Consultancy, Malaria Investment Case at Palladium International

Primary Duties and Responsibilities: 

The Kenya Malaria Strategy (KMS) is a strategic framework with medium-term targets and high-level activities and a monitoring and evaluation component all aligned with the national health sector strategic plan. The overall goal of the KMS 2019-2023 is to reduce malaria incidence and death by 75 percent of 2016 levels by 2023.The implementation of the KMS has enabled the national level malaria prevalence (6 months to 14 years) decreased from 8.2% in 2015 to 5.6% in 2020. The reduction in prevalence has also been facilitated by investments in health by the National and County governments which have steadily been increasing since devolution. The public sector health budget expanded from Ksh 94 billion in FY 2012/13 (pre-devolution) to Ksh 217 billion in FY 2019/20.

Strategic programmes such as malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV, are heavily dependent on donor support, particularly for key commodities. Donor contribution to the sector over the years has been decreasing, and this may affect key programmes and activities that are heavily donor dependent. With the decrease in donor financing for malaria, the country requires a blueprint that guides on ensuring that smarter investments are made towards malaria for sustainability. This includes evaluating all possible sources of sustainable financing for malaria that will contribute towards controlling and eventually eliminating malaria in Kenya.
Developing an investment case for sustainable financing in Kenya will contribute towards increased domestic resource mobilization for malaria at both the national and county levels. An investment case for health uses economic analyses to inform costs and improvements in survival and quality of life. An investment case for malaria for Kenya provides an opportunity to inform successful provision of malaria control and interventions that seek to ensure a malaria free Kenya while moving forward the UHC agenda.

USAID/Health Policy Plus (HP+) seeks the services of a consultant/technical expert who is knowledgeable and experienced enough to deliver a malaria investment case based on the given background.

Justification
The investment case is needed to determine the how much investment will be required to ensure the successful implementation of interventions leading to positive outcomes. The investment case will also estimate how much is gained from each shilling invested in selected interventions thereby determining return of investments for these selected interventions. The final Investment Case will be used as a policy and advocacy tool for sustainable domestic resources for Malaria programming in Kenya.

Objectives

1. To highlight the strategic shifts and the domestic financing options that are needed to make the greatest impact on the epidemic by 2030.
2. To determine how much investment will be needed to ensure the successful implementation of interventions leading to positive outcomes considering national and global developments.
3. To estimate how much is gained from each shilling invested in selected interventions thereby determining return of investments for these selected interventions’ sustainability.
4. To undertake a cost benefit analysis to provide information that will link costs of interventions to benefits experienced per epidemiological zone.
5. To estimate present possible scenarios if there is no improved funding for malaria.

Expectations of the Consultancy

The consultant is expected to develop a methodology including data collection tools that will be implemented to achieve the output.

1. Introduction
2. Specific Objectives
3. Purpose of the investment case Literature Review (include situation analysis) - current and historical structure, activities, and financing of the malaria program
4. Methodology
   - Cost benefit analysis
   - Information Gaps/Limitations
   - Data collection & analysis
   - Options/scenarios /impact & coverage modeling-Costing (financial costs vs economic costs)
   - Uncertainty analysis
   - Estimating Return on investment
5. Findings/Results
   - Cost & benefits of maintaining status quo i.e current funding levels
   - Costs & Benefits (financial & economic) of increased investments towards achievement of KMS goals & objectives per  intervention & according to epidemiological zones
   - Return on investment
   fiscal space analysis (SWOT)
6. Recommendations
   - Future malaria strategic funding
   - financing opportunities
   - addressing health system bottlenecks
   - Proposed Sustainability plan in cognizance of the scenarios set
7. Implementation plan – to be developed together with stakeholders after dissemination of the investment case

Work assignment for the consultant:

• Develop data collection tools based on agreed upon parameters by DNMP and HP+. 
• Train RAs on data collection. 
• Supervise RAs during data collection. 
• Analyze data and prepare the report. 
• Present the report findings for validation.
• Work closely with DNMP and HP+ to address comments on the draft report. 
• Finalize the report.
• Prepare a presentation to accompany the final report. 

Deliverables

1. Inception Report
2. Finalized data collection tools based on agreed upon parameters by DNMP and HP+. 
3. Clean and validated data screens
4. Draft Report
5. Slides for presentation during the validation meeting.
6. Final Report

Required Qualifications:

1. Master of Science in Economics, Health Economics and Policy or related field is required. PhD in Economics, Health Economics will be an added advantage.
2. Demonstrated experience in developing of investment case for health in a low and/ or middle-income country is required.
3. Demonstrated experience in conducting economic evaluations in health.
4. In-depth understanding of MOH key strategic programmes including malaria.
5. Proven track record of seven years or more in health economics, health care financing and/or health policy analysis is required.
6. Fluency in written and spoken English and Kiswahili required