UNICEF Job Kenya Technical Consultants

Development indicators in Somalia are generally poor as a result of state fragility, persistent droughts, conflict and insecurity in some areas. However, compared to the South Central regions of Somalia, the context in Somaliland and Puntland is becoming more receptive towards sustainable development and poverty reduction. The United Nations and local authorities have invested in the development of medium term frameworks for achieving long term development goals e.g the five year United Nations Somalia Assistance Strategy ( UNSAS) and the National Development Plans in both Somaliland and Puntland. These frameworks are now informing investments in strategic development pillars including social services sectors. There has also been increased attention in recent years towards health systems strengthening with development of new service delivery frameworks e.g. the Essential Package of Health Services (EPHS) which offer an opportunity for strengthening service delivery and re-aligning existing institutional frameworks for nutrition service provision. New health policies have been developed and sector coordination strengthened.

More recently, the Government authorities, United Nations, Donors have embarked on a sectoral process to develop a 5 year Joint Health and Nutrition Programme (JHNP) aimed at accelerating progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) targets. In particular, JHNP aims at improving maternal and child health and reducing mortality, while strengthening the systems that supports improved quality and access to health and nutrition care.

In the past few years, investments in the nutrition sector have increased availability of a basic nutrition services package delivered through health facilities and at the community level. Despite
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significant progress in increasing access, gaps remain in terms of content of service. Furthermore, coverage and quality of services remains a challenge due to the weak institutional frameworks for nutrition within the public sector coupled with lack of fiscal space and adequately trained human resources. Even though the functional capacities of public sector structures are slowly evolving; considerable effort is still required to build policy, planning, budgeting, and oversight and coordination capacities.

Over the period 2009 – 2011, the nutrition sector developed a number of sector strategies namely; the 2011-2013 Somali Nutrition Strategy and the 2012-2016 Infant and Young Child Feeding Strategy and Plan of Action. The Somali Nutrition Strategy seeks to focus nutrition interventions in achieving 6 priority outcome areas; i) improved provision of quality services for the management of acute malnutrition; ii) sustained quality nutritional surveillance and analysis of nutrition information to inform appropriate and rapid responses; iii) improved knowledge, attitudes and practices regarding infant, young child and maternal nutrition; iv) improved availability, accessibility and coverage of micronutrients and de-worming; v) increased redress of underlying negative practices through awareness and commitment to effective action across other sectors and finally vi) improved capacity and means in country to make effective nutrition responses. These strategies have provided the much needed joint framework for action by Government authorities, donors, UN agencies, NGOs and civil society to improve the nutritional status of the Somali population.

Even though the nutrition strategies and plans have contributed significantly to realignment of actions and strengthened advocacy for increased investments within the sector; there are still gaps in prioritisation and costing of actions that would inform planning, programming, budgeting forecasts, resource allocation and impact analysis processes for the sector. For example policy questions related to; effects of alternate patterns of resource allocation on the achievement of the strategic goals and objectives; the appropriate mix of intervention options need to achieve desired outcomes within the fiscal space and coverage limitations; resources required if services were more efficient – still remain unanswered.

Therefore a costed nutrition plan of action is urgently needed to address some of these policy questions and for estimation of financial costs of providing priority nutrition interventions in Somaliland and Puntland at scale. In addition, in relation to the changing development aid landscape underlined by the value for money principles, a costed nutrition plan of action will lend itself well towards a results-oriented aid management.

The inception phase of the Joint Health and Nutrition Programme (JHNP) offers an opportunity for a joint in–country planning process for development of coherent national health strategic plans for the Ministry of Health in Somaliland and Puntland. Within this planning framework, the World Health Organisation (WHO) is supporting recruitment of technical assistance to support definition and/or refinement of health policy directions and for supporting the strategic health planning process.

However, there will be gaps in technical assistance to support development of a costed nutrition plan of action as part of the health strategic plan development processes. It is important that UNICEF as sector lead provides leadership in guiding this process, thus, procurement of consultancy services will contribute to addressing the gaps and to the effective positioning of costed priority nutrition interventions within the health sector plans.
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Objectives
The purpose the consultancy is to facilitate an iterative in-country consultative process to develop costed nutrition plans of action as part of the JHNP health sector strategic planning processes in Somaliland, Puntland

Specific objectives are:
To support collation and review of available nutrition strategic documents and other related essential nutrition information and overall health system context to inform what can be realistically achieved for nutrition in the medium term with a realistic level of ambition

To facilitate in country multi-stakeholder involvement led by health authorities in engaging in a transparent and consensual process to agree on planning scenarios for nutrition and prioritization of an appropriate mix of evidence based interventions and activities suitable for rapid scale-up and proven to have impact within two to five year time horizons.

To contribute to the strategic planning process and develop a costed plan of action around three scenarios of financial resource envelopes e.g low case, middle case, high case scenarios that are linked to results and systems outputs and outcomes connected to the overall health sector strategic plans

To ensure gender, resilience and equity sensitivities are integrated into the planning process
To strengthen Ministry of Health’s capacity in strategic and operational planning, management and coordination of nutrition interventions

Scope of Work
The consultant(s) will work in close coordination with the WHO recruited Health Policy Advisor, Health Planning Advisors based in Hargeisa and Garowe and the Planning Departments and Nutrition Sections in the Ministries of Health.

To ensure an inclusive national planning process; development of the costed plans of action for nutrition will follow a structured and logical process of developing a plan, costing it and developing budgets based on various planning scenarios and prioritization. The Somali Nutrition Strategy and the IYCF Strategy and Plan of Action will be foundational to development of the costed nutrition plan of action. Costing principles and tools applied should allow estimation of resource requirements under various planning, budgeting scenarios and mix of interventions and activities. Close coordination with the Health Planning Advisors is required to ensure complementarity, congruency in approaches and pricing (using unit cost or ingredients approach) and that the costed plans of action are connected to the overall health sector strategic plans results, systems outputs and outcomes. The framework for development of the health sector strategic plans is based on the six WHO health systems building blocks.

It is envisaged that the initial phases of the planning process will involve review of existing nutrition strategic planning documents, health sector policies, data compilation, situational analysis of nutrition issues and programmes. This will assist in drafting the individual activities for the various consultations and engagements required within the health sector strategic planning process.
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Consultative processes with various stakeholders will be conducted to identify and prioritize high impact nutrition interventions, rank activities and considerations for overarching issues contributing to the health sector strategic framework and achievement of the 6 outcome areas in the nutrition strategy.

The consultation process will also involve estimation of impacts and assessment of costs of priority intervention options and activities under three budgeting scenarios. Based on consultation outcomes – re-prioritization and planning of activities will be done in line with preferred options and financial resource envelopes. Field tested tools are already available for the development of priority activities based on the 6 building blocks and to develop the 3 costing scenario’s described above.

The junior consultant will be based in-country (Somaliland and Garowe) supporting a Senior consultant in facilitating the preparation of each phase of the work in close coordination with the UNICEF Nutrition officers and Nutrition Focal points in the Ministries of Health.
The final consultative step will comprise synthesis, consolidation and validation of the costed plan of action.
 
The consultant(s) shall perform the following tasks.
1: Collation and Review of Strategic Sectoral Documents and Nutrition Information
Develop a plan outlining agreed scope of activities, methodology, and timeframe for in country consultations.
Review existing nutrition and health policies, strategic planning documents to ensure good understanding of the context.
Undertake an appraisal of nutrition inputs in the ongoing health sector strategic planning process and assess their adequacy considering the country’s present situation.
Carry out a review and analysis of nutrition and other relevant health sector pricing data and unit costs for use in costing of the plans of action

2: Development of Costing and Planning tools
Support review of costing and planning tools that will be appropriate considering the country’s present situation
Contribute to adaptation of costing and planning tools for use in the development of the costed nutrition plan of action

3: Facilitate in country consultations for development of costed plan of action
Undertake in-country consultative workshops, meetings and discussions with Ministry of Health Planning Departments and Nutrition Sections, NGO partners and civil society ensuring gender, resilience and equity sensitivities are integrated into the planning process
Facilitate consultation to identify and prioritize high impact nutrition interventions / summary actions, rank activities and consideration for overarching issues within the health sector strategic planning framework
Undertake consultation for estimation of impacts and assessment of costs of priority intervention activities under the three budgeting scenarios ( to be closely coordinated with the WHO costing consultant)
Undertake consultations to facilitate synthesis, consolidation and validation of the costed plan of action.
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Prepare a draft report outlining consultation outputs.

4: Drafting of costed plan of action
Support preparation and consolidation of outputs from the in country consultations.
Contribute to drafting of the costed nutrition plans of action in respective zones incorporating comments from various stakeholders.
Present final costed nutrition plan of action to local health authorities and other important stakeholders

Duration
The time frame for the Consultancy Services will cover collation and review of strategic sectoral documents and nutrition information; development of costing and planning tools; drafting of costed plan of action and preparation of draft and final consultancy reports. This is expected to take a maximum of 2 months
 
Note: In undertaking the outlined tasks, the consultant should fully involve all the relevant stakeholders including close coordination with UNICEF, WFP, WHO, and relevant Somali ministries and working groups. The methodology applied should be participatory and interactive as much as possible.

Reporting
The consultant(s) will submit the following deliverables:
a) Inception report with detailed work plan for development of the costed plan of action in the context of the health sector strategic planning process including methodologies, selection of appropriate costing tools and schedule of workshops, meetings etc – 1 week from start

b) A draft summary report (electronic version and hard copy) together with a PowerPoint presentation (electronic version and hard copy) with outcomes of review of existing nutrition strategic planning documents, health sector policies, data compilation, situational analysis of nutrition issues and programmes to inform prioritization of summary nutrition actions/activities within the broader health sector strategic planning framework and in the nutrition plan of action – 3 weeks from the start

c) Minutes of in-country consultative workshops, meetings and discussions with Ministry of Health Planning Departments and Nutrition Sections and other important stakeholders
1st consultation: to identify and prioritize high impact nutrition interventions / summary actions, rank activities and consideration for overarching issues within the health sector strategic planning framework – 4 weeks from the start
2nd consultation: estimation of impacts and assessment of costs of priority intervention activities under the three budgeting scenarios (to be closely coordinated with the WHO costing consultant) – 5 weeks from the start
3rd consultation: synthesis, consolidation and validation of the costed plan of action. – 6 weeks from the start
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d) Draft Costed Nutrition Plan of Action incorporating comments from partners – 7 weeks from start
e) Present outputs of the consultancy to multi-stakeholders – 8 weeks from the start

f) End of Consultancy Report detailing the process, findings and recommendations for additional capacity building of planning departments and nutrition sections in the Ministries of Health in policy, planning, budgeting, and oversight functions – within 2 weeks of end of consultancy period – 9 weeks from the start

Reporting Lines
The consultant will report to the Senior Nutrition Manager UNICEF for contractual purposes with close collaboration with the UNICEF Senior Technical Consultant, Ministry of Health Colleagues, the zonal Health Sector Strategic Planning team and the WHO contracted Strategic Planning Team.
Consultant will spend (20%) of their time in Nairobi and (80%) of the time in the zonal offices. DSA at UN rates will be provided for travel to Somalia. In the case of an international consultant, DSA for Nairobi will be negotiated

Remuneration
The consultant will be remunerated based on satisfactory completion of deliverables
30% payment – upon submission of the following deliverables
- Inception report with detailed work plan for development of the costed plan of action in the context of the health sector strategic planning process
- Draft summary report with outcomes of review of relevant existing nutrition strategic planning documents, health sector policies and recommendations for prioritization of summary nutrition actions/activities within the broader health sector strategic planning framework and in the nutrition plan of action
30% payment – upon submission of the following deliverables
- First and second stakeholder consultation reports for prioritization and costing of priority summary nutrition activities/actions within health sector strategic planning framework and nutrition plan of action
40% payment – upon submission of the following deliverables
- Final Costed Nutrition Plan of Action (written Word document and PowerPoint summary)
- End of Consultancy Report detailing the process, findings and recommendations for additional capacity building of planning departments and nutrition sections in the Ministries of Health in policy, planning, budgeting, and oversight functions
Targets and delivery will be reviewed by the UNICEF Somalia Nutrition team in liaison with the consultancy supervisor.

Qualification/Experience
The successful consultant shall meet the following minimum criteria:
Advanced university degree in Nutrition, Public Health, Health Systems Financing, Economics or related technical field.
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At least 4-5 years of relevant professional work experience, with specialization in nutrition or health programme systems planning, analysis and costing.
A good track record and verifiable demonstration of knowledge and skills in programme planning, costing of nutrition or health strategic plans of action, and familiarity with costing tools relevant to nutrition programmes e.g MBB, REACH, Unified Health costing models
Technical knowledge and understanding of nutrition programming including experience with health/nutrition systems strengthening, community-based programming in resource poor settings, and in settings of high levels of acute malnutrition. Experience with Somali populations is desirable.
A good track record and verifiable demonstration of knowledge and skills in facilitating strategic planning consultative processes involving wide range of stakeholders for health and nutrition programmes
Strong communication and facilitation skills.
Ability to work independently with minimum supervision and to deliver within deadlines
Knowledge of Somalia operational context and readiness to travel to Somalia
Fluency in English, with excellent facilitation, analytical and writing skills required.

Conditions of Work
The consultant will be provided with office space in the zonal offices and USSC as well as other administrative and logistical support. However, they will ensure that they come equipped with their own computer.

A working week is defined as 5 working days and fees are prorated accordingly. They will not be paid for weekends or public holidays
They will be required to sign the Health Statement for consultants/individual contractors prior to the assignment, and to document that they have the appropriate health insurance

Exit and Penalty Provision
The consultant and UNICEF may agree to reschedule deadlines if unforeseen circumstances arise. In the event that such rescheduling has not been agreed in advance by exchange of letters, and submission of scheduled drafts should not occur within the deadlines indicated within these ToR and the implementation framework, a fine may be deducted. In the event UNICEF is unhappy with the work produced by the consultant, they may opt to terminate the contract or mutually agreeable terms. Likewise, if the consultant is unhappy with new conditions given by its client it may opt to withdraw on mutually agreeable terms.

Interested and qualified candidates should send their applications with updated UN Personal History Form (P.11) form, updated Curriculum Vitae attaching copies of academic certificates to the email below. UN staff are requested to provide the last two Performance Evaluation Reports (PERs).
Please quote the vacancy number and post title in the subject line of your application subject.

Applications submitted without a duly completed and signed Personal History Form (P11) will not be considered.
Email to: somaliahrvacancies@unicef.org
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Only short-listed applicants will be contacted