AOP Consultant at Excellence Community Education Welfare Scheme Ltd/Gte (ECEWS)

Call for Application: Consultant to develop the 2020 State HIV Annual Operational Plan (AOP) as part of the Health Sector Response strategy
Required services: consultancy to facilitate the development of the Annual Opeational Plan for HIV.
Duration: 10 days
Commencement Date: December, 2019
Proposed dates: Between December 1st - 20th 2019.

Background

• The Global Fund (GF) Optimizing HIV Investments for Impact project is a new grant running from July 2019-December 2020. The project continued on the UNAIDS 90-90-90 framework; 90% of the Persons Living with HIV/AIDS know their status, 90% of them are enrolled on treatment and adhere to their drugs and retained in care leading to 90% having viral load suppression.
• One of the mandates of the new grant is to provide institutional capacity strengthening (ICS) to some states categorized by the Government of Nigeria as National Treatment and PMTCT Programme (NTPP) states. As part of the implementation structure, FHI 360 is expected to support 5 out of the 8 NTPP states (Benue, Cross River, Kaduna, Nasarawa and FCT) to improve the response of these states to the HIV epidemic. Consequently, it is the expectation of the donor that these states will attain the status of States as Implementing Entities (SIEs) or Sub-recipient to the donor by the end of the grant.

Consultancy Overview and Role

• In line with the WHO Health Sector Strategy on HIV, 2016-2021, there is the need to reposition the health sector response to HIV so as to achieve universal health coverage. It has been argued that this can only be achieved through renewed political commitment, additional resources, and technical and programmatic innovations.
• To this end, the GoN launched the roadmap for the National Treatment and PMTCT Programme in 2018. It is the anticipation that the NTPP roadmap will strengthen efforts towards the actualization of the National HIV health sector response. This has necessitated the capacity strengthening interventions of the grant to be directed at the States AIDS and STIs Control Program (SASCP) across the five FHI 360 supported states.
• The objectives of the NTPP includes:
  • To coordinate partners and states implementation of HIV treatment and prevention programme interventions in Nigeria towards attainment of the 90-90-90 targets.
  • Mobilize, leverage and track domestic resources for HIV treatment programme interventions in Nigeria.
  • Strengthen institutional capacity of NASCP and State Ministries of Health, for effective coordination of the NTPP
• The purpose of the ICS intervention is to strengthen the capacity of 5 NTPP states to demonstrate ability to access Global Fund resources directly and use appropriately. The demonstration will be measured by:
• Increased budgetary allocation to HIV response by at least 30%
• Release and actual use of allocated funds
• Volume of other state resources mobilized for HIV interventions (SOML, bi-annual MNCH week, etc)
• Improved capacity for managing the technical response as depicted by number of oversight visits conducted to supported and non-supported sites and the number of quality of care assessment conducted.
• Improved M&E and Information Management system as demonstrated by ownership and use of program data.
• Regular and prompt payment of counterpart funding
• FHI360 through her Sub-Recipient (Excellence Community Education Welfare Scheme (ECEWS)) is leading the process for the development of HIV health Sector Response and 2020 State HIV AOP in Cross River state.
• Furthermore, the NAIIS preliminary suggests that there is need to tailor concerted efforts of state actors and development partners towards the locations where the HIV epidemic is localized, age bracket, social economic factors etc. Hence the need to develop the HIV AOP for the health sector response for year 2020.

Purpose of the Consultancy:

• The purpose of this consultancy assignment is to provide technical assistance to the SASCP team of Cross River state to develop a costed HIV Annual Operational Plan that will reflect the state’s annual priorities for 2020.

Specific Tasks

• Hold planning meetings with SASCP/ECEWS in preparation for the AOP consultancy assignment.
• Engage key stakeholders and other relevant actors on the development of the Annual Operational plan.
• Conduct desk review of documents from IPs and SASCP (including but not limited to State HIV Strategic Plan, State Health Strategic Development Plan, etc) and collate partners work plan to feed into state 2020 AOP.
• Generate and provide templates to support SASCP in the development of the AOP.
• Liaise with state government officials, IPs and private sector groups in the state to collate workplans and other documents for desk review.
• Work with SASCP and other relevant stakeholders to review the 2019 Annual Operational Plan and determine the implementation status.
• Conduct key informant interviews with state government officials and other relevant stakeholders.
• Work with the SASCP and FHI 360 SRs to identify government officials, private sector and IPs to be in attendance at the AOP development workshop.
• Facilitate the AOP development workshop.
• Lead the development of the AOP M&E/results/performance framework with clear milestones and targets.
• Review and present the draft Annual Operational Plan to stakeholders.
• Facilitate the AOP validation meeting with stakeholders.
• Prepare final draft of the Annual Operational Plan
• Prepare and submit final reports and final draft of Annual Operational Plan for dissemination with stakeholders; and facilitate Dissemination meeting (Final draft for validation should be submitted one week after the Planning meeting.

Requirements
Required Experience and Qualifications:

• Demonstrated experience in developing and costing of Annual Operational Plans is highly desired.
• M.Sc/B.Sc/HND in Public health, social works or in relevant degree with 3 - 7 years relevant experience in program designs, project-level or state-level HIV/AIDS interventions.
• Proven record of working with state and local level stakeholders to guide priority-setting and the development of realistic workplans.
• Familiarity with Nigeria and the state’s public health system, workings of NGOs and CBOs is highly desirable.
• Planning expertise and experience in budgeting (costing plans).
• Experience in developing and delivering capacity building workshops;
• Good understanding of current health financing reform initiatives in Nigeria especially at subnational level;
• Experience carrying out similar assignments in Nigeria particularly at the sub-national level.