International Consultant to conduct a Bottleneck Analysis of the IMAM services in Indonesia

Job no: 561673

Position type: Consultant

Location: Indonesia Division/Equivalent: Bangkok (EAPRO), Thailand

School/Unit: Indonesia

Department/Office: Jakarta, Indonesia

Categories: Nutrition

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, care

How can you make a difference?

BACKGROUND:

An estimated 1 in 10 (over 6 million) children in Indonesia are wasted, i.e, too thin for their height/length typically as a result of recent rapid weight loss or failure to gain weight often as a result of infection or food insecurity. More than 2 million Indonesian children are affected by the most severe form of wasting, which is defined as a weight-for-height z-score < -3 standard deviations, and/or mid-upper-arm circumference (MUAC) <115mm, and/or the presence of bilateral pitting oedema. This condition places them at 12 times higher risk of death compared to their healthy peers. Globally, one in five deaths among children under five years of age is attributed to severe wasting, making it one of the top threats to child survival in the world.

With support from UNICEF, the Government of Indonesia (GoI) has taken several steps to prevent and treat this deadly form of undernutrition. The GoI has committed to tackling stunting and wasting simultaneously, as outlined in the 2017 National Strategy to Accelerate Stunting Prevention which includes plans to scale up child wasting prevention and treatment services. Subsequently, annual targets and indicators for both forms of undernutrition have been developed. They are included in the National Medium-Term Development Plan 2020–2024, with targets to reduce the prevalence of stunting to 14% and wasting to 7% by 2024. Based on these targets, the Ministry of Health (MoH) set a goal of at least 60% of primary healthcare centres providing the Integrated Management of Acute Malnutrition (IMAM) services by 2024. Additionally, a Presidential decree (no. 72) on stunting reduction acceleration was launched in 2021 and included a target to provide treatment to 90% of severely wasted children by 2024. In addition, in 2021, the GoI developed its country-level Global Action Plan (GAP) on the Child Wasting Roadmap with support from UNICEF and other United Nations (UN) partners which outlines key actions to reduce child wasting in the country.

Despite tremendous efforts to scale up IMAM services nationally, the coverage of wasting treatment in Indonesia has remained unacceptably low, with only an estimated <10% of severely wasted children receiving treatment each year against an estimated annual caseload of over 2.2 million severely wasted children. Therefore, to accelerate Indonesia’s efforts to reach global child wasting targets, the GoI has requested support from UNICEF to undertake a bottleneck analysis on the implementation of the IMAM programme, investigating the barriers and boosters to IMAM implementation and to provide insights to relevant stakeholders on potential ways of improving the coverage and quality of IMAM services throughout the country.

Against this backdrop, UNICEF seeks an international consultant to undertake a systematic bottleneck analysis of the IMAM services in Indonesia and to develop a practical guideline for the government to support in the planning, budgeting, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the IMAM programme.

Scope of work:

The objectives of the assignment are to: 1. Conduct an in-depth national-level IMAM bottleneck analysis to identify the bottlenecks and boosters impacting the scale-up, and provision of, quality child wasting treatment services.

2. Develop a practical guideline for the government to support in the planning, budgeting, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the IMAM programme.

3. Develop a policy brief and manuscript on the result of the bottleneck analysis summarising the critical findings from the analysis, including bottlenecks, root causes, corrective action, and a suggested action plan.

Under the guidance of the UNICEF Nutrition Team and the GoI’s Nutrition and Maternal Child Health Directorate (GiKIA), the MoH, the International Consultant, will be requested to: – Conduct a national-level bottleneck analysis of IMAM services in Indonesia, including:

•  Define indicators and identify appropriate sources of information.
•  Conduct a desk review of existing documents related to IMAM services and other relevant resources.
•  Identify potential bottlenecks and analyze the root causes of these potential bottlenecks.
•  Develop a consultative process together with various stakeholders, conducting Focus Group Discussion (FGD) and in-depth interviews at the national and selected sub-national levels with support from UNICEF Nutrition Team to further understand potential bottlenecks and boosters.
•  Identify potential solutions, and corrective actions, and develop an action plan at the national and sub-national level to implement corrective actions.
•  Disseminate the bottleneck analysis findings to key stakeholders to gain feedback and further inputs.
•  Compile a final report summarising the critical findings from the analysis, including bottlenecks, root causes, corrective action, and a suggested action plan. The results will also be further developed as a potential publication in a peer-reviewed journal or publication as a UNICEF research report
•  Develop a policy brief on the Bottleneck Analysis result to be used as evidence-based advocacy to improve the quality and coverage of the IMAM programme in Indonesia, and to increase government investment in the IMAM programme.

– Based on the findings from the bottleneck analysis and suggested corrective actions, develop a practical, easy-to-use support guideline for the government to aid in IMAM programming planning, budgeting, implementation, monitoring and evaluation for local officials and practitioners:

•  Develop a step-by-step practical guideline and tool for the government to enable better planning, budgeting, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of the IMAM programme.
•  Field test the guideline.
•  Finalize the practical guideline, including relevant tools and training package.

TOR for consultant-TMS.pdf

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…

– A postgraduate qualification in a relevant discipline (including but not limited to Nutrition, Global/Public Health, Epidemiology, Health Promotion, and Health Research, Economics)

– At least five years of relevant professional experience undertaking systematic primary and secondary nutritional or health data analysis, costing analysis on SAM/IMAM, and Public Finance for Children (PF4C-N).

– Demonstrable capacity and research/study experience of 5-7 years in public health/nutrition/ with a sound understanding of bottleneck analysis tools.

– Capacity to manage and implement the activities as per the term of reference.

– Have experience working with UN agency.

– Communication and report writing skills.

– Written and spoken fluency in English is essential.

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, Accountability, and Sustainability (CRITAS).

To view our competency framework, please visit here.

UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most disadvantaged children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, or any other personal characteristic.

UNICEF offers reasonable accommodation for consultants/individual contractors with disabilities. This may include, for example, accessible software, travel assistance for missions or personal attendants. We encourage you to disclose your disability during your application in case you need reasonable accommodation during the selection process and afterwards in your assignment.

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 be expected to adhere to these standards and principles and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.

Remarks:

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

Individuals engaged under a consultancy or individual contract will not be considered “staff members” under the Staff Regulations and Rules of the United Nations and UNICEF’s policies and procedures, and will not be entitled to benefits provided therein (such as leave entitlements and medical insurance coverage). Their conditions of service will be governed by their contract and the General Conditions of Contracts for the Services of Consultants and Individual Contractors. Consultants and individual contractors are responsible for determining their tax liabilities and for the payment of any taxes and/or duties, in accordance with local or other applicable laws.

The selected candidate is solely responsible to ensure that the visa (applicable) and health insurance required to perform the duties of the contract are valid for the entire period of the contract. Selected candidates are subject to confirmation of fully-vaccinated status against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) with a World Health Organization (WHO)-endorsed vaccine, which must be met prior to taking up the assignment. It does not apply to consultants who will work remotely and are not expected to work on or visit UNICEF premises, programme delivery locations or directly interact with communities UNICEF works with, nor to travel to perform functions for UNICEF for the duration of their consultancy contracts.

Advertised: May 04 2023 SE Asia Standard Time Application close: May 17 2023 SE Asia Standard Time