E T Consultant HNP-Digital Health

World Bank Group•Washington, DC

5d•Onsite

About The Position

The World Bank Group (WBG) is a unique global partnership of five institutions driven by a bold vision to create a world free of poverty on a livable planet. As one of the largest sources of funding and knowledge for developing countries, the WBG helps solve the world’s greatest development challenges. In 2026, the WBG launched the Knowledge Bank — a WBG-wide institutional transformation that fundamentally reshapes how the institution generates, shares, and applies knowledge across its public and private sector work. The Knowledge Bank is organized around five cross-institutional Verticals — People, Planet, Prosperity, Infrastructure, and Digital and AI — each bringing together IBRD/IDA and IFC teams under a unified structure to develop enabling policies and scale proven solutions. The People Vice Presidency promotes investment in people, delivering knowledge for impact and public and private solutions to operational teams and clients across health, education and skills, social policy, and gender to build human capital and drive economic growth and job creation, using the Jobs Framework approaches that improve infrastructure, policies, regulations, and private capital. The Global Health Directorate leads the WBG's health agenda, partnering with governments and the private sector to strengthen health systems, improve health outcomes, and accelerate progress to expand access to quality, affordable health care. It provides intellectual leadership, technical expertise, and operational support to country teams working across the full spectrum of health system challenges, supporting regional teams to deliver on the Bank's corporate health commitments — reaching 1.5 billion people with quality, affordable health services and building resilience in 66 countries — while supporting the creation of more and better jobs. The Directorate is led by a Global Director supported by two Practice Managers who oversee the Policy & Regulations (P&R) and Solutions and Impact (S&I) Units, as well as a Front Office responsible for strategy, partnerships, risk management, external and internal engagement, and talent and budget management. The Health Policy and Regulation team within the Global Health Directorate is responsible for the normative, policy, and regulatory frameworks that underpin the WBG's global health agenda. It houses four dedicated programs: Mission 1.5 Billion Health Beneficiaries (health service delivery, health financing, and healthy longevity); Policy and Regulation of Mixed Health Systems (PPPs, health sector value chains, and the Health for Jobs agenda); Mission 66 Resilient Health Systems (health emergency preparedness, response and resilience, climate change, and public health and disease prevention); and Nutrition. Together, these programs generate the evidence, norms, and policy tools that guide both WBG country operations and broader global health policy dialogue. A Central Program Implementation Unit (PIU) reports jointly to both Managers and serves as the operational bridge between the two global units, managing portfolio and pipeline, Health Compacts, CPF upstream engagement, and regional outreach. Two cross-cutting layers — Methods, Impact Measurement and Innovation and Digital and AI — provide foundational technical support to all programs within the Directorate. The Digital and AI cross-cutting layer within the Global Health Directorate enables digital transformation as a core operational capability across the World Bank’s health portfolio, anchored in the Health 1.5B Platform, Mission 66 on resilient health systems, and related nutrition, solutions, and impact initiatives. It leads global strategy, technical assistance, and capacity building to support countries in implementing interoperable digital health and AI systems that enable integrated, person-centered, digitally enabled primary health care. The team also supports policy and regulatory frameworks and helps scale digital health and AI investments to deliver equitable, expanded access to quality health services for an additional 1.5 billion people by 2030. The Digital and AI cross-cutting team is seeking to hire an Extended Term Consultant (ETC) based in Washington, D.C., reporting to the Unit Manager under the supervision of the Digital and AI cross-cutting team, to support its engagement on digital health transformation to support the delivery of quality and affordable health services to 1.5 billion individuals by 2030. The Senior Digital Health Specialist will work on the development of the analytical and technical work related to the adoption, adaptation, coordination, and implementation of digital technologies into Bank-financed health projects. As a senior digital health specialist, they will contribute to shaping the World Bank Group’s strategic agenda in alignment with client country needs and informed by broader digital health and digital transformation trends as the portfolio and context evolves. The ETC will work closely with the broader World Bank Group Health Department teams to support technical delivery and advisory for Digitally Enabled Primary Health Care (PHC) platforms. The ETC is expected to be a self-starter with excellent background knowledge of health systems, digital transformation in health, strong facilitation skills, and experience in program management. Travel to client countries and/or representing the World Bank at external events will be required.

Requirements

Master’s degree in public health, health informatics, information systems, computer science, data engineering/architecture, or related field combining HNP domain experience with digital transformation expertise.
Minimum eight years of relevant experience in digital health, health information systems, public-sector digital transformation, or data/developer roles supporting health programs.
Expertise in global digital health, from an operational perspective; strong expertise in at least three of the following: digital health enterprise architecture and interoperability, health data platforms and governance, digital information for public health, surveillance, and routine reporting, program systems (immunization, nutrition, community health, referrals), digital health analytics/AI-enabled decision, workflow, or diagnostics support, digital supply chain transformation and information management.
Track record of successful implementation of digital health solutions at scale, especially in LMICs.
Excellent technical writing and verbal communication skills, including the ability to present ideas clearly and concisely, lead strategic dialogue with key stakeholders (internal and external).
Excellent written and spoken English essential.
Ability to work in cross-cultural, multidisciplinary teams and adapt to resource-constrained environments.
Enthusiasm, energy, and composure under pressure.

Nice To Haves

Fluency in a second language is a plus.

Responsibilities

Lead technical assistance to client countries to design and implement digital health strategies, blueprints, and roadmaps aligned with national health priorities, universal health coverage objectives, and system capacity.
Advise on policy, legal, and institutional reforms to enable digital health transformation, responsible AI for health, including data governance, data sharing frameworks, privacy, cybersecurity, procurement approaches, and vendor management models.
Develop and disseminate practical guidance (standards, templates, “how-to” toolkits) for planning and scaling digital health solutions and digital public services related to digitally enabled primary health care.
Identify emerging global trends and proven practices (e.g., AI-enabled decision support, digital public health, virtual care where appropriate) and support pilots with clear pathways to scale.
Lead the design and support the implementation of digital health aspects of projects, advise and support client country teams, Ministries of Health, and other relevant Ministries on how to prioritize, design, operationalize, measure and/or adapt digital health and AI initiatives and other technology-based approaches in an integrated, comprehensive, systems-approach.
Lead discourse with client counterparts on defining and implementing enterprise architecture and reference architectures for digital health, minimizing fragmentation and ensuring systems work together over time.
Support implementation of interoperability layers and health information exchange approaches.
Guide adoption of data and messaging standards for health and public health data exchange and promote reusable shared services (identity, registries, terminology services, messaging/notifications).
Strengthen routine health information systems and ensure alignment between routine systems, program registries, and service delivery applications.
Support countries to establish the regulatory, institutional, and technical frameworks needed to govern AI in health, including oversight mechanisms, accountability structures, and redress mechanisms for AI-related harms.
Guide AI capacity building and workforce change management, strengthening the ability of health ministry staff, clinicians, and health system managers to understand, evaluate, and use AI tools effectively.
Advise clients on AI integration into health system analytics, using AI to identify system bottlenecks, forecast commodity needs, and support clinical decision-making at the point of care.
Lead efforts to evaluate and validate the use of AI in health through the development and dissemination of methodologies for assessing the performance, safety, and equity of AI systems in health, including in low-resource and multilingual settings.
Co-create and support World Bank country teams and clients on developing appropriate terms of reference and evaluation processes in the procurement and implementation of digital health and novel models of care to enable better and more equitable health service delivery.
Lead capacity-building workshops and coaching for client counterparts on architecture, interoperability, governance, AI for health, and implementation practices.
Lead the digital health components of capacity building efforts for task teams and clients through the HNP Learning Program, the Digital Health Community of Practice, and other initiatives.
Contribute to knowledge products, case studies, reusable templates, and communities of practice to scale successful models.
Facilitate timely and high-quality delivery of activity outputs (e.g. knowledge products or others as appropriate) that capture input from World Bank and client practitioners.
Support fit-for-purpose analytics for planning and performance: dashboards, equity and coverage monitoring, predictive analytics (where appropriate), and decision-support tools, while ensuring transparency, feasibility, and responsible use.
Coordinate with the broader World Bank teams and communities to ensure a OneWBG approach to digital health transformation and other areas of work within the Global Health Directorate.
Undertake the timely drafting of narrative reports for periodical reporting and tracking of activities and deliverables for internal management needs.
Lead key technical partnerships both within and outside the World Bank to ensure the WB is well-represented in multilateral digital health dialogues, shared strategy development, and global initiatives as well as a thought leader in key areas of comparative advantage.
Represent the World Bank at global digital health and AI forums including but not limited to conferences, webinars, and technical consultations.
Support the onboarding of new team members as appropriate.
Coordinate with World Bank TTL(s) to draft proposals, draft budgets, and report on progress as appropriate.