National Immunization Strategy Consultant

Background

In August 2020, the Seventy-Third World Health Assembly endorsed the Immunization Agenda 2030: A Global Strategy to Leave No One Behind (IA2030). IA2030 outlines the essential interventions required to achieve IA2030 vision of a world where everyone, everywhere, at every age fully benefits from vaccines for good health and well-being.

IA2030 was designed to address the interests of each country, regardless of the economic status or geographical location. Acknowledging that the most important actions for success must be taken by individual Member States, the goals outlined in the Immunisation Agenda were structured to reinforce country ownership for planning and implementing effective and comprehensive vaccination programmes. One of the four critical elements in operationalising the IA is the development of Regional and National Immunisation Strategies (NIS). These strategies will provide the medium- long term strategic plans that will outline the essential interventions necessary for the attainment of the broad strategic goals in the IA2030. It is therefore imperative for member countries to develop their context-specific National Immunisation Strategies to guide the operational planning and ensure ownership and accountability of the IA2030 implementation process.

A National Immunisation Strategy is a five – year strategic planning document which outlines the vision, objectives, priority strategies for immunisation and provides costed activities which serves as the blueprint for all immunisation interventions. It also provides the mechanism for amplifying investment needs for immunization in countries.

The NIS is intended for use by the following key stakeholders at the national level such as country-level decision-makers at all levels in the health sector and other government sectors, including the Ministry of Finance (MoF), national immunization programme (NIP) managers, immunization partners at the national, regional and global levels (e.g. WHO, GAVI) and local/international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and civil society organizations (CSOs), policy-making bodies at national and subnational levels, such as the National Immunization Technical Advisory Group (NITAG) among others.

The Guidelines for Developing a NIS was developed by WHO in 2021, and it has been used to guide the development of NISs in various countries. Experience from early adopting countries points to the need to build national capacity in facilitating the NIS processes. The NIS will be developed in line with IA2030 goals, and it will replace the country’s 2017-2022 comprehensive multi-year plan.

It is against this background that WHO would like to hire a consultant to provide technical support to facilitate and coordinate the development of the National Immunisation Strategy (2021-2025).

Deliverables

1. Serve as content producer to facilitate technical discussions, prepare materials for the NIS Sub- committees and respective Stakeholders,
2. Develop a protocol and detailed workplan for all activities necessary to the NIS 2021-2025 development,
3. Identify and collect all existing documents (plans, reports, reviews, assessments, surveys) related to immunization and health system, including budgeting and financing.
4. Process all data, information, and results, analyzing, identifying major issues and challenges, summarizing, and consolidating essential information.
5. Develop TORs for and activate a NIS Steering Committee and a NIS Core Planning Team,
6. Draft a stakeholders’ engagement plan to initiate and maintain engagement from all relevant stakeholders throughout the development of NIS 2021-2025,
7. Develop an M&E framework to drive programme implementation
8. Coordinate the conduct of a Situational Analysis and develop the final Situational Analysis Report.
9. Develop credible estimates of the costs of the NIS strategies identified, using the new global NIS costing approach and tool, and locally validated standard costs and costing principles,
10. Develop some clear pieces of background information to help lead the next stage of planning, and bring the in-country team into the process of strategic planning and budgeting
11. Support substantive discussions, summarize outputs of consultations and document decisions made.
12. Work with key stakeholders to define the resources they will be made available to the national immunization program over the strategic period
13. Help define a sustainable and credible budget for the development partners in their collaborations with the government and other stakeholders
14. Compile the various sections of the NIS document and write the final Draft NIS Document for validation by the Steering Committee, Core planning Committee and all relevant stakeholders.

Qualifications, experience, skills, and languages

Education Qualifications

Essential: Post graduate degree in a public health related field

Desirable :Specific training in Vaccinology, Epidemiology, Data Management and Public Health Policy Development and Implementation.

Work Experience

Essential: A minimum of five years of experience in developing strategic documents

Experience in developing EPI strategic plans, Gavi applications, New Vaccine Introduction Guidelines etc. Conversant with

country’s 2017-2022 EPI comprehensive Multi-year plan

Desirable: Relevant work experience in WHO, other UN agencies; experience working in relevant non-governmental organizations

Skills/Knowledge

Demonstrated knowledge of development of Public Health Strategic Documents Particularly Expanded Programme On Immunisation Documents.

Working Knowledge of Microsoft Office.

Languages and level required

Advanced English and local language in the area of assignment.

Competencies

Teamwork

Effective communication

Producing results

Knowing and managing yourself

Report writing

Technical Supervision

EPI Programme Team Lead in WHO Country Office.

Additional information

• WHO has zero tolerance towards sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA), sexual harassment and other types of abusive conduct (i.e., discrimination, abuseof authority and harassment). All members of the WHO workforce have a role to play in promoting a safe and respectful workplace and should report toWHO any actual or suspected cases of SEA, sexual harassment and other types of abusive conduct. To ensure that individuals with a substantiated historyof SEA, sexual harassment or other types of abusive conduct are not hired by the Organization, WHO will conduct a background verification of final candidates.
• WHO has a smoke-free environment and does not recruit smokers or users of any form of tobacco.