FIELD SUPPORT SERVICES PROJECT (FSSP) – ETHIOPIA

Request for Proposal (RFP)

PUBLIC HEALTH GENDER SPECIALIST

A) About FSSP Ethiopia – WUSC

The FSSP in Ethiopia is a Global Affairs Canada (GAC) project managed by the World University Service of Canada (WUSC). WUSC is a Canadian international development organization with a mission of fostering human development and global understanding through education and training. Aligned to GAC’s policy on aid effectiveness, the FSSP actively supports GAC’s development commitments in Ethiopia and assists in reaching quality results.

FSSP Ethiopia is responsible for the provision of a range of technical and logistical services. Provision of these services help support effectiveness, efficiency, quality, and relevance of Canada’s support in responding to Ethiopia’s development challenges. Canada aligned its development programming to Ethiopia’s development needs as outlined in the Country’s Ten-Year Development Plan as well as GAC’s development policies and priorities. The FSSP actively supports GAC’s development commitments in Ethiopia and assists in reaching quality results. The project also provides specific Ethiopian knowledge and expertise that offers GAC insights and appreciation for local development issues to inform the design of impactful and comprehensive development strategies. The FSSP also provides administrative and logistical services to support GAC’s project delivery and oversight. The FSSP is aligned with GAC’s policy on aid effectiveness which is a policy aimed at delivering aid in a way that maximizes its impact on development. To this end, the FSSP Ethiopia supports key elements of GAC’s commitment to aid effectiveness, including efficiency, alignment, and risk management.

FSSP Ethiopia seeks to recruit a Public Health Gender Technical Specialist (TS) with a particular, but not exclusive, focus on strengthening gender-responsive health and health systems on sexual and reproductive health (SRH) and rights.

B) Application Instructions and Conditions

Interested candidates who meet the qualifications for the role should submit a technical proposal and a financial proposal.

Technical proposal includes:

• A statement of intent, CV, and a minimum of 3 professional references.
• Clearly stated technical qualifications, expertise, skills, and relevant experience. The candidate must provide complete details on where, when, and how the stated qualifications or experience were obtained (via which activities and responsibilities). To demonstrate when experience was obtained, the candidate must specify the length of such experience, including the start and end dates.

Financial proposal should:

• State the expected all-inclusive daily fee, with supporting evidence of previously established daily rates.

C) Deadline for Application: September 23, 2024.

Proposals submitted past the deadline will not be accepted. Only short-listed applicants will be contacted.

D) Eligibility criteria for applicants:

The candidate must be legally and operationally in a position to contract and provide consulting services in Ethiopia. International applicants are welcome to apply; support can be provided to fulfill all requirements to work in Ethiopia.

E) Additional: FSSP Ethiopia – WUSC is an equal opportunity employer.

F) Evaluation of the Proposals:

The technical proposal will be scored on the statement of intent, CV, and interview and worth 40%. The financial proposal will be worth 30%, and the interviews, 30%.

G) Place of work: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

H) Number of consultants required:

TERMS OF REFERENCE

BACKGROUND

Ethiopia has made remarkable strides in life expectancy at birth in terms of maternal mortality, under-5 mortality and infant mortality. While indicators are still doing very poorly it is essential to consider where the country began by using 2005 as the baseline year, as this provides context for the notable strides that have been made. The country’s demographic dividend effort index shows encouraging levels of effort being made, firstly in maternal and child health and secondly in family planning. Positive levels of effort are being made in other sectors. Taken together, this will position the country to benefit from the demographic dividend. National data on development indicators in sexual and reproductive health (SRH) and maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH) shows positive results. Delivery in a health facility has grown by 860% compared to the base year (2005), antenatal care from a skilled provider has increased by 164%, the use of modern contraceptives by 193% and vaccination of infants by 83%. Ethiopia has also made remarkable strides in reducing the absolute number of women that die during pregnancy or childbirth. While the figure for maternal mortality ratio (MMR) still stands high at 401 per 100,000 live births, the country managed to reduce MMR by more than half (54%) compared to 2005. Further, when compared to the beginning of the millennium, it has managed to significantly reduce MMR by 61%.

Objective

This consultancy and assignment is to provide the Embassy of Canada to Ethiopia’s development section with technical support, in-depth knowledge, and experience in gender responsive health and health systems focused on SRHR and MNCH in Ethiopia.

SCOPE OF WORK AND LEVEL OF EFFORT

The consultancy scope encompasses various deliverables, assigned by the PTL, while also allowing flexibility for additional tasks as necessary. The Public Health Gender Specialist will support the Embassy and the FSSP for a maximum of 90 days between August 1, 2024, and June 30, 2025.

KEY RESPONSIBLITIES AND DELIVERABLES

The services of the prospective Public Health Gender Specialist will include, but is not limited to, the following:

a) Strategic research, analysis, and advice

• Provide technical support and advice to GAC to help guide the design and development of their gender responsive health projects and investments;
• Advice and update GAC on the latest development progress, assessing the enabling environment, the context that GAC projects work: trends (including donor landscape mapping) and priority challenges related to health sector including SRHR and health systems strengthening at the federal and regional levels;
• Provide, when requested, summaries, analytical papers, think pieces, recommendations and/or technical briefs on areas of family planning, health system strengthening, and strategies to improve private/public sector provisions of a diverse method of mix of modern contraceptives; supply chain strengthening and management; ensuring GAC funded projects are targeting populations most in need, and identifying best practices to increasing adolescent uptake of SRHR services and commodities;
• Gather and review, when applicable, leading up-to-date relevant development documents (e.g. policies, strategies, legislation, action plans, budgets and expenditure plans, performance frameworks, evaluations and assessment, among others) from a wide range of stakeholders including civil society and other development actors;
• Review, analyse and provide technical comments and recommendations on project documents for GAC-funded projects in Ethiopia including Project Implementation Plans (PIP), annual work plans, progress reports, evaluations, among others;
• Identify opportunities when applicable for synergies among investment across GAC delivery channels (bilateral, partnership, regional and multilateral).

b) Support for external coordination and engagement

Support GAC’s role in policy dialogue fora, such as donor-government task forces and/or coordination groups;

• Establish and maintain strong connection/network with the key health sector stake holder particular MoH, other donors, multilateral organizations, local and international NGOs
• Participate in, and/or provide technical support to GAC staff participating in Technical Working Groups within the coordination structure, contributing substantively to discussions and exercises with a view to ensuring that GAC positions are well reflected;
• Participate in and provide technical support to joint initiatives with other development partners and stakeholders (e.g. reviews, joint field visits, joint monitoring and evaluation exercises, multi-stakeholder consultations or events);
• Help ensure and increase visibility of Canada’s development activities and policy positions in the sector, particularly those related to SRHR, as well as in health systems strengthening through technical advice and assisting to identify new entry points for policy dialogue;
• Support Canada’s advocacy and outreach activities and initiatives (involvement in or support for social media or public awareness campaigns related to SRHR and gender issues)

c) Project oversight and monitoring (broad definition: broad macro level on implementation and to keep track of through various long term approaches including observation among others authorized by the PTL)

• Become familiarized with key GAC-funded project documents relating to the project (e.g. approval documentation, country programming frameworks or strategies, contractual agreements with project partners, among others)
• Review, analyse and provide technical comments and recommendations on project documents for new GAC-funded projects in Ethiopia including Project Implementation Plans (PIP), annual work plans, progress and financial reports, evaluations, among others;
• Advice GAC on the extent to which projects are i) aligned with government policy and sector priorities; ii) meeting the goals and objectives of GAC development policies; and iii) are coordinated with the activities of other development partners, including civil society;
• Through project monitoring missions, discussions with stakeholders and desk reviews, monitor project performance, if assigned by PTL, against the Logic Model and the Performance Management Framework, including indicators (and their targets), identifying unsolved issues, constraints, and/or exceptional achievements, hampering effectiveness of implementation;
• Monitor against project risks to provide advice and recommendations for improvement (and a process of working with projects to make adjustments and plan corrective actions), as needed;
• Identify lessons learned for Canada as a donor and other stakeholders and recommend ways to improve, where relevant;
• Provide other services related to the monitoring of GAC projects as requested by GAC.

d) Other

• Support preparations for visits of key stakeholders to projects and meeting sites in Ethiopia, when security permits;
• Attend meetings and/or events upon request and report back to GAC;
• Provide input for the preparation of internal GAC work plans, reviews and progress reports;
• Participate in and contribute to discussions during GAC team meetings;
• Perform other duties and activities from time to time as requested.

ASSIGNMENT MANAGEMENT

Duties and responsibilities of Global Affairs Canada

• Provide the specialist with assignments and reasonable LoE.
• Ensure availability of funding for the
• Actively participate in periodic debriefing sessions.
• Approve the TSs timesheet/TAD.
• Conduct regular performance reviews of the TS and share the report with FSSP.

Duties and responsibilities of the FSSP

• Formally include the Public Health Gender Specialist in the FSSP work plan;
• Support the Public Health Gender Specialist to fulfil her/his mandate, including by reviewing deliverables before they are formally submitted to GAC when applicable;
• FSSP will provide guidance, ensure compliance with ToR and assigned deliverables. The FSSP Manager will meet with Public Health Gender Specialist monthly, or more, to discuss progress on deliverables/assignments.

REQUIRED COMPETENCIES AND EXPERIENCE

The Public Health Gender Specialist should possess the following qualifications/competencies:

• Master’s Degree in public health, or related fields;
• At least 5 years of relevant experience in public health and human rights in Ethiopia;
• Knowledge and expertise of the Ethiopian health system, policies, and priorities;
• Demonstrated experience working with international organizations and donors, including familiarity with donor reporting requirements and compliance;
• Strong skills conducting and utilizing research to inform public health and gender strategies;
• Excellent writing and communication skills (both English and Amharic);
• Proficiency in the usage of computers and office software packages (word processing, spreadsheet, etc) and experience in handling of web-based data and information management systems;
• Excellent facilitation skills, which include a proven track record of successfully leading the design and delivery of participatory training and capacity building activities on health and gender and other social development issues;
• Experience on public health and gender and social impacts and mitigation measures will be an advantage.