Consultant at Helen Keller International

Scope of Position

When delivered twice a year to at least 80% of children aged 6 to 59 months in countries with high under five mortality and high rates of vitamin A deficiency, Vitamin A supplementation (VAS) can contribute to a reduction of U5M by up to 24%.

For the last decades, VAS has mostly been delivered in Sub Saharan Africa using National Immunization Days (NiD) or Supplementary Immunization Activities (SiA) as a vehicle. These campaigns are primarily organised to deliver polio or measles vaccine and commonly reached >90% coverage.

However, progress in immunization rates and the eradication of polio in most countries of SSA are leading to the phase out of these campaigns. Between 2016 and 2019, coverage of VAS dropped dramatically in SSA as many rounds of campaigns were cancelled and VAS was left without a vehicle.

To ensure that VAS can be continued in countries where it is still needed, HKI and its partners have started supporting the integration of VAS into health systems routine services. As more and more countries are about to initiate this integration process, it is important that lessons be learned from the first initiatives, as where it was initiated, numerous challenges were identified. Some key questions that need to be answered are:

• What platform should be used to deliver VAS?
• How to scale up the routine delivery of VAS while phasing out campaigns without a major drop in coverage?
• What are the minimum requirements to ensure successful integration of VAS in routine services?
• What are the key steps that should be considered to prepare, implement and monitor the integration process?

To answer these questions and provide guidance to countries who are already transitioning or considering entering into this transition, HKI and UNICEF developed a concept note and tools for collection of information from countries that have already started the integration process.

Countries identified for this lessons learning exercise are: Kenya, Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Sierra Leone, Mozambique, Malawi, Senegal.

To support this exercise, HKI is recruiting a team of 2 consultants for non French speaking countries.

These consultants must

• have demonstrated experience in VAS programming,
• speak French and English
• Hold at least a masters in public health or similar domain
• Have demonstrated experience in studies / assessments

Specific Responsibilities

In close coordination with HKI regional program manager for VAS, the consultants will support the lessons learning exercise in Mozambique, Kenya, Sierra Leone and Malawi by:

• Organizing visits to the targeted countries and coordinating with HKI and UNICEF offices in country for the organization of all meetings relevant to the exercise. Key actors who should be involved include:
  • Ministry of health at national level: supply chain managers, health information managers, VAS managers
  • UNICEF national level teams involved in supply chain for VaS, health information system, nutrition and immunization
  • HKI teams at national level involved in VaS programming
  • Other relevant partners involved in VAS
  • District ministry of health management teams (sample)
  • Health facility and community actors involved in VAS programming (sample)
• Conducting the lessons learning exercise at country level through the organization of individual and group meetings and the organisation of interviews with district, facility and community actors involved in VAS programming.
• Compiling and analyzing all information and data collected and producing a report for each country visited.
• Preparing executive summary and presentations as required.

Time Frame

The 2 consultants selected for the lessons learning exercise will visit the 4 countries listed above and conduct the exercise in accordance with the timeframe proposed in table 1. The first exercise will take place in Kenya and will represent the testing of the tools developed. Following this test, adjustments will be made to the tool and the next round of data collection will take place in September 2019.

It is expected that each consultant will work for 30 days on the exercise between June 2019 and March 2020 as described in table 2.

level of effort expected:

• Preparation workshop between consultants and HKI team – July 2019 – 3 days
• Organization of countries visits – July 2019 – 5 days
• Countries visits – July – October 2019 – 28 days
• Data analysis and reporting – July – October 2019 – 20 days
• Total Effort – 56 days per consultant