Operations Research, Malaria Project Consultant at Association for Reproductive and Family Health (ARFH)

Locations: Kebbi and Osun
Contract Type: Short-term consultancy for the Association for Reproductive and Family Health (ARFH) - Global Fund Malaria Project
Detailed consultancy days - a maximum of 25 days inclusive of report writing days.

General Objective

• To strengthen operation research guidelines in malaria prevention with an improvement of links to the state-malaria elimination programme in Kebbi and Osun states. Specific objectives of the OR areas would be highlighted in the respective protocols.
• Suggested methodology
• The OR will be executed in both the health facilities as well as in the communities. The protocol on the OR to be conducted will be followed. In both states, this OR process will occur in the following phases:
• Before the field work where meetings will be held as the steering committee meets, stakeholders meet, survey tools are piloted and fine-tuned and in interview of the field workers (research assistants).
• During the field work.
• After the field work, where data collation, entry and analysis will be undertaken, as well as the report writing and dissemination of results.
• This assignment will be undertaken by one (1) external consultant in each state supported by the ARFH Senior Monitoring and Evaluation Officer (SMEO) and the ARFH field officers - and coordinated by the Monitoring and Evaluation Coordinator and Program Manager.
• The external consultants will be primarily responsible for the technical reports.

Tasks for the Consultants:

• Preparation and facilitation of - all the meetings of the steering committee where the protocol will be fine-tuned and survey tools also developed and fine-tuned; the stakeholders’ meetings where the stakeholders will be informed of the survey; and the dissemination meetings where information from the study will be shared with stakeholders.
• Oversight of the pilot study to test the survey tools the interview of the sessions.
• Oversight of the data collection in the field work; the data collation, data entry and data cleaning after the field work and the data analysis done by the biostatistician.
• Report writing.

Required outputs/Deliverables: Reports:

• Preliminary report - Separate report on the technical support process for each of the 2 states (no longer than 10 pages excluding annexes - one of the annexes will be the research report itself) using the ARFH report writing format.
• Timeline for submission - reports should be submitted to the PM no later than 7 days after the completion of the assignment.
• Response period
• Draft reports must be commented on within 5 working days of receipt of each draft report
• Final reports must be submitted within 5 working days of receipt of comments on each report

Experts Profiles
The external consultants must have the following skills and qualifications:

• Previous experience in conduct of operation research in Nigeria, Knowledge and experience of the Nigerian health system and malaria elimination program and the individual state contexts, Good people management skills, Excellent facilitation skills, Excellent writing skills.

Start Date
10th November 2016.

Application Closing Date
5.30pm, 4th November, 2016.