Country: Mozambique
Closing date: 22 Feb 2016
PURPOSE AND OBJECTIVE
To strengthen the focus and quality of the decentralised health planning, implementation and monitoring in Zambézia and Tete to respond to the health and nutrition needs and priorities for mothers and children/adolescents.
Objectives:
To support the province and selected districts of Zambézia and Tete province to improve the process and quality of the annual health sector to ensure that it is based on the best available district and provincial data, and analysis of the maternal, and child health and nutrition situation. Specifically that the bottom-up micro-planning process for integrated service delivery at the facility and community level (REC) provide an evidence-base for the district planning processes.
To support the DPS in Zambézia and Tete to strengthen capacity amongst provincial public health department to implement and monitor planned activities.
Provide technical assistance to priority areas including community health and nutrition platform (APE), nutrition interventions, and HIV, emphasising collaboration between departments and line ministries (e.g. DPOPH and SETSAN).
METHODOLOGIES AND TECHNICAL APPROACH:
Overview of activity:
Planning March – August: Support to the District and Provincial health planning process.
Implementation On-going: a. Monitoring and reviewing the UNICEF/DPS AWP implementation; b. Documentation and lessons learned.
Support emergency health and nutrition response activities where priorities above other development work.
The consultants will be supervised directly by the UNICEF Chief, Health and Nutrition, but work under day to day guidance of and collaboration DPS and local UNICEF staff responsible for coordination of work in the province, including coordination with other technical experts providing similar technical services to improve services for children.
Within the UNICEF Mozambique Country Office Child Health and Nutrition team, focal points will be identified to encourage frequent communication on approach to work, while overall strategic guidance with come from the lead supervisor. During field visits, strategic priorities and areas for to support technical implementation will be jointly undertaken.
Planning activities
A consultant based in the respective provincial DPS will:
a. Based on UNICEF CO agreed convergence districts, identify additional districts for additional focused support in health planning and implementation using objective criteria, documented and agreed between UNICEF CO and DPS.
b. Conduct a brief desk review of district and provincial annual health planning processes (PES) and SWOT analysis of current PES process including the current and potential linkages between budgeting and funding allocation. Ensure proposed UNICEF AWP closely aligned to DPS PES.
c. Assist planners to use REC data (coverage data and data from bottleneck analysis indicators) from relevant districts into district planning process.
d. Summarize complementary partner support, critical for the province and focus districts, but may not be fully captured within the official PES.
d. Provide technical assistance to planning in priority areas including community health and nutrition platform (APE), newborn care, nutrition intervention, and HIV.
Implementation and Monitoring Support
a. Consistent with the UNICEF/DPS AWP and DPS PES, formalise monitoring plan with specific targets, means of verification, adapted as needed to meet the unique requirements of the focus districts.
b. In selected focus districts prioritized for support, work with DPS to establish quarterly district management meetings to review performance against the PES plans and targets. This will include reviewing coverage of routine data on MCH/HIV/Nutrition disaggregated by service delivery platform (Health Facility, Outreach and CHW) and monitoring of an agreed set of bottleneck indicators.
c. Conduct regular field visits to monitor progress in implementation of the PES activities and provide on the job coaching, support as needed.
d. In consultation with UNICEF Health Policy and Planning Specialist, the consultant will document lessons learned from the 2016 planning process to feedback to provincial and district health planners and UNICEF Child Health and Nutrition section.
e. Based on the experience of the 2016 planning process, using capacity assessment tools developed jointly with the Health Policy and Planning Specialist, the consultant will assess the capacity gaps for planning at both the provincial and district health offices and formulate a capacity development plan.
Deliverables and Timeframe
Planning:**
Plan and programme of support activities that feeds into key stages of the existing plans development and review at both provincial and district level and that includes a results-based planning (RBP) methodology that is complementary to the PES and will enhance the quality of the PES process
A preliminary/initial report on the quality and relevance of the available data at provincial and district level, with a particular focus on data from REC micro-planning processes (within three months)
Updated report on partnership mapping (within three months; updated subsequently)
Implementation and Monitoring:**
Tools developed to support district and provincial monitoring of performance
Quarterly reports for district management meetings to review performance against the PES plans and targets in selected focus districts prioritized for support.
Presentations/briefs (exact format to be determined) capturing lessons learned from the 2016 planning process
Capacity Development plan for Zambézia and Tete DPS (End of November 2016)
Summary of deliverables:**
Deliverable 1. Agreed M&E framework/database, jointly agreed with Provincial/district authorities, aligned to AWP/PES planned activities. Timeframe: March
Deliverable 2. Highlighted priorities for MNCH/Nutrition/HIV interventions and gaps; recommendation for future planning improvement; accompanying PPT. Timeframe: June
Deliverable 3. Capacity development plan; highlighting key areas of complementary technical assistance. Timeframe: November
Deliverable 4: Update to date partnership mapping. Timeframe: Quarterly
Deliverable 5: Update to summary of M&E of key performance indicators, per the PES. Timeframe: Quarterly
Deliverable 6: Monthly report of activities completed and planned. Timeframe: Monthly
Deliverable 7: Field trip reports. Timeframe: Per travel outside the provincial capitals
TIMEFRAME
While the scope of work is planned to run until the end of 2016, this may be extended subject to satisfactory performance, funding, and requirements of the next UNICEF Government of Mozambique Country Programme.
MANAGEMENT, ORGANIZATION AND SCHEDULE:
Management and schedule.** Chief of Section, Health and Nutrition of UNICEF Mozambique will supervise the consultant’s activities. With the section, focal points will be assigned for day-to-day navigation of technical issues and corresponding inputs will be provided by the relevant section project officers. At field level, programmatic convergence of efforts and organization of field visits will be coordinated by the UNICEF staff member assigned for each province.
Organization. The consultant will be based in the provincial capital of each province, with frequent travel to the provinces to the focus districts.
QUALIFICATIONS AND SPECIALIZED KNOWLEDGE
Advanced university degree in medicine, public health or related health sciences area. Additional training on: Planning and budgeting a strong asset. At least 5 years of working experiences in health and nutrition in rural settings, with specific expertise. Specific experience working within one of the provinces preferred. Experience in both government and NGOs working environment will be an asset, as well as previous experience working for a UN Agency.
S/he should be an excellent team player and strong advocate of capacity building at the local level. Familiarity with the Human Rights based and the Results based approach to planning and monitoring will be valued. Should also have capacity building skills and must have demonstrated ability to work with minimum supervision and should have a complete control of the Portuguese Language and basic comprehensive of English.
How to apply:
How to Apply: kindly access the link http://jobs.unicef.org/cw/en-us/#/job/493956/consultancy-technical-assistance-to-health-sector-decentralised-planning-and-implementation
Candidates will only need to complete their profiles once, and it will remain active for future applications as well.
Vacancy closing date: 22 February 2016