International Consultant – Economic Modeling – MFGPD

Job Description

Result of Service

Strengthened analytical and institutional capacity of selected African member States to design and implement evidence-based, fiscally sustainable health financing policies through the development of integrated macroeconomic modelling frameworks, socio-economic databases, and policy simulation tools that support informed decision-making, macroeconomic planning, and sustainable development outcomes.

Work Location

• Onsite (Addis Ababa).

Expected duration

7 Months.

Duties and Responsibilities

Background

The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) is implementing a project aimed at transforming health financing in Africa by unlocking fiscal space, fostering innovative financing approaches, and strengthening resilient, inclusive, and equitable health systems. The project seeks to support African countries in addressing persistent health financing gaps while enhancing the integration of health financing considerations into broader macroeconomic, fiscal, and development planning frameworks. The initiative responds to growing recognition that health is not only a social sector priority, but also a critical driver of economic productivity, human capital development, resilience, and long-term structural transformation. Many African countries continue to face significant constraints in financing health systems, including limited domestic resource mobilization, high out-of-pocket expenditures, rising debt pressures, fragmented financing mechanisms, and vulnerability to external shocks.

These challenges have been further exacerbated by the economic and fiscal consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, global inflationary pressures, tightening financial conditions, climate-related risks, and geopolitical disruptions. In this context, the project aims to strengthen countries’ analytical and institutional capacities to design sustainable and evidence-based health financing strategies. A key component of the initiative involves integrating health financing dimensions into macroeconomic and economy-wide analytical frameworks, including the development and disaggregation of Social Accounting Matrices (SAMs) with dedicated health sector modules. Existing macroeconomic and national accounting frameworks often do not sufficiently capture the role of the health sector within the wider economy or adequately reflect the interactions between health expenditure, labour productivity, household welfare, fiscal sustainability, and broader economic performance. In response, increasing attention is being given to integrating health accounts and health financing dimensions into economy-wide analytical tools, including Social Accounting Matrices (SAMs), Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) models, macro-fiscal frameworks, and other simulation systems.

A dedicated health module within SAMs allows for a more comprehensive representation of the linkages between households, government, firms, labour markets, external financing flows, and the health sector, while supporting analysis of the direct and indirect effects of health investments and financing policies on employment, productivity, income distribution, poverty reduction, fiscal balances, resilience, and long-term economic growth. The initiative therefore seeks to support selected African countries in improving the availability, quality, and harmonization of socio-economic and health financing data, strengthening modelling frameworks, and generating evidence-based policy analysis to inform sustainable health financing strategies. Particular attention will be given to assessing how health expenditure, financing mechanisms, and health sector investments affect macroeconomic outcomes such as growth, employment, productivity, poverty, inequality, fiscal sustainability, and structural transformation.

The work will also contribute to strengthening institutional capacity within Ministries of Finance, Ministries of Health, national statistical offices, and other relevant institutions through technical assistance, model development, training, and policy dialogue. By integrating health financing into economy-wide analytical frameworks, the project aims to support more coherent, data-driven, and fiscally sustainable policymaking capable of advancing both economic resilience and human development objectives across the continent. This assignment forms part of ECA’s broader efforts to strengthen macroeconomic management, development planning, and evidence-based policymaking in Africa through the development of integrated modelling systems, socio-economic databases, and policy simulation tools tailored to African country realities.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the supervision of the relevant officers within the Macroeconomics, Finance, Governance and Planning Division (MFGPD), the consultant will contribute to the development of analytical tools, socio-economic databases, and modelling frameworks aimed at assessing the macroeconomic implications of health financing and supporting evidence-based policymaking. Specific tasks of the consultant will include: Software development and analysis

1. Economic and Sector Analysis

• Develops and maintains socio-economic databases, including both quantitative and qualitative data, to support recurrent and ad hoc analysis.

• Contributes to the development, refinement and maintenance of ECA’s macroeconomic modelling suite, including the development and full calibration of an economy-wide analytical model—such as a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model, an Integrated Assessment Model (IAM), a Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) model, or a hybrid macro-fiscal framework—to generate forecasting outputs, conduct scenario simulations, and support evidence-based policy analysis for selected countries.

• Updates, harmonizes and constructs Social Accounting Matrices (SAMs) and other data frameworks required for model calibration with in-depth sectoral focus in areas such as health and education.

• Interprets and applies modelling outputs to assess trends, policy impacts, and structural dynamics; proposes analytical insights and policy implications.

• Drafts analytical inputs for working papers, technical reports, policy briefs.

• Identifies, reviews, and analyses economic policy proposals and relevant literature on assigned thematic areas.

• Participates in and reports on international, regional and national meetings to gather information in collaboration with partners.

2. Software Development, Modelling Tools and Data Engineering

• Contributes to the development and operationalization of modelling software platforms, including the design of modular systems and relevant code components (e.g., in C++, Python or other modelling languages).

• Designs and implements data processing tools (Python, R or similar) to collect, clean, transform and harmonize raw datasets into model-ready databases.

• Supports the development of user interfaces and web-based tools to facilitate dissemination, visualization and stakeholder use of model outputs.

• Prepares documentation and version control records for models, code, and analytical workflows to facilitate team continuity and quality assurance.

3. Technical Cooperation and Capacity Development

• Designs and delivers training workshops and capacity-building activities on macroeconomic modelling, SAM development, data management and policy analysis.

• Contributes to the preparation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of regional, national or sectoral technical cooperation programmes and projects.

4. General Responsibilities

• Performs administrative and coordination tasks required for the delivery of outputs.

• Engages in continuous learning, including internal and external training activities.

• Produces data visualizations (graphs, charts, tables, dashboards) to support data-driven planning and decision-making .

• Undertakes other duties as required.

Qualifications/special skills

• An advanced university degree (Master’s degree or equivalent) in mathematics, statistics, engineering, computer science, or a related field is required.
• A multidisciplinary academic background with strong competencies in statistics, applied mathematics, econometrics, computer science, and/or machine learning methods is considered equivalent.
• A first-level university degree in the above fields, in combination with two additional years of qualifying experience, may be accepted in lieu of the advanced degree.
• A minimum of seven (7) years of progressively responsible experience in economic research and analysis, macroeconomic policy formulation, and/or the application of economic principles in development programmes is required.
• A minimum of three years of hands-on experience in quantitative economic modeling and statistical programming using open-source platforms (e.g., Python, Julia, or R) as well as with object-oriented programming languages (e.g., C++ or Java) is required.
• Experience in the development, calibration, or application of macroeconomic models—such as IAM, DSGE, CGE, or hybrid macro-fiscal frameworks—is required.
• Demonstrated ability to use model-based approaches for forecasting, scenario simulation, and policy analysis is required.
• Experience in building and maintaining socio-economic databases, including the construction and harmonization of Social Accounting Matrices (SAMs), is highly desirable.
• Experience using version control platforms (e.g., Git, GitHub, or GitLab) and developing macro-fiscal projection tools or computational simulation models is highly desirable.
• Experience working on sectoral issues especially health across multiple country contexts is desirable.

Languages

• English and French are the working languages of the United Nations Secretariat..
• Fluency in one of the working languages of the UN Secretariat, English or French (both oral and written) is required;
• Knowledge of the other is desirable.
• Knowledge of another UN official language is an advantage.

No Fee

THE UNITED NATIONS DOES NOT CHARGE A FEE AT ANY STAGE OF THE RECRUITMENT PROCESS (APPLICATION, INTERVIEW MEETING, PROCESSING, OR TRAINING). THE UNITED NATIONS DOES NOT CONCERN ITSELF WITH INFORMATION ON APPLICANTS’ BANK ACCOUNTS.