Consultant, International Health ( HSS Data & Documentation) at UNICEF

Job Number: 525696
Location: Abuja: Nigeria
Contract duration: 5 months
Work Type: Consultancy

Purpose of Assignment

• Each year in Nigeria over 7.5million babies are born, of whom about 300,000 die during their first month of life. Despite our gains for child survival whereby the under-five child mortality has decreased in the last decade, available data shows that the rate of decline is slow. It is important to understand and address bottlenecks at decentralized levels and tailor an accelerated response to fast track reduction in under-five mortality rate.
• Working closely with the Government at national and State level, over the last 12 months, an evidence based systems strengthening approach has been implemented in select States in the country. The accelerated action for impact approach has focused on using data for action, prioritizing actions and seeking localized solutions. There is a need to complete a trend analysis of the data understanding progress and areas of improvement along with the program inputs and processes.
• There are ongoing interventions in improving health systems including improving the PHC functionality and a key area of work is to link and synergise the systems strengthening work with the specific program interventions and tracking progress. Work was done targeting high burden child mortality States and within these States, high burden LGAs, wards and communities with complementary packages of life-saving and high impact interventions of health, nutrition, water, sanitation and hygiene including HIV/AIDS, TB, malaria. There were specific interventions contextualized and rolled out to accelerate results.
• Further, there has been system strengthening work across other States including in the humanitarian context and there needs to be a documentation analysis of the inputs provided linked with the achievements and results achieved and lessons learned. This will enable future programming.
• The purpose of the assignment is to produce briefs and reports documenting this approach. These are needed to support further sharing of the strategic approach for replicability and sustainability as well as inform the roll out of national and State plans.

Major Tasks to be Accomplished:

• One brief report (5-7 pages) on the implementation process and results of the accelerated action impact (AAI) strategy across select States and national written in a compelling, user friendly language without losing the richness of the technical content.
• State specific reports for the 4 States that have implemented the AAI strategy over the last year – each report to be 5 to 7 pages (back to back), bringing out the State adaptations, the trend analysis of the results, processes and achievements both in process and systems as well as results for women and children and at least 2 human interest stories (boxes) to share experiences. This may entail conducting interviews with key stakeholders (virtually)
• Power point presentation to accompany the overall report and the State reports and key results of the AAI for use for advocacy and further dissemination.
• One brief report (7-10 pages) outlining the various health system strengthening processes and inputs provided at national and in select States over the last one year across different programs. This will entail inputs across the various programme areas and all the field offices documenting interventions and results across the program
• State specific or Intervention specific reports (5 case studies) emerging out of the overall brief report (d above), giving more in depth understanding of the systems strengthening work and linked with results for children

Academic Qualifications or Specialized Knowledge/Experience and Competencies

• Prior experience in documenting programs in public health
• A Degree in Public Health and/or related technical field
• At least eight years or more experience working in MNCAH programs and/or health projects. Prior experience with HSS programming is an added advantage
• Demonstrated ability to produce high quality, creative communication materials
• Experience in writing for UN agencies (human interest stories, reports etc) UNICEF specific experience will be a strong asset
• Fluency in oral and written English is required.
• Computer skills, including internet navigation and various office applications.
• Demonstrated ability to work in a multi-cultural environment and establish harmonious and effective working relationships, both within and outside the organization.