Digital Health Systems and Interoperability Consultant (Multi-country), Digital Health Transformation, Access and Equity (DHx) Section, Health Practice, Nairobi COE, Kenya, remote, # 596658

UNICEF works in over 190 countries and territories to save children’s lives, defend their rights, and help them fulfill their potential, from early childhood through adolescence.

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For every child, the right to health

How can you make a difference?

Most governments in low- and middle-income countries are planning or negotiating significant health sector financing from the World Bank, regional development banks and global health partners, and a growing share of that financing is intended for digital health. Yet digital components are often designed late in operation preparation, costed thinly and procured before functional and interoperability requirements are documented, so financing that could build national systems frequently produces another generation of disconnected applications. Where country offices can bring government-endorsed requirements and costed roadmaps into these operations early, while their design is still open, the terms of the investment change.

UNICEF's Health Practice is implementing Digital Health: High-Impact Solutions for Scale, a two-year programme (September 2026 to August 2028) designed to change how digital health investment reaches national scale. Much of the funding that has gone into digital health over the past two decades, UNICEF's included, has paid for pilots that prove a tool in a few districts and then stall, because nothing in their design connects them to the national budgets and large-scale financing on which scale and sustainability depend. The programme is not another pilot. It uses a modest, time-bound investment to influence how much larger government, IFI and global health partner financing is spent, so that national systems are designed around documented requirements, costed before they are procured and built on shared foundations that later investments can reuse.

The programme works along two lines. In eight countries, country offices are supporting governments to prepare investment-ready digital health blueprints (costed, government-endorsed roadmaps carrying the functional and interoperability requirements that finance ministries and lenders need), timed to the financing windows and preparation cycles of the World Bank, regional development banks and Gavi. In three further countries, the programme funds health information exchange enabling layers, such as registries, terminology services and interoperability components, without which point-of-care applications end up joined through workarounds and duplicated databases at high and recurring cost. The model has precedent: technical groundwork of this kind in the Pacific preceded a USD 245 million World Bank lending commitment with USD 30 million of UNICEF-managed implementation, and costed roadmap engagements with ten countries under Gavi's health systems and immunization strengthening support were followed by more than USD 50 million in health system financing.

Success is measured by the financing that follows and the national systems it builds. Country offices hold the government relationships and programme accountability throughout, with technical backstopping from the Health Centre of Excellence and a set of institutional technical partners, and UNICEF's role shifts from implementing on behalf of governments to accompanying them as a trusted technical adviser through the design, financing and early delivery of systems they steward, whatever the mix of financing behind them.

This consultancy strengthens what those country offices can do, and it has two purposes. The first, which accounts for most of the assignment, is to give the participating country offices the analysis, technical input and coordination that most of them do not have in-house, since few have a dedicated digital health lead and some have limited health programme staffing. The second is to build UNICEF's credibility and working relationships with international financial institutions (IFIs), including regional development banks such as IDB, CAF, ADB and AfDB, using the participating countries to demonstrate a model of technical accompaniment that can extend to other countries with comparable financing opportunities, including through regional public goods financed jointly by governments and IFIs. UNICEF staff hold these relationships at headquarters, regional offices and country offices, among Health Section colleagues in Panama, Nairobi and Bangkok, and the consultant's role is to prepare, facilitate and follow through on that engagement.

The consultant leads on digital health systems and interoperability, with emphasis on the health information exchange enabling layers being established in the three implementation countries, together with requirements and architecture input to investment blueprints across the programme and support to financing window analysis. The post works closely with Health Section colleagues in the COEs, particularly in Bangkok, and requires periodic face-to-face engagement there and working hours that overlap substantially with Bangkok's.

If you would like to know more about this consultancy, please review the complete Terms of Reference here:  ToRTMC0007655.pdf

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have...

Minimum requirements:

Education: Master’ in Health informatics, information systems, computer science, engineering, public health with an informatics focus, or a related field. A first-level university degree with two additional years of relevant experience may be accepted in place of an advanced degree.

Work Experience: At least eight years designing or implementing digital health systems in low- and middle-income countries, including at least five years on national-scale interoperability (requirements and enterprise architecture, facility, health worker and client registries, terminology services and health information exchange), with experience working with ministries of health on national digital health architecture and with vendors on technical specifications and acceptance of deliverables.

Skills: Hands-on FHIR experience, including profiling and implementation guides.

• Working knowledge of WHO SMART Guidelines and digital adaptation kits, HIE reference architectures and digital health maturity assessment.
• Ability to translate architecture into requirements that governments, vendors and financiers can act on.

Language Requirements: Fluency in English is required. Spanish or French is an advantage. 

Desirables: Experience in one or more regions of the participating countries.

• Experience with digital components of IFI-financed operations or with digital health costing.
• Experience integrating with digital public infrastructure such as identity and payments.
• Experience designing shared multi-country infrastructure.
• Experience with UN agencies.

For every Child, you demonstrate...

UNICEF’s Core Values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust and Accountability and Sustainability (CRITAS) underpin everything we do and how we do it. Get acquainted with Our Values Charter: UNICEF Values

UNICEF promotes and advocates for the protection of the rights of every child, everywhere, in everything it does and is mandated to support the realization of the rights of every child, including those most disadvantaged, and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, minority, or any other status.

UNICEF encourages applications from all qualified candidates, regardless of gender, nationality, religious or ethnic backgrounds, and from people with disabilities, including neurodivergence. We offer reasonable accommodation for persons with disabilities. throughout the recruitment process. If you require any accommodation, please submit your request through the accessibility email button on the UNICEF Careers webpage Accessibility | UNICEF. Should you be shortlisted, please get in touch with the recruiter directly to share further details, enabling us to make the necessary arrangements in advance.

UNICEF does not hire candidates who are married to children (persons under 18). UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination based on gender, nationality, age, race, sexual orientation, religious or ethnic background or disabilities. UNICEF is committed to promote the protection and safeguarding of all children. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks, and will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check, and selected candidates with disabilities may be requested to submit supporting documentation in relation to their disability confidentially.

Qualified candidates are invited to submit the following documents via the online recruitment portal, TMS (Talent Management System):

• An up-to-date TMS profile and curriculum vitae (CV)
• Cover letter
• A separate financial proposal (only acceptable in the format of the linked template)  Financial proposal TMC0007655.docx
• Technical Proposal:

CV or P11; a technical note of no more than three pages setting out the candidate's approach to the requirements and architecture package for a national HIE enabling layer, given a defined starting maturity and a 12-month window; and one writing sample authored or co-authored by the candidate.