Consultant at World Health Organization (WHO)

Background and Overview

• Nigeria is one of the Countries with severe shortage of health workforce, but paradoxically, Nigeria is one of the major health workforce-exporting countries in the world.
• The gross under-funding of the health sector in Nigeria and the worsening impact of the recent Covid-19 pandemic, has led to a rapidly mobile health workforce ready to seek better opportunities elsewhere. As of March 2021, Nigeria recorded the 5th highest number of foreigners working in the National Health Systems (NHS) of UK (after Indians, Filipinos, Irish and Polish), with a total of 10,494 personnel.
• Information obtained from the website of the General Medical Council – the body which licenses and maintains the official register of medical practitioners in the UK – showed that the GMC licensed between July 24, 2020 and September 21, 2021, up to 862 Nigeria trained doctors in the UK despite the COVID-19 pandemic.
• The record from the GMC indicated that up to 8,737 physicians who obtained their medical degrees in Nigeria are currently practising in the UK.

Need for policy on HRH Migration in Nigeria

• To save the Nigeria health systems from further impact of migration of highly skilled health workers, HRH migration must be made an utmost priority. This is because adequate HRH is critical requirement for achieving universal health coverage and the health targets of the SDGs. Nigeria generally have a disarticulated measures in the civil service to retain health workers including special salary scale for health workers and other measures. There is need for the development of a national policy that will address HRH migration, by articulating specific and radical steps to ensure retention, ethical migration of health workers, expansion of health workforce production capacity for a resilient health system and ensure the country reap the benefits of health workers migration. Though the health workers have every right to migrate, there is need to properly manage the situation to the benefit of the migrants and the country in line with WHO code on international recruitment of health workers.

Terms of Reference
The consultant is expected to facilitate the process of the policy development that will reflect true position and attempt to address remote causes of HRH Migration. The specific tasks of the consultant are as follows:

• Carry out a complete stakeholders’ mapping to determine key players in the production, recruitment, distribution, retention, management and migration
• Conduct a situation analysis using rapid assessment approach on migration of health workers
• Review the draft national migration policy
• Use information to a desk review of health workers migration while identifying key policy thrust to be considered in addressing the issue
• Develop a national policy on health workers migration that aligns with international standards
• Facilitate, support, and participate in all the stakeholder engagements for the process of establishing the policy thrust in HRH migration
• Record and evaluate the contributions and recommendations of the stakeholders during the process of policy development
• Collate the views of key stakeholders during the engagements to produce draft documents for review and validation as the case may be
• Produce a final report of the policy development activities
• Produce an accepted final draft of the national policy on health workers migration

Deliverables

• A comprehensive mapping report of key stakeholders and protocol for situation analysis
• Situation analysis of health workers migration with key recommendations
• Datasets of all assessment conducted and data collection instrument
• Final National Policy on Health Workers Migration for Nigeria
• Final report detailing the entire process of the development of the national health workers migration policy.

Education Qualifications
Essential:

• Master's Degree in Public Health, Medical Sciences, Health Policy and Management, Social Sciences, or related qualifications from an accredited institution

Desirable:

• PhD or Medical fellowship or Professional certification and training in human resources for health, health management, health policy development and research.

Experience
Essential:

• At least 7 years previous professional experience in developing national health policies, strategic plans and tools.
• At least 5 years’ experience in facilitating policy dialogue, dissemination and facilitating training/workshops.

Desirable:

• At least 5 years’ experience engaging with UN agencies, implementing partners or donor agencies.
• Knowledge of Nigerian health system and proven experience building capacity of government at national and sub-national level, service providers and civil society organisations.
• Published research on Health management, health workers migration and retention

Competencies:

• Teamwork
• Respecting and promoting individual and cultural differences
• Communication
• Producing results
• Promoting WHO’s position in health/leadership (partnership).

Functional Knowledge and Skills:

• Knowledge of Nigerian health system and proven experience building national and sub-national capacity of government, service providers and civil society organisations.
• Knowledge and application skills on HRH information system and evidence generation for advocacy and policy making
• Strong use of English, ICT, and Microsoft office utilization

Length of Engagement

• The Consultant will be fully engaged for 45 days