security. This created renewed momentum behind local and regional manufacturing, regulatory strengthening, and supply chain resilience at the center of the global health and industrial policy agenda.

The World Bank Group is uniquely positioned to help client countries strengthen health value chains - combining IBRD/IDA policy, regulatory and financing instruments with IFC investment and advisory services and MIGA guarantees to shape markets, de-risk private investment, strengthen regulatory systems, and expand sustainable access to quality-assured health products. This agenda contributes directly to the WBG's goal of reaching 1.5 billion people with quality, affordable health services, and supplies the health sector evidence base for the More and Better Jobs (MBJ) agenda through the employment and industrial-development potential of health-sector value chains.

The Senior Economist / Senior Health Specialist will provide the deep technical and analytical leadership that underpins this work area: coordinating the development of the diagnostics, tools, and evidence base that serve regional health teams; coordinating the technical content of its operational products; and providing hands-on support to regional teams and clients designing and implementing value-chain engagements across the public and private sectors. The role sits within the P&R of Mixed Health Systems program and works across IBRD/IDA and IFC, in close collaboration with regional operations teams, the S&I IFC Private Sector Investments Center of Excellence, and external partners including the global health and development finance institutions, foundations, regional organizations active in this area and the private sector.

The successful candidate will be a self-starter with strong analytical, operational, and communication skills, deep knowledge of pharmaceutical and health-product markets and supply chains, and the ability to translate complex market, regulatory, and financing issues into clear guidance for governments, private investors, and senior management. Travel to client countries and representing the World Bank Group at technical events will be required.

The role is a service function. This work area succeeds when regional teams choose to draw on it. Generating demand through demonstrated usefulness is therefore central to the role.

Reporting and Accountability
The position reports to the Practice Manager for P&R within the Global Health Directorate. Day-to-day direction, work program, and deliverables are agreed with the Program Manager, P&R of Mixed Health Systems, who holds strategic and resource accountability for the program and its four work areas and serves as a co-supervisor.

DUTIES AND ACCOUNTABILITIES

Technical Leadership of the Health Value Chains Work Area
• Serve as the Directorate's principal technical reference and coordinator on health value chains - pharmaceuticals, vaccines, diagnostics, and medical products - for internal teams, regional operations, clients, and external partners.
• Develop and propose the technical strategy, operational priorities, and annual delivery plan for the health value chains work area for the Program Manager's decision, grounding proposals in market evidence, regional demand, and assessed country readiness.
• Integrate specialist inputs into coherent, clearance-ready products, ensuring outputs authored by different specialists share a common analytical frame, use consistent terminology, and do not duplicate one another. Taking key deliverables to clearance-ready quality.
• Provide technical quality assurance on value-chain content produced elsewhere in the Directorate and in regional operations. Coordinate the day-to-day work of a multidisciplinary task team of staff and consultants on value-chain deliverables, including recruitment input, task assignment, and technical quality assurance, delivering against the resource envelope.

Delivery of the operational toolkit and knowledge offer
• Coordinate the delivery of the work area's operational toolkit, each product developed with the relevant specialist and partners: the Binding Constraints Diagnostic Framework; the Market and Product Selection Framework; the Procurement and Supply Chain Diagnostics and Reform Tool; the Investment Incentives and Fiscal Policy Toolkit; the Governance Guidance; and the Skills Assessment.
• Ensure each tool is piloted with country teams and revised on the basis of use; own the feedback loop between pilot experience and tool design.
• Establish and maintain the Repository of Knowledge as a live, navigable resource that consolidates evidence, diagnostics, case studies, and templates currently dispersed across teams and regions, curated on K360.
• Lead the technical content of the TTL Refresher Module on Health Value Chains, the World Bank's Health System Flagship program and the Managing Markets for Health Bootcamp.
• Anchor the technical content of the internal community of practice on health value chains.

Country and Regional Operational Support
• Provide upstream, hands-on support to regional operations teams to embed health value-chain objectives in country programs, health projects, Health Compacts, and private sector engagements, tailoring approaches to country context and client demand.
• Respond to regional demand for technical assistance in collaboration with other experts on the team in areas such as procurement, manufacturing, regulation, and access to medicines, and build a cross-regional pipeline of value-chain operations, working through the PIU on portfolio and pipeline processes.
• Lead technical policy dialogue with government counterparts on value-chain reform, escalating to the Program Manager where dialogue engages broader program positioning or institutional commitments.
• Build value-chain capability across regional health teams so that routine engagements can proceed without central technical support.
• Supply the Program Manager and the Methods, Impact Meas