National Consultant (Lead) at Malaria Consortium

Purpose of the Assignment

• Carry out a cost-description of the introduction and roll-out of PMC.
• Conduct a cost-effectiveness analysis of the PMC intervention, including a cost-benefit analysis.

Methodology

• The cost analyses will be done from a health systems perspective that entails quantification of what it will cost the Ministry of Health/NMEP to carry out the intervention and focusing on direct costs (medical and non-medical).
• Costing will involve the quantification of inputs and assignment of appropriate resource values; discounting future costs and assigning appropriate annualized costs to capital inputs; and valuing resources when market prices deviate from the actual value of resources. Direct costs will include:
  • Capital costs (e.g. Planning costs, Consensus building and meetings, Initial training, Vehicles, Equipment and furniture), and
  • Recurrent costs (e.g. Personnel (including additional cost for administering drug), Fuel/Maintenance of vehicles, Office/warehouse rental, Supplies/overheads, and Management cost).
  • The data should be used for the cost description, cost-benefit, and cost-effectiveness analyses.

Scope of Work
Phase 1: May 2023 – July 2023:

• This will be the formative phase with key activities such as:protocol development, development of costing assumptions, tools development and training on the data elements that should be collected and tools by the project team and determine the periodicity of recording of the data.
• To begin, hold an inception meeting with stakeholders to ask what question on cost do we want to answer? or does NMEP/NPHCDA need to answer for policy decision-making? Would we need to provide costs for the scheduled and unscheduled delivery per child? the additional cost of integrating within EPI and delivery of EPI-only? and then the cost-effectiveness of the different models? All these will be detailed in the protocol in phase 1.

Phase 2: March 2024 – July 2025:

• Data on program resources will be collected from multiple sources including work plans, budgets, and expenditure summaries as categorized below:
• Annual program specific financial report derived from annual (and quarterly) financial reports e.g. those used to report to the funders to cover all of program period usually itemized expenses, including actual payments and potentially earnings.
• Equipment inventory as found in program asset register showing purchased items, price, and date; items not purchased e.g. vehicles and equipment like generators obtained from previous projects will also be included, and their rental value or annualized equivalent with estimate of market purchase will be estimated.
• Donations to project in cash and kind including: volunteer time (paid and unpaid), equipment, test kits, accommodation etc. whose values will be monetized.
• Any other NGO costs from the program but not included in the program financial report.
• Stakeholders’ engagement through Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) to provide additional data not provided from other sources

Phase 3: October 2024 – July 2025:

• Costing analysis will be done for PMC implementation of drug (SP) administration at the health facility during routine immunization and non-immunization visits, while EPI-only cost will be captured from the control arm.
• Also, costs will be aggregated into startup and maintenance cost to provide further information that will be important for policy decision making. In addition, interphase with Northwestern University (NWU) for the modelling component of the analysis.

Specific Tasks for National Consultant (1)
Indicative schedule for costing data collection and to carry out cost analyses involving cost description, cost-benefit, and cost-effectiveness of PMC:
Phase 1: May 2023 – July 2023:

• Develop costing assumptions and tools for data collection for the cost analyses
• Develop protocol for cost effectiveness analysis

Phase 2: March 2024 – July 2025:

• Collect relevant costing data
• Conduct relevant stakeholders’ engagement

Phase 3: October 2024 – July 2025:

• Conduct cost analyses, carry out reviews and updates and produce relevant reports.

Deliverables
Phase 1: May 2023 – July 2023:

• Protocol for cost effectiveness analysis
• Tools for data collection for cost effectiveness analysis
• A short inception report to define the scope of work, proposed timeline outlining the approach to be taken, key assumptions and trained project team members
• Consultancy report

Phase 2: March 2024 – July 2025:

• A PowerPoint presentation (max 25 slides slides), outlining data collection/extraction procedures of the cost analyses.
• Situation analysis report on immunization, malaria prevention and treatment and health seeking behaviour in Osun State
• Data collected on cost data
• Consultancy report

Phase 3: October 2024 – July 2025:

• All of the underlying calculations used in the cost analyses in Microsoft Excel format, which can be fully modified by PMC team in the future
• Data transcripts and codes
• First draft of comprehensive report with recommendations 5 days after completion of activities
• Final Consolidate Consultancy report

Qualifications and Experience

• Holds a Post graduate Degree in Health Economics or related field with a minimum of 15 years National and/ or regional consultancy expertise
• At least 10 years of experience in collecting costing data and carrying out budget impact and cost effectiveness analysis, developed costing assumptions and tools for data collection for cost effectiveness analysis, collected routine project implementation costing data, carried out budget impact analysis, and conducted cost effectiveness analysis.
• Demonstrable track record of similar work in the past five years
• Demonstrated experience in liaising with government; and managing relationship with stakeholders and partners at health financing, budgeting, implementation science, and policy levels.
• Familiarity with cost data collection
• Experience in health financing and budgeting
• Demonstrated experience in health economics
• Fluency in written and spoken English
• Working knowledge of data analysis software package
• Working knowledge of at least one data capture package
• Excellent organizational and time management skills are required.
• Ability to work both independently and as a member of a team and to handle multiple priorities is required
• Experience as a trainer and/or supervisor for quantitative and qualitative data collection, management, and/or analysis is preferred
• Excellent analytical, writing, synthesis, communication and facilitation skills.
• Experience of working with partners at international, regional and national levels.
• Proven academic experience, including pieces of research, publications and written reports
• Familiarity with the Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) and malaria programs
• Proven experience in writing reports for public health programs or projects in Nigeria or similar developing country context