Consultant - Nutrition and Health Supply Chain Strengthening Specialist, UNICEF Regional Office for South Asia

Contract

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UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential.

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone.

And we never give up.

For every child, a future

How can you make a difference?

1. Background and Rationale:

In the early 2000s, a peanut paste known as Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) was piloted to treat severe acute malnutrition (SAM) with success. This approach has now proven to be revolutionary, enabling children to be treated at home rather than having to stay in treatment centres for weeks on end far away from the rest of their family. Community-based treatment for severe acute malnutrition is now available in more than 70 countries and the number of children benefiting more than tripled between 2008 and 2015.

The South Asia region accounts for the highest burden of childhood malnutrition, with an estimated 25.1 million wasted children (14.5%), of whom 7.1 million (4.5%) are severely wasted. While many countries have included the treatment of severe acute malnutrition (SAM) as part of their national maternal and child health strategy, the policies have not translated into services being widely available, particularly in Asia.

As the global lead in treatment of SAM, UNICEF is working with many partners to increase the number of children with severe acute malnutrition who get treated by continuing to scale up programmes to treat wasting, and to reduce the numbers who experience this condition at all.

The availability of affordable RUTF is key to the scale up of this life saving programme. Initially, the market was dominated by a single qualified international supplier. As the world’s largest purchaser of RUTF, UNICEF has made deliberate investments in expanding the producer base, focusing on programme countries; as a result, currently 65% of all procurement comes from programme country suppliers. In 2018, UNICEF procured 47,760 tons of RUTF. With such a large and increasing volume on the market, a key component of UNICEF’s support to countries is to enable governments to integrate RUTF within national government supply chain systems and ensure that the RUTF is being used effectively to reduce childhood SAM. To this end, UNICEF will assist governments in developing integration roadmaps, measuring and strengthening their supply chain maturity, and improving End User Monitoring (EUM) and visibility to RUTF in the pipeline.

2. Purpose:

UNICEF is committed to working with governments to increase local capacities to improve procurement and supply chain maturity by strengthening the capacity of governments to operate or regulate supply chains for nutrition commodities.

UNICEF SD, in conjunction with the Regional Offices, has developed tools, guidance, and evidence to support countries in their efforts to strengthen their nutrition supply chains. UNICEF’s support to governments is reflected in applying these tools and approaches in the field with the aim of improving visibility to nutrition commodities to the last mile. System strengthening efforts are also a learning opportunity for UNICEF and the community to share best practices which will help shape not only future activities but also refine the tools and approaches to become more efficient and less costly to implement.

UNICEF Country Offices can liaise with Regional Offices and Supply Division to organize technical assistance to governments in Nutrition supply chain strengthening in the following areas:

1. Act as the Regional Supply Lead for End User Monitoring (EUM): Scale-up End User Monitoring to improve Nutrition programme effectiveness and strengthen country engagement. This is a gradual process that requires stakeholder engagement, pilot evaluation, development of roadmaps, and long-term integration into routine monitoring plans.
2. Act as the central focal point for Nutrition Supply Chain Integration: Integrate nutrition commodities into national supply chains, either operated or regulated by government, as part of health system strengthening. Maintain integration roadmaps for priority countries to track progress of integration as part of a long-term development agenda.
3. Improve the Visibility of Nutrition commodities in the supply chain to reduce supply breaks and losses both for inbound (UNICEF supply chain) and downstream (government supply chain) with regular reporting of nutrition pipeline availability.
4. Generate evidence and build local capacities: Activities that cross the above technical areas, such as supply chain maturity assessments and south-south exchange are opportunities to share knowledge and expand learning for the community.

In the long term, it is expected that the adopted SCS and EUM practices and standards will enable smooth adaptability and consistency across different countries’ supply chains and promote sustainability through country ownership. The engagement of the in-country SCS and EUM entails a supportive supervision system and the link to undertake supervisory, technical assistance and monitoring roles for the government and implementing partners (IP). The technical assistance and monitoring roles contribute to a systemic and developmental approach for integration with the goal of enhancing national or government ownership.

In addition to the specific efforts deployed on Nutrition Supply Chains, UNICEF is also strongly engaged in strengthening Governments’ Supply Chains for other commodities, including Health (i.e. Immunization, essential medicines).

The contractor will support ROSA Supply & Logistics Manager and ROSA Nutrition team on Nutrition SCSS initiatives as the priority area for the donor funding this consultancy. He/She will also support on various other initiatives on broader Supply Chains Systems Strengthening (SCSS), including HSS, as required.

This may include, but is not be limited to:

1. Act as Technical Supply Focal point for regional overall Systems Strengthening initiatives: Provide Technical assistance to health supply chain to improve access to vaccines, medicines and health technologies; together with S&L Manager and in close consultation with Health, engage in ROSA systems strengthening strategy design; represent ROSA Supply function in relevant working groups and forum as required by supervisor;
2. Act as an advocate for SCSS initiatives in the Region: Promote the use of the Supply Chain Maturity Model assessment tool to identify gaps and develop roadmaps for improving existing supply chain systems; support strengthening regional capacities for health supply chains monitoring, governance and technical assistance across the key fundamentals through the different existing platforms to enhance continuous improvement; support increasing the drive for engagement of partners in essentials medicines, immunization, oxygen, and their associated supply chains
3. Act as regional technical focal point for issues related to funding of commodities.

This assignment would enhance UNICEF’s contributions to SCM in the South Asia Region (SAR) countries through intensive consultations with UNICEF Nutrition, Health, and Supply teams in ROSA and country offices, implementing partners, governments/countries and donors within a variety of health and nutrition supply chains contexts.

3. OBJECTIVE:

The Regional Office for South Asia (ROSA), in collaboration with UNICEF Supply Division, wishes to engage a Supply Chain Specialist to support governments and country offices to meet the following objectives:

1. Contribute through technical input to the strengthening of the government supply chain system by supporting the integration of nutrition (primary focus area) and health commodities supply chain activity within the MOH structure.
2. Ensure sustainability and government ownership via maintenance of integration roadmaps for priority countries.
3. Support the process of introducing RUTF into the Essential Medicines List in the priority countries (Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan).
4. Support Country Offices to detect system and capacity gaps in the area of supply financing for health and nutrition that may require technical assistance from UNICEF. Liaise with Supply Division to identify most suitable type of support, including possible funding options.
5. Support Country Offices to detect system and capacity gaps in the area of supply financing that may require technical assistance from UNICEF and liaise with Supply Division to identify most suitable type of support, including possible funding options.
6. Identify pre-financing needs from countries and liaise with Supply Division to propose and develop viable solutions, including supporting countries’ applications to VII (Vaccine Independence Initiative) as required/applicable.
7. Introduce and implement EUM in the region. Support the reporting of availability, quality, and knowledge of RUTF (and other health commodities) at the last mile and recommend suitable indicators that would inform best practices in the region.
8. Implement tools and processes to improve the reporting of RUTF in the region (UNICEF-managed), country (UNICEF-managed), and within the country (government-managed); same for other commodities as deemed relevant.
9. Identify opportunities to increase the effectiveness of the existing supply chain system by supporting selected countries to apply the newly developed Supply Chain Strengthening and EUM tools, document lessons learned on process, and develop case studies for future learning.
10. Identify and document potential enablers and bottlenecks for the implementation of efficient Supply Chain in the field and recommend ways to mitigate.

4. Key Assignments/Tasks:

General

1. Work with the Regional Office to prepare a workplan for prioritizing and sequencing country support in the application of SCS and EUM for nutrition commodities and other commodities as relevant and possible, and ensure that these activities are included in country concept notes.
2. Once priority countries for integration of RUTF are identified and agreed, align SCS processes and tools for RUTF with other commodities and support the Regional and Country Offices on project management and issue resolution during the implementation phase.
3. Identify SOPs for quality assurance where they already exist, or develop / contextualize SOPs for specific country contexts as necessary. Provide technical and implementation assistance to RO and COs to ensure that the SOP's requirements for quality assurance are met.
4. Support countries on organizing workshops, webinars and exchange visits for learning.

In-Country

1. Landscape the existing in-country visibility tools for RUTF (and other health commodities), analyse applicability of new standard SCS and EUM tools, and support the country in selecting relevant indicators that align to existing systems and ease of data collection.
2. Compile and share country data with SD and RO to provide visibility into ROSA's countries progress.
3. Build local capacity to carry forward subsequent phase(s) of the roll-out.

End User Monitoring

1. Identify opportunities to increase the effectiveness of the existing nutrition and health supply chains in ROSA by supporting select countries to apply the newly developed EUM tool, including monitoring the RUTF and any other health commodities identified as priority by COs/Governments at the last mile.
2. Recommend the optimal indicators that would inform the best practices for EUM in the countries.
3. Disseminate new RUTF and other EUM tools to the Country Offices. Develop project plans for EUM implementation in the select CO(s) with clear timelines, activities, owners, and milestones. Contribute to Global initiatives on EUM (Lat mile monitoring project).
4. Support the Country Office(s) in training of data collectors for the tool application.
5. Work with the UNICEF nutrition and supply colleagues in countries and their Government counterparts to develop end-of-project evaluation criteria that will enable the government to determine effectiveness of the EUM tool and make decisions on integration.
6. Explore and document any other areas within supply chain that could require strengthening, based on the outcomes of the EUM findings and share with UNICEF and government counterparts.

Integration roadmap

1. Support countries in advocacy for inclusion of RUTF in the Essential Medicine List (EML).
2. Support countries in design and development of SC integration roadmaps, outline the supply chain operations and enablers that would be impacted by RUTF integration, illustrating areas of need and proposing a timeline toward transition of RUTF into the national supply chain.
3. Provide governments with a clear risk profile together with prioritized short-term and long-term action plans to address, mitigate, and respond to risks relating to the integration and operation of the nutrition supply chain.
4. Guide countries through an evidence-based decision-making process by evaluating different system design options for integrating RUTF into the health supply chain using both quantitative and qualitative analysis methodologies.
5. Work through UNICEF CO’s to provide governments with visibility to plan, order and monitor inbound nutrition pipeline shipments, and UNICEF’s stock on-hand to improve order planning and replenishment performance.
6. Document processes, best practices, lessons learned and develop a least one Case Study related to integration and EUM for nutrition and health commodities in the different COs.

Government supply chain strengthening

1. Support governments to implement / maintain the maturity model to track progress of the governments’ nutrition and health supply chains operations and enabling processes.
2. Identify government staff capacity building needs for the rationale application of standard tools for management of nutrition and health commodities. Develop and support countries to implement capacity building plans for targeted SCM tools.
3. In close collaboration with UNICEF Country Office, Regional Office, the MoH, the MoF, and UNICEF SD, the consultant will map the Health and Nutrition Commodities Procurement Budgeting Process to identify challenges in forecasting, quantification and costing of procurement needs (including development of budgeting templates and methodology if necessary), as well as cash flow timing issues, and propose solutions to address them, including taking into consideration existing analysis/recommendations available.
4. In close collaboration with UNICEF Country Office, the MoH, the MoF and UNICEF SD, the consultant will review, and support revision of the forecast and consequent funding needs for the procurement of health and nutrition commodities, including review of funding allocations to health and nutrition commodities procurement in the next year’s budget.

KEY EXPECTED RESULTS

1. ROSA has a clear Roadmap on Nutrition Systems Strengthening initiatives for the next 2 to 4 years.
2. UNICEF and governments are engaged in routinely maintaining an integration roadmap that is used to progress RUTF integration into government systems, where appropriate.
3. UNICEF and governments are engaged in routinely maintaining a maturity model to track progress of the governments’ nutrition (and health) supply chains operations and enabling processes.
4. UNICEF and governments are engaged to improve visibility to nutrition and health commodities inbound, outbound, and at the last mile.
5. With targeted capacity development, key government staff are involved in the delivery of nutrition and health programme supplies at national, regional, district and community levels through the rational application of standard tools for management of nutrition and health commodities.
6. Lessons learned, challenges, and best practices are documented and shared as part of advocacy and community capacity building.

Remarks: This is home based consultancy with few travel to Kathmandu and countries in the region.

Duration: 11.5 months, starting as soon as possible from March 2022.

****Note:** please submit your application along with the financial proposal. Applications without the financial proposals will not be considered.**

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

Education:

• An advanced university degree (Master’s or higher) in Business Administration, Management, Economics, Supply Chain Management, Logistics, Procurement, Contract/Commercial Law, International Development, Health/Nutrition or related social science field. *A first University Degree in a relevant technical field (as identified above), in conjunction with ten (10) years of relevant work experience in supply, logistics, procurement, contracting, administration and/or other directly-related technical field, may be accepted in lieu of an advanced university degree.

Experience:

• A minimum of seven (7) years of relevant professional experience, at the national and international levels, in supply, logistics, procurement, contracting, administration and/or other directly related technical fields is required.
• Nutrition supply chain management experience is required.
• Experience in health supply chain management highly desired;
• Knowledge of vaccine and oxygen supply chains an advantage. Understanding of development and humanitarian work.
• Emergency experience is an advantage.

Language proficiency:

• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, Russian or Spanish) or local languages in South Asia (such as Hindi, Urdu, Pashtun) would be an asset.

Technical skills and knowledge

• Proven experience in strategic planning in multi-stakeholder settings
• Experience in writing complex strategic proposals, developing multi-year budgets and operational plans
• Experience in training, planning and delivery of technical assistance
• Knowledge of supply chain management and excellent analytical skills
• Demonstrated proven track record in interfacing with national ministries of health

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF's values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, and Accountability (CRITA).

Competencies:

• Strong analytical, oral & written communication skills
• Proven track record in project management with an emphasis on strategic planning
• Effective presentation skills, ability to adapt the message and visual aids for multiple audiences
• Effective facilitator with proven ability to engage and train a group of individuals
• Demonstrated ability to work in a multi-cultural environment

To view our competency framework, please visit here.

UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages all candidates, irrespective of gender, nationality, religious and ethnic backgrounds, including persons living with disabilities, to apply to become a part of the organization.

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. UNICEF also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. 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.

Remarks:

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.

Individuals engaged under a consultancy or individual contract will not be considered “staff members” under the Staff Regulations and Rules of the United Nations and UNICEF’s policies and procedures, and will not be entitled to benefits provided therein (such as leave entitlements and medical insurance coverage). Their conditions of service will be governed by their contract and the General Conditions of Contracts for the Services of Consultants and Individual Contractors. Consultants and individual contractors are responsible for determining their tax liabilities and for the payment of any taxes and/or duties, in accordance with local or other applicable laws.