Consultant to Strengthen Medical Oxygen Systems in South Asia - UNICEF South Asia

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The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed significant gaps in countries’ medical oxygen systems, including limited oxygen infrastructure, production capacity, monitoring systems for oxygen, national oxygen system strengthening plans, and logistics constraints from production to administration at the bedside. It has highlighted severe weaknesses in availability and rational use of oxygen in medical systems globally, including in the South Asia region.

South Asia has been one of the worst affected regions by the COVID-19 pandemic, with over 48 million infections and 720,000 cumulative deaths. A significant portion of case fatalities have occurred among patients with respiratory failure, requiring administration of oxygen. Countries in South Asia have faced significant increases in demand for medical oxygen, with annual national demands surging from a million metric tons annually before the pandemic to over 11 million metric tons at the peak of the second wave in 2021. In order to meet these demands, health systems and facilities need both increased oxygen provision and trained human resources, including biomedical engineering staff as well as public health planners and supply chain experts, to design systems and procure, install, and maintain oxygen equipment and well-trained clinical staff to provide safe oxygen therapy.

Although the significance and health system gaps of medical oxygen therapy have become apparent as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, medical oxygen is also a critical system component of national treatment protocols to ensure maternal, newborn, and child survival, as well as for surgeries and other medical conditions. Strengthening medical oxygen systems remains an urgent imperative of national health systems. The emphasis on oxygen systems resulting from the COVID-19 response presents an opportunity to leverage emergency response investments to strengthen national and facility level oxygen supply chains, human resource capacity and delivery and monitoring systems to improve MNCH quality of care and outcomes.

With coordinated support from UNICEF HQ and the regional office for South Asia (ROSA), during the second half of 2021, UNICEF country offices in the South Asia region have developed a strategic vision and technical assistance plan for strengthening their program support to respective national oxygen systems. Each of the countries in the region is at a unique stage in planning and implementation of their respective medical oxygen system strengthening plans. Some countries are well advanced, with significant planning, system strengthening, and procurement completed, close working relationships with Ministries of Health and other relevant partners, and a focus on monitoring, tracking, and transitioning from emergency provision for COVID-19 to sustaining long-term functional systems for RMNCAH. Other countries are at the beginning stages of their system strengthening program, conducting situational assessments, increasing capacity, and establishing plans. Regardless of their stage of progress, all countries in the region greatly benefit from strategic and coordinated technical support from the regional and global levels to advance in their next steps, and the UNICEF Regional Office requires an over-arching strategy to support all countries immediately and in the medium term.

UNICEF ROSA plans to provide technical support to country offices in the region for strengthening and scale-up of oxygen systems:

1. Establishing national oxygen system scale up road map to steer the agenda with short term, medium-term and long-term goals
2. Support rapid regional and national oxygen system assessments using UNICEF global tools including mapping of national oxygen ecosystems in coordination with UNICEF country teams.
3. Support re-allocation of COVID-19 oxygen equipment to meet basic oxygen needs with focus on MNCH service delivery points at PHC and referral level.
4. Improving national/subnational forecasting of oxygen needs at referral hospitals and at the Primary Health Care level as required
5. Strengthening national oxygen production and distribution capacity including targeted catalytic capacity building of human resources.
6. Using a Health System Strengthening (HSS) approach to strengthening national ecosystems for oxygen therapy
7. Ensure inclusion and adequate prioritization of oxygen system strengthening in health systems strengthening strategies, including costing.
8. Strengthen national/regional partnerships on oxygen system strengthening for collaborative work, including private sector engagement.
9. Strengthen information systems for oxygen ecosystem within national HMIS including relevant health system surveys
10. Documentation and knowledge management of best practices and case studies on strengthening oxygen systems and cross-country learning.

Purpose

The specific objectives of the technical support at UNICEF ROSA and to the eight UNICEF ROSA country team’s oxygen system strengthening program support include:

1. Conduct a rapid baseline regional situational analysis of oxygen ecosystems including gaps and needs assessments.
2. Develop a regional program guidance note on strengthening medical oxygen systems for the UNICEF South Asia regional office
3. Provide technical support and capacity building to eight UNICEF country offices for development and/or implementation of country-specific oxygen system strengthening plans and activities.
4. Strengthen data and information management systems for medical oxygen systems at country and regional levels.

Key Tasks:

Specific activities under each of the objectives are outlined below. As noted in the background section, different countries are at different stages of their oxygen system strengthening planning, implementation, and monitoring. The activities listed below represent the range of options of support that may be required, but will be tailored once the different country contexts are clearly assessed.

1. Conduct a rapid baseline regional situational analysis of oxygen ecosystems in the eight countries within the South Asia region, including identifying gaps and needs assessments:

1. Adapt or develop necessary data collection tools (leverage existing tools from UNICEF Global Oxygen Team).
2. Coordinate data collection in close coordination with country offices.
3. Data analysis and compilation of regional report with country chapters.

2. Development of a regional guidance note on oxygen systems strengthening:

1. Conduct desk review of existing country office strategic plans, where they have been established; Conduct consultations with staff in country offices without existing plans, to understand their priorities and gaps.
2. Support country offices to clearly define priority areas of engagement, summarizing learnings and translating this into strategic areas of engagement in the region.
3. Conduct consultations with other relevant stakeholders in UNICEF regional office and HQ to understand context, priorities, UNICEF comparative advantage, etc.
4. Review relevant UNICEF and other partners program guidance notes on oxygen systems.
5. Facilitate case studies/best practices, cross country learning, feed into global resources.
6. Develop guidance on transitioning from COVID-19 response to routine services and MNCH.

3. Technical support to country offices oxygen teams:

a. Assess needs for technical support and capacity building for each country.

b. Propose a plan for each country for discussion and agreement with regional HSS, MNCH, and Supply colleagues.

c. Provide technical support to country offices, depending on their current stage of planning and implementation, may include:

1. • Support a landscape analysis to assess current status of medical oxygen systems (if not already conducted).
   • Development of a country road map.
   • Developing TORs for in-country technical support and supporting recruitment process.
   • Planning for transitioning from emergency COVID-19 response to leveraging investments for routine needs, focusing on maternal, newborn, and child survival and other medical conditions.
   • Supply chain strengthening including mapping of oxygen needs, quantification / forecasting, identifying suppliers, advising on infrastructure considerations, distribution planning, operations and maintenance planning.
   • Human resource capacity planning and costing.
   • Technical oversight and quality assurance.

4. Data and information management:

1. Support country offices to develop systems to track equipment procured and distributed - preferably integrated within existing health and/or logistics information systems.
2. Support regional office to develop a monitoring framework to track progress and achievements of medical oxygen systems throughout the region.
3. Collaborate with Cos, RO, and HQ to measure impact of UNICEF oxygen investments on COVID-19 response and broader MNCH systems; summarize impacts across the South Asia region.
4. Coordinate periodic regional program updates on oxygen systems strengthening in close collaboration with UNICEF country teams
5. Development of case studies; human interest stories and SBCC/advocacy materials on oxygen systems in close coordination with C4D and CAP teams.

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

• An advanced university degree in biomedical engineering, mechanical engineering, or Public Health.
• At least eight (8) years of experience with in-country medical device management or public health that include assessment, planning and execution, installations, and maintenance.
• Hands on experience in oxygen systems (planning, procurement, implementation) is strongly desired, and broader public health experience will be considered.
• Experience in Maternal Neonatal and Child Health programming is an asset.
• Demonstrated experience with in-country health systems technical assistance, including for oxygen systems, ideally including low- and middle-income settings.
• Understanding of different capacity building models including engaging in-country service providers and private sector.
• Fluency in written and spoken English is essential. Knowledge of any South Asia regional languages is an asset.

For every Child, you demonstrate…

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

Required competencies:

• Proven ability to analyze data and write reports that are of high quality.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills to liaise with a wide variety of audiences, good attention to detail.
• Ability to quickly understand instructions, to proactively seek clarification when needed.
• Ability to work independently and problem solving oriented.
• Multi-cultural skills and ability to establish harmonious and effective working relationships

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.

Duration: 11.5 months from the start of the contract and is office based.

Consultants and Individual contractors are responsible for paying any taxes derived from the earnings received from UNICEF.

Application to include an all-inclusive financial proposal that will detail daily/monthly rate (in USD) to undertake the terms of reference.

Payment of professional fees will be based on submission of agreed satisfactory deliverables. UNICEF reserves the right to withhold payment in case the deliverables submitted are not up to the required standard or in case of delays in submitting the deliverables on the part of the consultant.

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.