Security Risk Assessment Consultant at Malaria Consortium

Country and Programme Background

• Malaria Consortium has been implementing large-scale public health interventions across Nigeria to reduce the burden of malaria and improve health outcomes among vulnerable populations.
• These interventions include Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention (SMC), distribution of Insecticide-Treated Nets (ITNs), mass administration of Azithromycin (AZM), and integrated delivery platforms such as SMC with Vitamin A Supplementation (VAS), SMC with ITN distribution, and the use of the SMC platform to improve childhood immunization uptake.
• The ITN Mass Campaign is one of Nigeria's primary malaria prevention strategies and forms part of the National Malaria Elimination Programme's (NMEP) objective of achieving universal access to effective malaria prevention interventions.
• The campaign involves the free distribution of Long-Lasting Insecticidal Nets (LLINs) to households to ensure that every sleeping space is protected against malaria-transmitting mosquitoes.
• Conducted periodically across eligible states, the campaign contributes significantly to reducing malaria morbidity and mortality, particularly among children under five years of age and pregnant women.
• Malaria Consortium is supporting the implementation of the 2026 ITN Mass Campaign in collaboration with the National Malaria Elimination Programme (NMEP), State Ministries of Health, Primary Health Care Development Agencies, development partners, and other key stakeholders.
• The campaign comprises several implementation phases, including advocacy and stakeholder engagement, microplanning, household enumeration and registration, logistics planning and commodity distribution, training of campaign personnel, social and behaviour change communication, net distribution, supervision, monitoring, and post-distribution evaluation.
• Successful implementation of the campaign requires extensive coordination across national, state, Local Government Area (LGA), ward, health facility, and community levels.
• It also involves the large-scale deployment of campaign personnel, including supervisors, health workers, enumerators, distribution teams, warehouse personnel, data managers, logistics officers, social mobilisers, and volunteers.
• These personnel undertake significant travel across urban, rural, and hard-to-reach communities to support planning and implementation activities.
• For the 2026 ITN Mass Campaign, thousands of personnel are expected to be deployed across participating states to support the various phases of implementation.
• While many frontline workers are recruited from their respective communities to enhance local acceptance and facilitate access, a substantial number of supervisors, technical support staff, and programme personnel will travel between states, LGAs, and communities to conduct trainings, supervise field activities, manage logistics, monitor implementation quality, and support operational coordination.
• Given the scale of the campaign, the movement of personnel, storage and transportation of high-value commodities, and operations in diverse security environments, comprehensive Security Risk Assessments (SRAs) are required to identify potential threats, assess operational risks, and develop context-specific mitigation measures that will ensure the safe, uninterrupted, and effective implementation of campaign activities.
• The proposed Security Risk Assessment for Abia State will provide evidence-based recommendations to guide operational planning, safeguard personnel and assets, and support informed decision-making throughout the implementation of the 2026 ITN Mass Campaign
• The scale, geographic spread, and integrated nature of ITN Campaign implementation underscore the importance of strong coordination, robust systems, and effective risk management to ensure safe, efficient, and high-quality delivery of life-saving interventions to children across Nigeria.

Rationale

• Insecurity due to insurgency, armed banditry, militancy, separatist agitations, abductions, kidnappings, and armed robbery continue to increase in Nigeria and the communities, where ITN is being implemented are not spared.
• No part of the country is exempt from these challenges, even though the security challenges are more pronounced in some states than others.
• Some of the Malaria Consortium supported states (e.g. Borno, Kaduna, Sokoto, Yobe and Zamfara) are clear complex operational environments (COE), while Kogi and FCT which share boundaries with Kaduna, Niger, Kwara and Benue States also face security challenges including a peculiar form of armed banditry.

Goal of the Assignment

• Even though Malaria Consortium has Security Officers and a security focal person as part of the staff, external short term technical assistants (TAs) would be engaged because the SITAN/SRA needs to be completed quickly to fit into the overall ITN Campaign process and timelines.
• There is also the need for independent security persons that have connection with the security agencies and therefore can bring their knowledge of the landscape to produce better documents to inform programming.
• The analysis/assessment would happen at the community, political ward and LGA levels. Furthermore, the engaged TAs would review previous trends and trajectory of events projected at the minimum to the next one year.
• The aim of the assignment is to provide adequate guidance to ensure the safety and security of lives and properties for the implementation of ITN Campaign intervention in the 3-malaria consortium supported states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja.

Specific Objectives
The following are specific objectives for the assignment:

• Guided by security reports from Sister Agencies, government security agencies and international/local security organization/agencies, conduct desk review of SRA in Abia State MC/ITN Campaign.
• Develop a synopsis of previous security risk assessments to determine if security situation in each state is improving or deteriorating.
• Train state security focal persons (SSFPs) to be able to review the state security plans (SSPs) for the states and the FCT.
• Utilize the information obtained from the assessment to -review the risk profiles of each state, LGA, ward and community where applicable.
• Identify any new risk to implementations at different categories of state, LGA, wards, and community levels.
• Update security risk mitigation plan for states and LGAs in response to information obtained in objectives above where applicable; and
• Update SRAs, SSPs and SOPs for identified implementing states

Methodology for (SITAN/SRA/SP) review

• This assignment will include the desk review of the SRAs, security profiles and SSPs and the use of a combination of key informant interviews (KIIs), administration of questionnaires and consensus meeting with Malaria Consortium staff at country, state and LGA offices; and stakeholders from the states and LGAs, especially the Roll Back Malaria (RBM) Officers to obtain the required data and information.
• These would be followed by a consensus meeting involving the consultants, relevant Malaria Consortium, state and LGA personnel would be held to agree on the relevance, currency and validity of the obtained data/information.
• Guided by the grading system developed in 2022 (and reviewed in 2025) from the Malaria Consortium Security Adaptation Guideline [1], Safety and Security Policy [2] and Framework [3], and findings from the SRA, grade the wards, LGAs and states into red (high), amber (medium) and green (low) areas; to enable Malaria Consortium top management categorize the LGAs and states into:
• High security risk/hard-to-reach (HTR) areas.
  • Medium risk area; and
  • Low risk area.
• The assignment would require a security briefing session prior to commencement of the SRA/SITAN with the State Project Manager of the State being reviewed, desk review of existing security documents such as SSPs, SRAs, weekly security updates and any report related to the supported states and the FCT present security situation.
• Visits to be undertaken to selected communities, wards and LGA/Area Councils of interest to enable a comprehensive review of the security situation within the supported states which will enrich the reviews.
• Furthermore, the consultants will support the designated SSFPs to carry out rapid assessments based on designed questionnaires, the outcome of which, will also inform on the reviews.
• Remote support will also be provided in close collaboration with the Malaria Consortium Security Manager/Officers based in the country and zonal offices.
• The data will be collected using SurveyCTO; while the GIS coordinates will also be obtained and data analyzed to produce the SSPs and SOPs to support SMC implementation in all security profiling categories for all the supported states and FCT.
• In addition, the engaged TAs would support the Country Operations Manager (in the country office) and SSFPs (for the states) to assess the different office locations and advise accordingly.
• A debriefing meeting will be held at state level to validate all collated information with the respective SSFPs and Malaria Consortium’s Security Managers before submission to the Country Operation Manager, Programme Director and Regional Risk Programme Manager’s review and input before finalization and sign-off by the West and Central Africa Programmes Director.
• In the debriefing sessions, earlier documented synopsis will be used to compare status of the states assessed with previous assessments to ascertain if the security situation of the state assessed is improving or deteriorating.

List of Tasks:
The following are specific, but not exhaustive lists of tasks to be conducted to meet the goal and objectives of the assignment:

• Confirmation that State project manager has received a scheduled briefing from zonal program manager and the senior security officer before engagement.
• A security briefing session prior to commencement of the SRA/SITAN with the State Project Manager of the State being reviewed,
• Develop a synopsis (not more than two pages) that can be used to compare status of the states to be assessed with previous SRAs conducted in the State. This is to ascertain if the security situation of the state being assessed is improving or deteriorating.
• Conduct a desk-top analysis of the current security profiles of the respective SMC/AZM states using existing documents within MC and proffer recommendations for update on same.
• Identify and assess the functionality of all existing security coordination platforms in the states (especially those used by existing donor agencies), identify new ones and their membership and requirements for Malaria Consortium being accepted as a member.
• Orientate, debrief and work closely with the Malaria Consortium Security Managers, SSFPs and other stakeholders to understand the SMC implementation and the security context in the LGAs to enable the development of an accurate security strategy.
• Develop an updated security risk mitigation plan for ITN Campaign deployment and update the SSPs for Malaria Consortium’s operations in the ITN Campaign supported states (as per the Malaria Consortium template); and
• Review the SRAs, SSPs and SOPs for identified implementing states.

Expected Outputs / Deliverables

• Comprehensive report produced using standard Malaria Consortium report template, to include feedback from conducted desk review related to the following:
  • Security profile review of Abia state.
  • Detailed analysis of the State’s security based on previous reports and in-between cycle assessments to determine if the state is improving or deteriorating in terms of security.
  • Risk assessment review for Abia state.
  • Updated catalogue of security structures in the state; and
  • Recommendation on security infrastructures/equipment/ tools needed by MC, their costs and process of procurement or hiring.
• Maps of high, medium, and low risk LGAs were applicable.
• Updated List of hard-to-reach (HTR) communities due mainly to insecurity, and other constraints where applicable; and
• Orientation of key implementers and SSFPs on required security measures that would be required for the ITN Campaign implementation.
• Support SSFPs to updated Standard operating procedures (SOPs) for security management of all implementation staff; and
• Updated ITN Campaign Abia State.

Type of Consultancy:

• A qualified security consulting firm or an experienced individual security consultant is preferred for this assignment. Where a security consulting firm is engaged, it shall nominate a suitably qualified consultant to lead and coordinate the Security Situation Analysis (SITAN), Security Profiling (SP), and Security Risk Assessment (SRA) for Abia State.
• The lead consultant will be responsible for planning, coordinating, and supervising all assessment activities within the state, ensuring adherence to the agreed methodology, quality standards, and timelines.
• The consultant will work closely with the Malaria Consortium State Team, relevant government stakeholders, and designated field data collectors to gather and validate information.
• Where individual Technical Assistants (TAs) are engaged instead of a consulting firm, the appointed consultant shall assume responsibility for coordinating and executing the entire assessment.
• The selected consultant or firm must demonstrate previous experience conducting similar security risk assessments in Nigeria, preferably within humanitarian or public health programmes, and possess the capacity to complete the assignment within the stipulated timeframe.

Required Specification for consultant

• The State Consultant will be a security management expert with experience in security assessments and risk mitigation planning. Other requirements include:
  • Bachelor’s Degree in Social Sciences or other relevant security related Degree.
  • Professional certifications (CPP, PSP) are an added advantage
  • Minimum of 5 years’ experience working in the context of a complex and challenging operating environment.
  • Demonstrable experience in security assessment/evaluation.
  • Good report writing skills and communication with stakeholders; and
  • Experience working in highly resource-constrained environments.
  • Availability of TIN number