UNICEF recruits 01 International Individual Consultancy

International Individual Consultancy: Evidence and knowledge generation on GIFTS Programme, Ghana

Job Number: 524029 | Vacancy Link

Locations: Africa: Ghana

Work Type : Consultancy

UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential.

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone.

And we never give up.

For every child, Nutrition

Ghana has embarked on an anaemia reduction programme targeting adolescent girls through Iron and Folic Acid Tablet Supplementation (GIFTS) as part of an integrated nutrition and health education package. A weekly IFA supplement is given to adolescent girls attending junior high school (JHS), senior high schools (SHS) and Technical Education and Vocational Training (TVET) Schools in implementing regions since 2017. The programme will be introduced in additional regions in 2019.

How can you make a difference?

This consultancy involves evidence generation and development of knowledge products assessing and documenting the impact of the strategies for reduction of nutritional anaemia, with focus on the Girls Iron Folate Tablet Supplementation (GIFTS) Programme. The products developed will inform the national strategies for implementation, support the ongoing policy and public advocacy of the programme with policy makers and support learning of other countries wishing to launch a similar intervention. The consultancy will also support GHS to conduct monitoring surveys for the GIFTS programme in both old and newly reached regions.

The successful candidate will draw from expertise in public health nutrition, epidemiology and biostatistics. S/he will conduct additional statistical analysis, interpret and prepare report on data collected as part of the impact evaluation in two nested school-based evaluation surveys in the Volta and Northern Regions, and other planned surveys to be conducted in September 2019.

Tasks to be completed

Provide technical support in the development of baseline survey protocols for data collection in the Western, Western North and Upper West regions in the framework of phase-3

Train survey data collection teams, to be recruited and paid by the Ghana Health Service, and supervise the baseline survey data collection in the Western, Western North and Upper West regions

Analyse baseline survey data and write a survey report of at least 100 pages with graphs, tables and pictures

Identify bottlenecks in the implementation of school-based integrated nutrition and health promotion programmes particularly the Iron and Folic Acid (IFA) supplementation, and its associations with coverage of the intervention and the occurrence of anaemia

Determine the barriers and facilitators of programme uptake and its impact on the incidence and recovery rates of anaemia within a prospective cohort of Ghanaian adolescent school girls

Analyse existing data to examine dose-response between total IFA distribution consumed and haemoglobin concentrations, and identify potential optimal IFA counts needed to achieve most anaemia reductions

Quantify and adjust for systematic bias due to seasonality in the evaluation of changes in anaemia in an integrated school-based micronutrient intervention

Evaluate the time contribution of teachers in a joint nutrition and health promotion program with IFA supplementation to the GIFTS programme and its impact on anaemia in Ghanaian adolescent school girls.

Quantify teacher time commitment in the implementation of the GIFTS program at the school level and its relationship with anaemia prevalence.

Provide technical support to programme implementation in regions which started GIFTS programme in 2017 and the newly introduced regions.

 Expected Deliverables

Deliverable	Timeline
Survey protocol with questionnaires and related tools developed to collect data in the Western, Western and Upper West regions in September 2019	31 August, 2019
A report on training conducted for baseline survey data collection teams	30 September, 2019
Report on field monitoring of baseline data collection in Western, Western North and Upper West regions	31 October, 2019
At least two (2) manuscripts on GIFTS programme prepared and submitted for publication in a peer reviewed journal	15 January, 2020
A comprehensive report using analysed data collected on baseline survey conducted in Western, Western North and Upper West regions	25 January, 2020

Supervision and reporting arrangement

The immediate supervisor of this consultancy is the Nutrition Specialist (UNICEF-Accra). The consultant will be required to work closely with UNICEF staff in Health and Nutrition (Accra and Tamale), and the Deputy Director in charge of Nutrition at Ghana Health Service, Accra

Timeframe

The consultancy is for 6 months (to be carried out within 7-months) starting from August 2019 to 29 February 2020.

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have

Advanced university degree (at least at master degree level) in Nutrition and/or Public Health

Minimum of seven (7) years experience in strategic programme development, monitoring and evaluation in the field of health, nutrition and other social development areas.

Demonstrated knowledge and skills in biostatistics and epidemiology

Analytical, conceptual ability; skills in communication and documenting

Publications in public health nutrition field will be an added advantage

Previous working experience on documentation of nutrition programmes will be an added advantage.

Relevant experience with adolescent girls nutrition programmes will be an added advantage

Demonstrated ability to work in multicultural environment

Strong experience in conducting surveys/research, analysis

Good facilitation skills and ability to train people

Fluency in English communication, report writing with critical analysis.

Ability to work with people and meet deliverables within tight schedules

General Conditions: Procedures and Logistics

Consultant will work from home with own computer and travel to Ghana for specific field-related tasks.

The consultant will be required to make one round trip to Ghana for a period of three (3) weeks to undertake related assignments in-country in the Western, Western North, and Upper West regions. UNICEF will make arrangements for consultant’s international travel and in-country field-related travels at UN approved rates. All such travels must be according to the work plan, and travel plan approved by supervisor.

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s core values of Commitment, Diversity and Integrity and core competencies in Communication, Working with People and Drive for Results.

UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks, and will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles.

Application Procedure

Interested and suitably qualified candidates should submit their application online provided and indicate their daily or monthly professional fees quoted in US Dollars (US $). Candidate is required to submit a two-paged write up of how he/she intends to accomplish this assignment with stated time frame. Two examples of previous work done should be attached (if applicable, e.g. strategic documents, photos, edited work, videos etc.). Applications will be evaluated and only the selected candidate will be contacted.

Remarks:

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.

Closing Date Sat Jul 27 2019 00:55:00 GMT+0100 (Afr. centrale Ouest)