SMC State Survey Consultants at Malaria Consortium

Position: SMC State Survey Consultants (One per state) 

Experience: Eight years’ experience

Duration: July –September, 2021

Organisational background

Established in 2003, Malaria Consortium is one of the world’s leading non-profit organization specializing in the comprehensive prevention, control and treatment of malaria and other communicable diseases, among vulnerable and under privileged populations. We increasingly find our work on malaria can be effectively integrated with other similar public health interventions for greater impact and therefore expanded our remit to include child health and neglected tropical disease interventions. We work in Africa and Asia with communities, governments, academic institutions, and local and international organizations, to ensure effective delivery of services, which are supported by strong evidence.

Purpose/Scope of Assignment:

The purpose of this assignment is to engage research personnel that will carry out data collection, analysis and interpretation for EoC evaluation. Some personnel will train data collectors and oversee data collection process while other personnel will carry out the actual data collection using an electronic platform.

The EoC evaluation will be conducted in the 6 states supported by PF where SMC is being implemented. The process will involve identification, selection and training of supervisors at a ToT and subsequently, data collectors in the states. The aim of the EoC evaluation is to assess SMC coverage and adherence of community drug distributors (CDDs) to treatment protocol immediately and not more than 5 days after each cycle of treatment. The findings will be analysed and any ward (lot) scoring less than 80% will be targeted for corrective measures in their area of poor performance for improvement in subsequent cycles.

Key responsibilities

• Survey Consultants (one per state): S/he will have overall technical coordination role and lead in planning and implementing the surveys as well as interpretation of results and report writing for the assigned State. S/he will train survey supervisors and data collectors. Prior to this, the consultants will be briefed by SMC team and given background documents to study.

Qualifications and experience:

State Survey Consultants

• Collectively develop agenda for the training of Data Collectors.
• Facilitate the training of Data Collectors and Supervisors in their respective assigned States
• Collectively develop supervision checklist that will guide supervisors during data collection
• Develop pre and post test questions as well as qualitative performance assessment checklist to be used for final selection of data collectors
• Download analyzed data from the electronic platform
• Interpret the analyzed data in a simple usable form for SMC personnel
• Facilitates the feedback mechanism of findings as appropriate
• Overall technical oversight for implementation of the EOC protocol in assigned State
• Write technical report highlighting key findings and recommendations

Deliverables for State Survey Consultant

• Training agenda
• Training delivery guide, stating quality parameters for the delivery
• Training monitoring checklist to be used by MC Zonal Project Managers to ensure quality
• Supervision checklist
• Pre and post test questions
• Technical report – narrative format
• Technical report – Power point format

Total TA days- 34 days

Profile requirements of State Survey Consultants

• Must be a Degree holder in Demography, Statistics, Public Health or other related disciplines with at least 8 years post-qualification experience
• Minimum of 5 years’ experience in public health research methodology
• Ability to demonstrate good facilitation skills
• Demonstrable report writing skills
• Availability for the whole of the period of the survey
• Must not be a staff of Government at any level and in any Ministry