Individual Consultant for Development of Maternal Nutrition guidelines, Kigali, Rwanda, 6months (work from office)- Rwandan Nationals Only UNICEF at United Nations Children’s Fund: (Deadline 30 April 2023)
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Background:
Women’s nutrition matters. Not only it is a human right; it is also essential for women’s survival, well-being, and participation. Women’s nutrition – especially during the nutritionally vulnerable period of pregnancy and breastfeeding – is also an important determinant of children’s nutrition, growth, health and development outcomes during the 1,000-day window from conception to age 2, and beyond.
Despite reductions in malnutrition rates among pregnant women in Rwanda during the past decade, the current rates are still of public health significance. Micronutrient deficiencies and particularly anemia among pregnant women which is at 23% remain key challenges in Rwanda and require accelerated effort to address it with a focus on adolescent girls, and women of reproductive age innovatively.
The government of Rwanda recognizes and emphasizes the importance of meeting adequate nutritional needs in the first 1,000 days of life. Adequate intake of essential micronutrients is vital in supporting maternal and infant nutrition during this unique window of opportunity.
The Ministry of health has committed to accelerate stunting reduction through a development of a Two-year Multi- Sectoral Plan that has identified six key interventions including improvement of maternal nutrition among others. It is in this line that MoH has requested support for maternal nutrition in 10 key selected districts with the highest stunting rates. One of the innovations would be an introduction of MMS (Multiple Micronutrient Supplementation) which is an antenatal supplement for pregnant women that are proven to enhance maternal nutrition status.
MOH and UNICEF seek to define the minimum package of maternal nutrition services to be integrated with Antenatal care (ANC) services, including pregnant weight gain monitoring, fetal growth monitoring where skilled professional sonographic technology is available, MMS, MUAC screening, Anemia testing, maternal nutrition counselling and calcium supplementation.
Purpose of Activity:
The purpose of this consultancy is to support the Ministry of Health.
- To design and strengthen implementation of an integrated maternal health and nutrition program including framework for transitioning from IFAS to MMS.
- To develop the monitoring and evaluation framework of the integrated maternal nutrition program including MMS intervention.
- To develop comprehensive Maternal Nutrition Guidelines for Rwanda as well as an annex the recently revised ANC guideline
- To develop an integrated implementation plan for Maternal Nutrition Guidelines including MMS and ANC
- To develop an advocacy package for strengthening maternal nutrition program including MMS
- To engage key stakeholders in the development of the guidelines and to disseminate the new guidelines
- To Implement new design of MMS integrated into ANC and document lessons for scaling up.
Key Tasks:
This national consultant will undertake the following activities:
1. Desk Review and health workers/stakeholder interview
- Review of the national health and nutrition documents including maternal and newborn health/ANC (policies, strategic plans, and guidelines) and identify strengths and gaps.
- Conduct interview with health workers in maternal health including ANC, and other stakeholder about key interventions and status of implementation of the existing package under maternal health/ANC and nutrition program, such as IFAS and pregnancy monitoring
- Facilitate workshop dissemination of the findings from program and policy review, including key opportunities for improvement, with the aim of defining a minimum package of proposed maternal nutrition services (pregnant weight gain and fetal growth monitoring, MUAC screening, MMS, anemia screening, maternal nutrition counselling and provision of calcium) including maternal and reproductive health department/stakeholders among others.
- Propose recommendations to fill the gaps identified under Health/ANC program and to set up linkage and synergy with nutrition program
Some of the key questions to be addressed include:
- Are the existing guidelines in line with UNICEF/WHO recommendations?
- Are maternal health and nutrition as well as ANC programs operating in line with global standards recommended by WHO/UNICEF?
- What are the opportunities of replacing IFAS with MMS?
- What are the best delivery models for MMS that can be used countrywide in addition to the ANC platform without affecting future sustainability?
- How to strengthen and/or introduce the fetal growth monitoring and pregnancy weight gain monitoring in the existing maternal health/ANC program
2. Draft the National Maternal nutrition Guidelines
- Convene a meeting with the health and nutrition stakeholders in Rwanda to discuss the proposed outline for the draft of the National Maternal nutrition Guidelines and accompanying deliverables
- Develop the 1st draft of a comprehensive National Maternal nutrition Guidelines for Rwanda, which incorporates recommendation on nutrition and diet for pregnant and lactating women
3. Convene technical stakeholder’s consultative meeting
Convene at least a 1-day working session with national and selected district-level stakeholders to review and further refine the drafted maternal nutrition guidelines ensuring ongoing development of micronutrient guidelines and hospital recipes books are also aligned. The stakeholders must include, but not be limited to MOH/RBC, MINIGPROF/NCDA, UNICEF, WHO, World Bank, JICA, USAID and International NGO working in Maternal health and Nutrition.
4. Develop and share the 1st draft National Maternal nutrition Guidelines with the key stakeholders for the final feedback
5. Produce a final draft of the National Maternal nutrition Guidelines and disseminate it
- Prepare a summary brief of the National Maternal nutrition Guidelines (preferably one page) and a PowerPoint presentation with the key components from the guidelines
- Develop annex including key recommendations on nutrition during pregnancy and lactation which would be included as an annex in both the Revised ANC guidelines as well as the Maternal Nutrition Guideline
- Support Design the final draft of the National Maternal nutrition Guidelines for printing
- Plan and facilitate national dissemination workshop
6. Submit National Maternal Nutrition Guidelines to the Rwandan government (MOH/RBC) with an integrated implementation plan for Maternal Nutrition Guidelines including MMS and ANC
7. Implement/test newly designed and agreed minimum packages of maternal nutrition and specifically MMS integrated into ANC in selected pilot districts and document lessons for scaling up
Work Assignment Overview
Tasks/Milestone:
- Desk Review of the current guidelines related to health and nutrition documents
- Design integrated maternal nutrition program including monitoring and evaluation framework
- Draft the Guidelines National Maternal nutrition
- Convene technical stakeholder’s consultative workshop
- Following stakeholders’ technical workshop; draft a program implementation plan
- Finalize the National Maternal nutrition Guidelines; and program implementation plan, integrating Maternal nutrition and ANC
- Produce and present a summary of the Maternal nutrition Guidelines for Rwanda and annex of nutrition recommendations during pregnancy and lactation and present/disseminate the Guideline
- Plan and facilitate national dissemination workshop for the Maternal nutrition program implementation plan start/test the implementation of MMS program in 5 districts
- Document lessons on implementation including success factors, challenges, and key takeaways for scaling up the program
Deliverables/Outputs:
- Desk review and stakeholder interview report completed.
- Draft MMS program including monitoring and evaluation framework completed.
- First draft Maternal nutrition guidelines completed.
- Consultative workshop report finalized.
- Draft implementation plan with inputs from stakeholders finalized.
- Final draft of National Maternal nutrition Guidelines completed.
- Final integrated National Maternal nutrition and ANC program implementation plan completed.
- Comprehensive monitoring tools including pregnancy weight gain monitoring finalized.
- Provide a 1-page summary brief Maternal nutrition Guidelines finalized and annex of nutrition recommendations for pregnancy and lactation finalized.
- Provide PPT presentation finalized.
- Dissemination workshop report finalized.
- Implementation progress report finalized.
- Prepare and finalized the document of lessons learnt
Duty Station/Location
Home based. The Consultant must be available to work in-person with MoH, RBC and UNICEF teams for activities that require physical presence.
Selection Criteria
Applications shall be assessed based on their technical and financial proposals. Maximum scores for technical and financial applications will be 75% and 25%, respectively.
To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…
- Advanced university degree in, Public Health, Nutrition or related field, with experience in maternal nutrition program or maternal health program policy, strategy and guidelines development in the context of Rwanda
- At least 6 years of professional experience in the Public Health and/or Nutrition field; Sound experience in reviewing and drafting policies, strategies, and guidelines.
- Previous experience in nutrition programming in the context of Rwanda.
- Knowledge of Rwanda’s health and nutrition landscape is an asset.
- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills
- Excellent written and oral communication skills; effective organizational skills and high drive for results
- High commitment; teamwork and strong interpersonal and intercultural skills.
- Fluency in English and Kinyarwanda (verbal and written) is required, knowledge of any other UN language is an asset.
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 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 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. Consultants 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.
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