Job no: 494354
Work type: Consultancy
Location: Kenya, Angola, Botswana, Burundi, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Comoros, Cote d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania,United Republic, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe
Categories: Health



If you are a committed, creative professional and are passionate about making a lasting difference for children, the world's leading children's rights organization would like to hear from you.

For 70 years, UNICEF has been working on the ground in 190 countries and territories to promote children's survival, protection and development. The world's largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments.

Background and Justification

Despite Eastern and Southern Africa being among the best performing regions in reducing under-five mortality over the last two decades, the region still suffers from some of the highest under-five mortality rates in the world, resulting in just over 1 million under 5 deaths in 2015. However, progress has been uneven both between and within countries in the region, magnifying the effect of existing inequalities. Children born into the poorest households are twice as likely to die before age five compared to those from the richest households.

While the region has made improvements in reducing under-five mortality, only eight countries met the MDG4 target by 2015. U5 deaths in the region are mainly due to preventable causes such as newborn complications, pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria and HIV. Neonatal mortality rates have also risen from 37% in 1990, to 44% in 2013 - highlighting the need for more a targeted response to continue progress on overall child-mortality. As countries begin to develop the national roadmap and plans to realize the Sustainable Development Goals, it is critical to ensure that both the unfinished agenda and emerging conditions such as NCDs and childhood tuberculosis are prioritized.

UNICEF has recently updated its Health Strategy including putting a clear emphasis on Health and Community Systems Strengthening– going forward these will guide UNICEF contributions to the unfinished MDG and SDH health goals. Strengthening subnational and national capacity for evidence-informed planning and budgeting will be key to ensuring progress towards these goals. The ESA region has recorded substantial progress in the move to professionalize and institutionalize community health delivery especially in the areas of integrated community case management (iCCM) but there are continuing challenges with regards to scaling–up, enhancing quality, sourcing financing and ensuring sustainability.

Families and communities have limited knowledge and weak capacities to adopt healthy behaviours, and actively demand quality services and accountability from service providers. Often times, socio-cultural practices create barriers to families accepting and utilizing available services. Community engagement and involvement in planning and implementing community based health interventions is also unfortunately often overlooked.
Building on the progress made in maternal, newborn and child health, during 2014 to 2017, UNICEF will focus on achieving results in key areas to support the survival and well-being of the region's children with a focus on scaling up basic preventive and promotive curative health services at community and health facility levels.

The regional child health post was vacant for most 2015 and part of 2016 due to changes of staff. The consultant is expected to fill in some of the capacity gaps during 2016.


Purpose of the Assignment

Under the technical guidance and close supervision of the Regional Health Advisor, provide specialized technical support to a set of priority countries to improve community health systems and scale up preventive, promotive and basic child and newborn health services.

Assignment Tasks

Provide technical support to countries for the development of national policies and strategies related to child health, and ensure that evidence based child health strategies and interventions are prioritized including in priority disease areas.

Contribute to the overall health system strengthening that is in favor of community based platform. More specifically, the development of community health 'investment cases' and costing work, in close collaboration with the HSS Specialist.

Provide technical support to countries strengthen community health systems in order to deliver a basic package of evidence based services such as iCCM, maternal & newborn care, CMAM malaria control, and case finding for HIV, paediatric TB, with special attention to integration with programmes such as C4D, EPI, nutrition, WASH, IECD and birth registration.

Support operational research and knowledge management of child health programmes.

Provide support to countries for resource mobilization including Global Fund grant implementation and sourcing co-financing for the iCCM platform as per the UNICEF-GF MOU.

Support emergency activities in priority countries

Expected Deliverables




Deliverables

Duration

(Estimated # of days or months)

Timeline/

Deadline

Schedule of payment



Preparation: review RMT priority document, 2016 annual work plan, situation and indicators related to child health, countdown studies,

Specific deliverables include:

- Updated RMT priority document developed

- Updated 2016 AWP with revised indicators developed

0.5 month

31 April 2016

1


Update regional CHW profiles based on the 2013 report. Including support mapping of the CHWs in selected countries in collaboration with UNICEF HQ, the iCCM FTT and country offices

Specific deliverable include:

- Updated CHW report developed

2 months

30 June 2016

2


Provide technical support, coordination and QA in health emergency in countries experiencing acute emergencies

Specific deliverable include:

- Trip report related to TA provided in country experiencing acute emergency

2 months

30 June 2016

2


Support development/revision of national policies/strategies that include community health system strengthening and child health in at least two countries

Specific deliverable include:

- Trip report from two countries related to the community health system strengthening

1 month

31 July 2016

3


Support investment cases and costing activities that are in favor of newborn and child health at decentralized level in at least 2 countries

Specific deliverable include:

- Trip report from two countries related to investment case or costing exercise for MNCH

1 month

31 August 2016

4


Monitor and report on implementation of iCCM programme in at least 5 countries

Specific deliverable include:

- Fact sheet from at least 5 countries developed

1.5 month

30 Oct 2016

5


Support the multiple country study on successful factors and lessons learnt in reaching MDG4 in collaboration with the regional health system specialist

1.5 month

31 Dec 2016

6


Final consultant report

0.5 month

31 Dec 2016

6



Payment Schedule

Payments will be made on quarterly basis based on satisfactory implementation of deliverables.


Qualifications of Successful Candidate

Education

Advanced university degree (Masters as a minimum) in social sciences, behavioral sciences, social research, or a related field.

Years of relevant experience

A minimum of eight years of progressively responsible relevant work experience in area of child health, and community health system in Africa.

Good understanding of the ESAR countries context and capacity in specific relation to political socio-economy factors within and outside government

Competencies of Successful Candidate

- Sets high standards for quality and consistently achieves project goals, translating ideas and strategic directions into plans and concrete actions.
- Has highest-level oral communication skills, including engaging and informative formal public speaking, presentation as well as writing skills.
- Able to work effectively in a multi-cultural environment with diverse audiences and range of stakeholders.
- Analyses and integrates potentially conflicting numerical, verbal and other data from a number of sources.
- Strong written and oral communication and presentation skills in English is required
- Ability to travel to the field including in areas affected by emergency and crisis


To view our competency framework, please click here.

Please indicate your ability, availability and daily/monthly rate (in US$) to undertake the terms of reference above (including travel and daily subsistence allowance, if applicable). Applications submitted without a daily/monthly rate will not be considered.

UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages qualified female and male candidates from all national, religious and ethnic backgrounds, including persons living with disabilities, to apply to become a part of our organisation.


Advertised: 16 Mar 2016 E. Africa Standard Time
Applications close: 30 Mar 2016 E. Africa Standard Time

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