Consultant on Community Directed Initiatives That Improve Access to HIV And STI Services and Retention Among AGYW and Key Vulnerable Populations at The National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA)

Background

• The Government of Nigeria under the leadership of NACA in collaboration with the Implementing Partners has received support from Global Fund to conduct an operations research on Community directed initiatives that improve access to HIV and STI services and retention among AGYW and key vulnerable populations.
• This operation research will primarily be useful for identifying models that work to address some the barriers to access for AGYW and KP including inmates and transgender persons. Identifying strategies that work will inform improvements to program quality and efficiency and effectiveness.
• It will also complement other M&E activities that will be conducted and together will provide much-needed information about which interventions and service delivery models work or do not work for reaching AGYW and key populations (inmates and transgender).
• This document outlines the terms of reference for the conduct of this operation research among the AGYW and KP in six states.

Goal and Objectives

• The goal is to conduct operations research to identify, document and disseminate successful strategies used at the community level to improve access to HIV and STI services and retention among AGYW and key populations including inmates and transgender persons.

Specific Objectives:

• To identify, assess and document community directed initiatives that improve access to HIV and STI services and retention among AGYW and KP including inmates and transgender persons.
• To identify, assess and document specific strategies for removing barriers to treatment access and retention for AGYW and KP transgender persons.

Scope of Work

• The Operations research will be taking place in six (6) states of the federation. The Consultants will provide technical support for the activities that include protocol development, questionnaire/tool development, training of data collectors, data management (data collection, data quality assurance, and data analysis), report writing and dissemination of finding. The consultants will be directly supervised by the technical core team for the research, with oversight from the RM&E and Community Prevention and Care Service Departments of NACA.

The specific tasks will include the following;

• The consultants will support the design and implementation of the Operation Research.
• The consultants will support the development of draft research protocol and data collection tools required for the Operations Research.
• Facilitate workshop to finalize the research protocol and data collection tools
• Facilitate the training of data collectors for the study
• Supervision of field data collection, and ensure compliance with the methodology proposed.
• Development of data entry template, data analysis and report writing plan and share with the technical core team for approval
• Responsible for data management (quality check), analysis and interpretation and report writing.
• Development of factsheets and scientific papers for publication.
• Build the capacity of NACA staff on data management and scientific writing.

Expected Deliverables:

• Inception report with detailed operational workplan and timelines.
• Provide the technical core team with weekly update throughout the duration of the research (via emails/physical).
• Submit Data analysis plan.
• Submit Training and Capacity Building report
• Prepare and present OR key findings to NACA and key stakeholders in power point presentations
• Submit a comprehensive/harmonized technical and process report for the Operation Research in both soft and hard copies to NACA.
• Submit Final data set to the Research Unit of RM&E department, NACA in an acceptable format.
• Develop draft manuscript.

Duration of Consultancy:

• The assignment will be undertaken for a period of Twenty-One (21) working days.

Number of Consultants Required:

• Two consultants will be required for the two aspects of this study; AGYW and KP. Please clearly indicate the aspect you are interested in, as we would like a consultant in each of the respective areas.

Required Qualifications / Experience

• Must possess at least a Master’s Degree in Public Health, Epidemiology, Global health/ Infectious diseases or related field. A PhD degree in related field will be an added advantage.
• Minimum of eight (8) years experience working in the National HIV/AIDS response, and 5-years’ experience working with the target population (AGYW/KP).
• Minimum of five (5) years experience leading in public health programme/project evaluation and /or operations research in Nigeria;
• Ability to design and plan evaluation approaches and research methodologies, including quantitative and qualitative research methods;
• A minimum of three scientific publications in peer-reviewed journals.
• Previous experience in community research/survey related activities.
• Expertise in the use of statistical applications such as Stata, SPSS, RedCap, etc
• Excellent communication, facilitation, writing and capacity building skills
• Ability to work within strict/tight deadlines.