International Consultancy - Community Health Systems Strengthening, Community Health Worker mapping and database development, ESAR

Contract

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TERMS OF REFERENCE

Background and Justification

Community-based health has been proven to save lives and improve health. The design and use of digital technology and data systems in countries have been developed by multiple partners and are bringing positive results, increasing the quality and timely provision of promotive, preventative and curative services to people in communities, especially those that have difficulties in accessing health care in traditional health facilities. However, it is increasingly apparent that these systems are fragmented, function as stand-alone discrete entities with little or no inter-operability channels and do not channel data through health management information systems (HMIS) for analysis. Thus, there are opportunities to help consolidate and accelerate use of digital technologies and data science to strengthen district health systems, better inform health managers and workers’ actions, and improve overall community health services.

The intelligent Community Health Systems (iCOHS) is a UNICEF-Rockefeller Foundation (RF) partnership that aims to develop scalable strategies for the aggregation and analysis of disparate data to enable decentralized decision making and real-time monitoring for stakeholders across the primary and community health system. Learning and innovation labs have been established in India and Uganda to provide proof points for a data-driven community health approach. Complementary work at the regional level in Eastern and Southern Africa (ESAR) has in the first two years of implementation created enabling conditions for data-driven community health in 11 countries, from which best practices and insights to accelerate progress are being consolidated.

The iCOHS work has been catalytic, further giving rise to other investments to improve community health information systems (CHIS). Through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), resources to lay the foundations of a major component of the CHIS have been availed, specifically to conduct a community health landscape analysis to provide up-to-date information on community health workers (CHWs) that are actively delivering malaria case management services in all endemic countries of sub-Saharan Africa. Despite the critical role played by CHWs in delivering essential high-quality services and the strong reliance that was placed on their services during the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a paucity of good data on the number of active CHWs, their location, and exactly what services they are delivering. Accurate, current, and reliable data on CHWs is instrumental to the design, implementation, and monitoring of disease-specific and integrated programs delivering services at household and community levels. The findings from this landscape will become a public good for use by global partners and will help inform our collective understanding of community health worker capabilities that could be leveraged for the broader pandemic preparedness agenda. Ultimately, the improved access to and use of community-based data through harmonized, integrated and digitally enabled community health information systems will help stakeholders, including service providers, managers and policymakers, make informed decisions that accelerate progress, tackle challenges and lead to more equitable health outcomes for mothers and children, ensuring that every child survives and thrives to its full potential in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

This assignment seeks to provide project management, coordination and technical input to the iCOHS learning hub and the CHW landscape analysis at the regional level in Eastern and Southern Africa (ESAR), supporting the creation of enabling conditions for data-driven community health in select countries and then apply best practices and insights to accelerate progress.

Supporting the 11 concerned countries with developing their learning products from the iCOHS catalytic funding in it’s last year, and further compiling and consolidating them for broader ESAR knowledge management and dissemination will require dedicated support especially in view of the community health learning symposium planned for Q3. In addition, the CHW landscape analysis and data base creation will require additional expertise on health information systems as well as effort to coordinate the CHW mapping within the entire region. The consultant will not be performing staff functions but will instead provide dedicated support towards the specific outputs of these 2 regional grants as it pertains to community health information systems.

Scope of Work

1. *Goal and Objective*****: Under the technical guidance and close supervision of the Child Health and Community Platforms Specialist, the contractor will work collaboratively with the RO Health Section and ICT4D as well as the HQ Child Health and Community Unit, to provide technical input and project management to ensure timely implementation of the regional UNICEF-Rockefeller Foundation intelligent Community Health Systems programme and BMGF Community case management landscape & data visualization initiative.

• The consultant will provide project management, coordination, knowledge management and reporting for the two regional office sections (Health and ICT4D) involved in the iCOHS and BMGF grants, whilst also providing coordination and monitoring across the concerned implementing countries and liaise with focal points in HQ and the UNICEF US Fund.
• In addition, the consultant will provide technical input and coordination to regional office-led work streams including the updating and maintenance of the regional community health platforms dashboard and knowledge hub; implementation of the learning agenda and dissemination of the knowledge products; and other community health pillars (DHIS2-Rapid Pro interoperability, data use and digitization).

2. Provide details/reference to AWP areas covered: This work is aligned with Output 2 in which countries are supported in strengthening and institutionalizing community platforms to improve child survival and expanded MNCH service delivery to achieve UHC through PHC. The work also will contribute to the global child health re-design effort by providing a better understanding of existing country-level efforts to strengthen integrated, child-centered community-based service delivery at the PHC level.
3. Activities and Tasks: The consultant will augment country specific TA support on specialized work streams (e.g. CHW mapping/master lists and registries, community score cards, CHIS indicator development,) and support grant management including coordinating, monitoring & reporting and knowledge management across both the RF Intelligent Community Health Systems and BMGF Community Case Management Landscape & Data Visualization initiatives.

As the last year of the iCOHS initiative gets underway, the consultant will focus on supporting the generation and dissemination of evidence from the catalytic investments in support of strengthened CHIS. This work falls under the broader regional objective to build the PHC knowledge management platform within the region, inclusive of updating the community health knowledge hub, regional and country level community health dashboards and preparing the community health learning symposium scheduled in the 2nd half of 2022.

As part of the global initiative funded through Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), the consultant will also lead a CHW mapping for the region through desk review and country consultation against a set list of criteria to inform services provided, functionality and geographic location amongst others. The mapping will culminate into a database and eventual external living dashboard for further programmatic use.

Output 1: Successful project management, team coordination and reporting of the ESAR UNICEF-RF iCOHS and BMGF Community Case Management Landscape initiative

• Provide technical input, coordinate and report on the ESAR 2022-2023 UNICEF-RF iCOHS work plan and budget, that includes country specific and regional office workplans/budgets with focus on extracting best practices, compiling results and show casing the catalytic nature of investments to further community health systems strengthening in the region.
• Regularly monitor/review country progress including financial expenditure, address implementation bottlenecks and support interim and final year reporting.
• Provide routine data collection and subsequent updating of the regional iCOHS M&E framework, analysing indicators to track progress and signaling challenges in reaching set targets.

Output 2: Support knowledge management efforts in the iCOHS partnership, with technical assistance to country offices to properly document, package and share evidence generated through implementation of community health systems strengthening

• Support and monitor implementation of the regional iCOHS learning agenda, informed by country-specific learning agendas as well as areas emerging from the ICHC 2.0
• Produce and disseminate knowledge products (user stories, case studies, briefs, webinar) on routine basis for internal and external knowledge sharing and communications.
• Support the preparation, coordination and facilitation of the expanded community health learning symposium to be held in Q3, in addition to any other south-south learning between countries of the region and – as relevant, outside the region to disseminate learnings.

Output 3: Contribute to overall community health system strengthening efforts in the region, in support of the Child Health and Community Platforms Specialist

• Provide technical input and stewardship for the regular update and maintenance of the regional community health knowledge hub and dashboards
• Lead the transformation of the Regional Community Health Dashboard and Knowledge Hub from internal to external accessibility and further promote it’s dissemination and linkage with other data sources and websites
• Support/lead on improving availability of / accessibility to accurate, up-to-date information on active CHWs disaggregated by service delivery typology in malaria endemic countries of Eastern and Southern Africa

4. Work relationships: The consultant will work under the technical guidance and supervision of the Child Health and Community Platforms Specialist, in close collaboration with the RO Health Section and ICT4D teams liaising with other relevant sections (Nutrition, ECD, WASH, HIV) as well as the HQ Child Health and Community Unit. The consultant will need to interact with the CO focal points to facilitate the country consultations and field missions where relevant.

Outputs/Deliverables:

Payment Schedule

The contractor will work on a full-time basis and will be paid on a monthly basis, based on satisfactory completion of the deliverables as outlined.

Desired competencies, technical background and experience

1. Education: Minimum of Masters in Public health or Masters in other social science
2. Minimum 5 years of experience in international development sector, with focus on

(community) health systems strengthening; with preference toward experience in community-based health programmes in the East and Southern African region.

3. Demonstrated knowledge / experience with community-based health information systems including digital health systems, monitoring & evaluation, with strong analytical and research skills
4. Excellent written communication skills, ideally with a track record of producing programmatic guidance and reports, research and knowledge management products
5. Track record of producing quality deliverables on time.
6. Ability to function effectively in English is a requirement, and knowledge of French is an asset.

7. Must exhibit the UNICEF Core Values of:

8. 1. Care
   2. Respect
   3. Integrity
   4. Trust
   5. Accountability
9. Competencies:
   1. Works collaboratively with others
   2. Thinks and acts strategically
   3. Builds and maintains partnerships

Administrative Issues

• Individual Contractor is expected to confirm they have adequate health insurance.
• Individual Contractor is expected to use their own computer and communication equipment.
• Field missions are not anticipated, with the exception of 1-2 weeks in Nairobi, Kenya for facilitation/support for the Community Health Learning Symposium scheduled in Q3 2022; for which the UNICEF office would cover DSA and travel costs. Travel will be in economy class. If the consultant/contractor is required to quarantine while traveling, UNICEF will pay for the quarantine if not organized by the host country
• No contract may commence unless the contract is signed by both UNICEF and the consultant.
• Additional details of UNICEF rules, regulations and conditions will be attached to the contract.
• The contractor may be based remotely though is required to maintain working hours that fall within the EAT time zone with overlap from 10-4pm Nairobi time.

Conditions

The Consultant will mostly work remotely provided s/he is able to participate in the relevant health section and regional working group meetings. Regular remote meeting (frequency to be defined with the supervisor) will be organized to provide updates. The consultant will use his/her own office equipment. As most of the work will be done remotely, the consultant must have high internet connectivity and must be available/reachable online throughout the consultancy.

As per UNICEF DFAM policy, payment is made against approved deliverables. No advance payment is allowed unless in exceptional circumstances against bank guarantee, subject to a maximum of 30 per cent of the total contract value in cases where advance purchases, for example for supplies or travel, may be necessary.

The candidate selected will be governed by and subject to UNICEF’s General Terms and Conditions for individual contracts.

Risks

Should the COVID-19 pandemic evolve in such a way making any of the outlined responsibilities difficult to achieve in entirety (travel restrictions, etc), relevant risk response and mitigation measures will be identified early and implemented with support from the hiring manager/office as deemed necessary. Seeing that minimal travel is required, the risks are considered low.

How to Apply:

Interested candidates should apply online using the button below. As part of their application, candidates should provide: 1. A cover letter that specifies how you meet the desired competencies, technical background and experience (no more than 2 pages) 2. A short CV (no more than 4 pages) 3. A financial proposal that should include the monthly rate and total fees for the assignment which includes travel/administrative/per diems, if applicable 4. contacts of 3 Referees.

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 the organization