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July 15, 2007
World Bank Consultancy: Co-editor for 'Labor Market Methodology Toolkit'
Overview: In many Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries, one fundamental health system weakness is the overall shortage, imbalance and low productivity of human resources for health (HRH), which form the foundation of health services delivery. At a time when the international community and SSA countries scale up interventions to deal with the epidemics of tuberculosis (STOP-TB Africa strategy), malaria (World Bank Malaria Booster program, Roll Back Malaria), and HIV-AIDS (various initiatives), it is crucial the workforce crisis and lack of related baseline information and labor market data are adequately addressed.
Despite increased government commitment to addressing the crisis, a major problem is a chronic shortage at all levels (national and international) of skills to appropriately research, diagnose, monitor, and evaluate the Africa health workforce crisis from its unique labor market perspective. The majority of Africa health workforce research and strategies have focused on single issue solutions, especially on pre-service production and on wages with a lack of attention to comprehensive labor market analysis. Furthermore, there is a general lack of printed or web-based resources to assist in designing and using labor market research and analysis methodologies to address the Africa health workforce crisis. Currently for many methodologies there are no adequate resources and for other issues the resources are scattered and difficult to find and use. Finally, there is little understanding of the linkages between analytical baseline information and policy and program development.
As part of the World Bank’s Africa Program on Human Resources for Health (funded by the government of Norway and the Gates Foundation), the Bank, in collaboration with the WHO, plans to develop a comprehensive, practical, easy-to-use, definitive reference for health labor market research and analysis methodologies to be used in the diagnosis and mitigation of health worker shortages in Africa. The ‘Africa Labor Market HRH Toolkit’ is expected to be of use to governments and partner organizations and institutions working on health workforce policy, management, information systems, statistics and planning in Sub-Saharan Africa and beyond.
The Bank is seeking an experienced health labor market economist to complement and work closely with the Bank’s HRH team, and coordinate and guide content development and act as co-editor of the planned toolkit together with program manager Agnes Soucat.
Scope of Work: The co-editor will work closely with the Bank’s Africa HRH team and WHO to coordinate and direct efforts to develop the HRH toolkit. He or she will work closely with Dr. Agnes Soucat (lead health economist) to develop a content outline from a labor market perspective, author key chapters, and maintain content and editorial oversight over chapters written by others. Upon completion, the consultant will contribute towards dissemination efforts of the toolkit.
Although the content design of the toolkit is still being finalized, early consultation between the Bank’s Africa HRH team and the WHO resulted in the following provisional structure for the toolkit: The toolkit will consist of 2 parts. Part 1 is intended to ‘set the stage’ for the overall paper. It will consist of 4 chapters, namely chapters on 1.1) discussion of the main HRH/Labor Market issues confronting countries,1.2) the main policy questions that require answers, 1.3) an overview of the health labor market framework, 1.4) a chapter of the links between policy and analytical tools. Part 2 will focus specifically on the analytical and technical aspects required, such as specific methodologies and mechanisms with which to conduct analysis, and collect information and data required for HRH program and policy development.
Selection Criteria: Ideally the consultant should hold an advanced degree in economics and have significant experience in labor markets. The candidate should have substantial experience in preparing high quality research papers, and recognized credentials as a labor market economist. Country of residence is not a concern.
Time: The Consultant is expected to commit up to 20% of his or her time towards developing the Labor Market toolkit, for a period of 3 to 6 months.
Remuneration: Remuneration will be consistent with the consultant’s experience and the Bank’s payment guidelines.
More information:Anyone who is interested should contact Dr. Kate Tulenko (ktulenko@worldbank.org, 202-473-1066) and Mr. Chris Herbst (cherbst@worldbank.org).
