UNICEF Pacific Consultancy - Improved water and sanitation infrastructure approaches for health care facilities in the Pacific Islands

Consultant Programme & Policy Medical & Health

Contract

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Water & Sanitation in Healthcare Facilities in the Pacific

Good Water, Sanitation (including waste) & Hygiene (WASH) services in healthcare facilities links to multiple key development objectives for Pacific Island countries including quality universal health coverage, infection prevention and control, patient safety, and child/newborn/maternal health. Impacts of good WASH services extend to staff dignity, morale, performance and safety as well as respectful care to mothers and children. Accordingly, SDG targets 6.1 and 6.2 include WASH in health care facilities as part of universal WASH access for all. Within healthcare facilities, five main subsectors are identified that need dedicated attention and monitoring: water, sanitation, hand hygiene, environmental cleaning and healthcare waste management.

The global COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of effective infection prevention and control (IPC) within healthcare facilities to mitigate risks of transmission among patients and healthcare staff. Good IPC is dependent on protocols and training for staff which fundamentally are dependent on reliable water and sanitation infrastructure.

In recognition of the benefits of WASH in Healthcare facilities and response to the COVID-19 pandemic there is already significant investment ongoing and planned within the Health sector from the governments and supporting donors across the Pacific. Nevertheless, current programmes frequently only touch partially on the specific issue of WASH in healthcare facilities and often underestimate the challenges and cost of providing these critical services. Access to water and sanitation services within healthcare facilities are infrequently monitored within health management information systems.

Ensuring climate and disaster resilience of infrastructure is of particular importance in the Pacific context. It is essential that health facilities can continue to provide basic services during and immediately after crisis events – when they are most needed and when external support may take a long time to arrive.

The need for assessment, consultation, and monitoring tools (including remote usable tools)

On many Pacific islands there are limited human resources able to carry out assessments for the design and installation of water and sanitation facilities. Deployment of technical experts is frequently prohibitively expensive given the high cost of travel and relatively low value of infrastructure at different sites. Air travel restrictions, visa restrictions and long quarantine because of the pandemic has further limited scope for on the ground technical support. As a result, industries around the world have needed to adapt to manage aspects of design, construction and monitoring remotely. Improved tools to support in-country or remote assessments, consultation and monitoring have significant potential to improve construction processes and may include planning checklists, evidence collection, monitoring checklists, multimedia data gathering, conferencing, report generation and handover checklists.

The need for modular & prefabricated approaches to WASH in Healthcare Facilities:

The frequently remote contexts where water and sanitation infrastructures for healthcare facilities are needed demand robust infrastructure that are highly resilient to a harsh ocean environment in addition to coping with water shortages, power outages and extreme weather events. In many locations qualified contractors to undertake even basic construction work are very limited and sites are physically hard to access by vehicle. These challenges can result in costly and slow construction of low-quality infrastructure.

Off-site, modular construction of infrastructure has been shown to multiple efficiencies that may be well suited to water and sanitation facilities within the Pacific Island contexts including:

• Improved Quality
• Improved Cost predictability
• Improved Safety
• Increased schedule certainty
• Reduced waste generated by construction
• Mitigation of skilled labor shortage risks
• Adaptability to local contexts through use of modular components

In addition, WASH in Health Care facilities with its 5 components also needs to meet overall national infrastructure and health standards. The 2020 global report highlighted significant gaps across Pacific Island countries on the availability and quality of WASH in health care facilities. Particularly the approaches to and solutions for medical waste management are guided by global health (WHO) guidance and standards which need to be taken into consideration for appropriate, climate and suitable technical infrastructure solutions for improvement of overall WASH in health care facilities.

The need for Building Information Modelling (BIM) approaches: Building Information Modelling (BIM) provides a shared digital representation of a built asset to facilitate design, construction and operation processes to form a reliable basis for decisions. Increasingly governments globally are demanding that BIM processes are used in construction to helps keep design-build on-time, under-budget, and true-to-form. BIM processes, defined by ISO-19650, are underpinned by digital technologies supporting collaboration and information sharing. The concept uses a 3D digital model as a central point of reference to make it easier to collaborate and recalibrate design during project implementation.

How can you make a difference?

The purpose of the assignment is to undertake a feasibility study to support the development of improved design and construction processes for WASH infrastructure in health care facilities in selected Pacific Islands countries. The specific focus is on healthcare facilities, but approaches developed through this consultancy may be applicable to other infrastructure in the future. Also, approaches successfully used in improving WASH in Schools could be relevant and considered for WASH in health care facilities. The objective of the consultancy is to strengthen WASH construction practices in the Pacific Island countries through building knowledge on in-country and remote assessment/consultation, modular construction and alignment with Building Information Modelling approaches (ISO-19650).

Specifically, the consultancy will support: 1. Identification, specification and testing of tools for untrained personnel to provide information to engineers/architects by remote that can facilitate design and selection of modular water and sanitation infrastructure for healthcare facilities. 2. Identification, specification and testing of tools for health facility managers to remotely participate in validating design of modular water and sanitation infrastructure for healthcare facilities. 3. Development of digital models that include specifications and costing to support procurement of modular water and sanitation infrastructure. 4. Development of guidelines for installation of modular water and sanitation infrastructure by local contractors with limited technical expertise. 5. Capacity building of national partners such as health facility management staff, selected local contractors??

The above activities should be aligned with global best practices and standards in prefabricated building design, building information modelling approaches and adhere to relevant national standards and building codes as appropriate.

Tools developed or recommended as part of this consultancy should wherever possible use Open Standards, Open Data, Open Source, and Open Innovation. Critically tools should fit in with existing platforms and tools as much as possible.

Due to extensive travel restrictions associated with COVID-19 it is proposed that this work will be undertaken largely by remote and in-country if possible.

Supporting documents required:

This request for proposals is open to both individual consultants and institutional organizations. This portal is for Individual contracts only. Institutional bidders must apply using this link: https://www.ungm.org/public/Notice/147180

All individual applications must include: • UNICEF P11 form • Technical proposal • Financial proposal (separate sealed envelope) • One sample of similar work done within last 3 years • List names and email of at least three referees

After the opening, each proposal will be assessed first on its technical merits and subsequently on its financial value. The proposal with the best overall value, composed of technical merit and price, will be recommended for approval. UNICEF will set up an evaluation panel composed of technical and procurement staff and their conclusions will be forwarded to the internal UNICEF Contracts Review Committee or other relevant approving authority. The evaluation panel will first evaluate each response for compliance with the requirements of this Terms of Reference. Responses deemed not to meet all the mandatory requirements will be considered non-compliant and rejected at this stage without further consideration. Failure to comply with any of the terms and conditions contained in these Terms of Reference, including provision of all required information, may result in a response or proposal being disqualified from further consideration.

The overall weighting between technical and price evaluation will be based on the predefined criteria. The technical component will account for 70% of the total points allocated and the financial component (commercial evaluation) will account for 30% of the total points allocated.

The currency of this proposal shall be in US Dollars. All quoted prices/rates must be exclusive of all taxes since UNICEF is exempted from government taxes, levies and duties.

A

Technical proposal

Points

1

Qualifications and experience

25

2

Understanding of TOR, Approach, methodology

25

3

Availability & workplan timeframe:

20

Total Points for Technical Proposal:

70

Minimum point required for short listing 70% of 70 = 49 points

Only proposals which receive a minimum of 49 points (out of 70 points) will be considered for financial evaluation

B

Financial proposal

30

Grand total (A + B)

100

Proposed deliverables:

Tasks/Milestone:

Deliverables

Due Date

Inception Report:

1. Review background data, country construction regulations, standards and documents available.
2. Interviews with UNICEF staff and as possible, national government officials and partners on key challenges & opportunities related to modular/prefabricated water and sanitation infrastructures for healthcare facilities.
3. Propose preliminary list of modular facilities required.
4. Outline specifications for remote data collection, consultation and monitoring tools.
5. Propose separation of what components can be prefabricated and what will need to be constructed on site
6. Identify risks and opportunities for application of building information management approaches for water and sanitation infrastructure.
7. Detailed plan of action for rest of consultancy.

Inception report

1 month after signature

Assessment, consultation & monitoring tools:

1. Review existing remote construction assessment, consultation and monitoring tools available on the market develop evaluation matrix to compare.
2. Develop or source data collection tools that can be used by untrained personnel to collect key design requirements for different modular/prefabricated water and sanitation infrastructures, preferably by remote. To include but not limited to:
   1. Toilet block
   2. Water Storage + distribution
   3. Handwashing station
   4. Laundry facilities
   5. Bathing facilities
   6. Solid Waste Disposal area
3. Develop or source a consultation tool to facilitate sharing of designs to healthcare facility personnel and seek feedback and agreement.
4. Develop or source effective remote monitoring tools that allow appointed persons to verify checklists and report on progress, snags during facility installation.

5. Test tools and document feedback

6. (Remote) Assessment tool sourced/developed/teste

7. (Remote) consultation tool sourced/developed/teste
8. (Remote) monitoring tool sourced/developed/tested

2 months after signature

Modular/prefabricated facility specification preparation:

1. Consolidate existing and, where necessary, develop new standard BOQs & technical drawings as part digital models of modular, water and sanitation infrastructures that can be retrofitted to healthcare facilities.
2. Prepare necessary documents to facilitate RFP for procurement.

3. Identify potential suppliers for solicitation

4. Digital model inclusive of specifications, BOQs & Designs

5. Bidding Documents prepared
6. List of potential suppliers

3 months after signature

Knowledge Product:

1. Prepare short and simple illustrated design & construction manual to support contractors and facility managers with modular water & sanitation infrastructures for healthcare facilities

2. Prepare and deliver a presentation to key interested stakeholders on knowledge gained and ways forward for improved approaches to delivering water and sanitation construction services in Pacific Island contexts.

3. Illustrated installation manual in English with practical guidance and advice for planning WASH in HCF design remotely.

4. Presentation delivered to key stakeholders

4 months after signature

3. Prepare a summary on the review of WASH in HCF infrastructure.

Brief Summary report on WASH in HCF.

Commercial evaluation: The price/cost of each of the technically compliant proposals shall be considered only after evaluation of the above technical criteria. A maximum 30 point assigned to the financial proposal will be allocated to the lowest financial proposal. All other price proposals will receive scores in inverse proportion according to the following formula:

Score for price proposal A = (Maximum score for price proposal * Price of lowest priced proposal)/Price of proposal A.

As a result of the financial evaluation, the points of each proposal will be taken into further consideration in the final evaluation.

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

• Master's degree in Civil engineering construction engineering, architecture, design or other relevant technical areas. Additional training in AutoCAD, Building Information Management, remote data collection and water and sanitation an asset
• At least 5 years of experience in design of prefabricated/modular buildings and/or Building Information Management (BIM) approaches
• Knowledge of materials, methods, and the appropriate tools to construct prefabricated/modular water and sanitation infrastructure
• Proven ability to understand a situation quickly, identify potential problems and recommend appropriate solutions
• Ability to work productively in a multi-cultural environment
• Demonstrated proficiency in undertaking remote assessments and consultations with clients.
• Experience of working in Pacific and/or other similar low resource context an advantage.
• Experience of working for UN agencies or in development and humanitarian contexts (of WASH or other infrastructure projects)
• Fluency in English is required (oral and written)

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF's values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, and Accountability (CRITA) and core competencies in Communication, Working with People and Drive for Results.

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.

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Added 2 years ago - Updated 2 years ago - Source: unicef.org