Job Description
Devex Talent Solutions is assisting Value for Good in their search for a Health & Human Development Officer to be based in Brussels, Belgium.
HDX Hub Overview
The European Commission (EC), the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) announced a new financing partnership to address critical global health challenges. The partnership marks a significant increase in funding for global health and human development under the European Commission’s European Fund for Sustainable Development Plus (EFSD+).
Under EFSD+, the European Commission has allocated more than €750m of guarantees for enabling innovation and improving access in health systems in low- and middle-income countries, as well as €40m of grants for Technical Assistance (TA), of which €290m will be matched by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The partnership is creating a Human Development Accelerator (HDX) Hub, to develop and manage a pipeline of at least €1bn of investment into global health and human development in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. The HDX Hub is responsible for identifying, scoping, and overseeing concessional investment opportunities, and for ensuring close alignment between the EC, the EIB, and BMGF on global health financing investment decisions.
The HDX Hub will develop a pipeline of investment opportunities, report on the overall portfolio of investments to a Joint Steering Committee, and support the EIB investment and management processes. The HDX Hub will also identify new opportunities to partner between the EC, EIB, and BMGF, as well as with other Development Finance Institutions (DFIs). This engagement will help promote EC, EIB, and BMGF efforts as innovators in development finance, ultimately leveraging greater funding volumes for human development. In addition, the HDX Hub will explore ways to develop and adapt financial instruments to better address issues faced in LMIC human development. The team will also look for opportunities to shape partner investments to maximize collective impact and to further expand the partnership.
Governance
The HDX Hub will be overseen by a Working Group and answerable to a Joint Steering Committee of the EC, EIB and BMGF. The HDX Hub will be contracted to Value for Good for human resources and logistical support and will sit within the EIB, providing consulting support to the EIB investment processes. The team at the HDX Hub will be based in Brussels to ensure engagement with all relevant stakeholders.
Objectives
The HDX Hub will have the following objectives:
- Develop pipeline of investment opportunity proposals: Identify, scope, develop, and assess investment opportunities in global health and wider human development sectors (including nutrition, gender, social protection, and education) in collaboration with partners to maximize impact.
- Actively support EIB to manage the portfolio of investments: Support reporting on investment KPIs and progress, as well as support in actively managing the risk of the portfolio.
- Provide support to the Joint Steering Committee and Working Group: Develop materials, understand partner priorities, and ensure alignment to enable the partnership to efficiently identify and approve appropriate opportunities. The HDX Hub will also help identify and propose additional opportunities for collaboration between the EC, EIB, and BMGF.
- Support to enhance development finance capability to invest in human capital: Provide development finance expertise in areas relevant to human development and innovative finance in LMICs. Support the partners in shaping their instruments, funding windows, and processes to maximize their impact and alignment with human development investments.
- Develop long-term vision for HDX Hub: The HDX Hub initially has a 4-year mandate, with an ambition to develop into a long-term team focused on human development investments and cross-partner collaboration.
Overall Approach
- Outcome-oriented: Continually keeps an eye on performance, focusing on improving it, showing drive and determination to meet short and long-term goals.
- Agile: Adapts to differences and changes in the environment; takes a flexible approach to reach outcomes.
- Collaborative: Works cooperatively as part of a team and works collaboratively with peers across organizational boundaries based on a genuine interest in and an accurate understanding of others and their individual perspectives and concerns.
- Integrity: Willing to align her/his own behavior with organization-specific needs and intrinsic values, acting with integrity in ways that promote organization-specific missions, policies, and rules.
- Inclusion: We are dedicated to the belief that all lives have equal value. We’re committed to creating a workplace where employees thrive both personally and professionally. We also believe employees should reflect the rich diversity of the global populations we aim to serve — in race, gender, age, cultures, and beliefs—and we support this diversity through all our employment practices. Applicants and employees will enjoy equality of opportunity and fair treatment without regard to race, color, age, religion, pregnancy, sex, sexual orientation, disability, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, genetic information, veteran status, marital status, and prior protected activity.
Health & Human Development Officer
Role Description
The Health & Human Development Officer will bring a range of development experience in health, nutrition, education, gender and / or market shaping to identify need for investments, scope viability, report on project outcomes, and build partnerships to grow the HDX Hub. They will report to the HDX Hub team lead and work closely with the operational investment officer, to bring their development and sector expertise into the investment pipeline.
They are responsible for working with subject matter experts and development finance experts within the HDX Hub, European Investment Bank, European Commission, and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to identify, design, and refine concessional investments to drive inclusive impact in priority sectors. The Health & Human Development Officer is also responsible for designing the performance metrics of individual opportunities and for reporting on financial and development metrics.
Additionally, they will support the ongoing development of appropriate financing mechanisms for development, assessing their potential impact and use cases. The Health & Human Development Officer will lead the identification of opportunities to collaborate with other stakeholders to leverage finance into strategic development areas.
The Health & Human Development Officer will initially be identifying private sector products and solutions that can benefit from financial products to better address equity, access and broader market failures in the deployment of key global health and life science products. However, this role will also look at how financing can more broadly support access to key commodities which can improve human development in LMICs, and strengthen health and social welfare system systems.
Accountabilities
- Work with public, private, and multilateral institutions to identify and prioritise projects aligned with the development priorities of the EIB, EC, and BMGF
- Develop and design projects for investment, assessing their impact and preparing materials to present to partners and delivery bodies
- Work with the HDX team and the EIB to design project finance support to maximise development impact
- Manage and assess projects, including designing and reporting on individual opportunity performance metrics in alignment with the priorities of the EIB, EC, and BMGF
- Provide technical expertise and guidance to the HDX Hub, EIB, EC, and BMGF on development issues, particularly those in global health and human development
- Support the development of innovative financial instruments to better address the reality of deploying financing in LMICs
- Identify opportunities to collaborate with other stakeholders to leverage additional finance into strategic development areas
Key Skills
- Experience in development, with a specialization in global health and / or human development and a good understanding of wider human development issues (e.g. health innovation, system strengthening, social protection, education, gender)
- Strong understanding of LMIC and global health market drivers, and how finance can support their development
- Ability to credibly lead technical discussions with subject matter experts, particularly in the global health and human development, as well as eagerness to develop expertise in new areas
- Ability to leverage global health experience to generate practical, operational recommendations for the investment portfolio, including assessing need for and market feasibility of projects
- Ability to navigate diverse interests and priorities of organizations and integrate these interests into recommendations
- Experience developing and evaluating performance metrics responding to diverse stakeholder needs, as well as reporting on portfolio performance to senior stakeholders
- Exceptional analytical (qualitative and quantitative) and problem-solving skills, with the ability to structure and frame complex issues to drive to outcomes
- Ability to work independently and in cross-functional teams
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to effectively communicate complex ideas in simple structured terms to a variety of audiences
- Excellent knowledge of written and spoken English; A good command of French preferred
Experience
- Bachelor’s and / or Master’s degree in relevant human development subject (e.g. global health, life science) and / or international development
- 7+ years of professional experience in international development, preferably in the areas of global health / human development
- Experience working in low- and middle-income countries preferred
- Experience working in development finance and / or management consulting preferred
- Experience working with DFIs or EU institutions preferred
Potential Salary Band: Competitive salary, 2-year full-time contract with the expectation to extend
Location: Based in Brussels
