Junior Consultant (Mitigating indirect impacts of Covid-19 on Maternal, Newborn, Child, Adolescent and Aging Health (MNCAAH) services in Nigeria) at World Health Organization (WHO)

Ref No: 2003099
Grade: No grade
Contractual Arrangement: Special Services Agreement (SSA)
Contract Duration (Years, Months, Days): 6 Months
Schedule: Full-time  
Junior Consultant: NOA Step 1 grade

Purpose

• Support Nigeria to deliver optimal response to COVID-19, while reducing the indirect effects on pregnant women, newborns, children, adolescents and older adults (MNCAAH) due to service disruption.

Goal:

• Prevent decrease in utilization of essential services for RMNCAAH/N, in order to prevent increase in mortality, morbidity, malnutrition, mental and physical ill health

Expected Outcomes:

• Evidence-informed strategies in place to mitigate indirect effects of the pandemic in the five vulnerable population groups (women of reproductive age, pregnant women, newborns, children and adolescents and older adults), as part of the pandemic response
• Models to assess indirect effects of COVID-19 pandemic on provision and/or use of core health services for the five vulnerable population groups are informed by recent data and guidance, are relevant for country programming and are used for policy dialogue and planning in countries.
• Synthesis and documentation of lessons learned from implementation of strategies to maintain the core MNCAAH services in different contexts informs ongoing policy dialogue in countries.
• Stakeholders’ experiences of the strategies implemented in different contexts as well as the range of innovations, both successful and unsuccessful, being tried to maintain core services and improve the social response are captured, collated and communicated.
• Using a clear set of indicators and visualizations to monitor the indirect effects of COVID-19 on essential MNCAAH services to inform corrective actions.

Streams of Work
In Nigeria, the work is expected to be organized under five possible streams, though specific adaptations could be possible:

• Workstream 1. Country-focused, evidence-based policy dialogue to contextualize strategies and use best options to mitigate the potential indirect effects on vulnerable populations
• Workstream 2. Models that assess the impact of the indirect effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on provision and/or use of core health services for pregnant women, newborns, children and adolescents and older adults streamlined
• Workstream 3. Synthesis, analysis and dissemination of strategies undertaken to improve system preparedness and responses
• Workstream 4. Capturing, collating and amplifying the experiences of stakeholders to inform the policy dialogues, modelling exercises, and foster broader awareness of country-specific innovations
• Workstream 5.  Use of data to understand the impact on the provision, access and use of essential services, medicines and supplies and on health for vulnerable populations

Specific Tasks and Candidate’s Profile
Junior consultant:

• Assist in identification of core MNCAAH services and support the senior consultant in the process of developing the RMNCAAH+N covid response plan and costing of the plan under the guidance of the Director Family Health Department
• Participate in all meetings relevant to the delivery of the RMNCAAH+N covid response plan, be it physical (small group) or virtual. The relevance of each meeting is as determined by the director Family health department or her designate.
• Facilitate and support to convene the Multi-stakeholders Partnership Meeting fo effective coordination, buy-in and dissemination of the plan
• Support MOH to set up/strengthen effective, timely systems for monitoring the delivery of essential non-COVID-19 services
• Assist to develop strategies to optimize service delivery settings and platforms
• Identify and advise government on the mechanisms to maintain availability of commodities and supplies
• Support production and dissemination of MNCAAH key messages in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Support the COVID-19-MNCAAH TWG to analyze the situation, prioritize issues requiring an immediate response, develop clear strategies that respond to context to define an essential set of interventions for each population group and to recommend service delivery options that mitigate indirect effects of the pandemic.
• Support the country to collect information, and documents experiences and disseminate information through the platform website developed by HQ.
• Support the newly or existing dashboard which visualize the impact of COVID-19 on MNCAAH services in the country
• Undertake any other tasks as may be assigned by the senior consultant, WHO Representative/ RMNCAAH Focal person or MOH
• Positioned to work from WHO country office

Requirements
Education:

• Essential: First university degree in medicine, nursing, midwifery, public health, epidemiology, or other related and relevant fields; And a master’s degree or equivalent post-graduate training in public health, statistics, epidemiology, demography or any other related and relevant field.
• Desirable: Additional training in statistics, monitoring and evaluation, advanced data management, programme management and health emergences response would be an added advantage.

Experience:

• Essential: At least 5 years’ experience in health sector planning and governance, emergency response, public health, epidemiology, health systems management, monitoring and evaluation, public-private partnership, and related.
• Desirable: Any additional experience related to the field would be an asset.

Language:

• Essential: Expert knowledge of English or French (depending on the national language of the country).
• Desirable: Knowledge of any other national language would be an asset

Other Skills:

• Excellent knowledge of MS Office applications and computer skills including the ability to make high-quality technical presentations and data analysis.

Reporting Lines:

• The consultants will report to WHO and MOH.

Times Lines:

• It is estimated that the execution of all five workstream activities will require about 6 months and broadly this timeframe should be enough to accomplish the consultancy task.  Mechanisms planned within this proposal for these activities can be used beyond the six months.

Compensation

• The consultant hired for full-time - 20 working days per month) to support the national MNCAAH technical working group (s), which will interact with groups involved in COVID response.
• Will work for a period of 6 months.
• The rates for junior consultant will be in line with the standard WHO local rate for junior consultants.