Overall objective:
The objective of the proposed work is to ensure timely availability of deliverables for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) Insecticide—Treated Net (ITN) Campaign Efficiency Project through development of operational guidance and case studies to illustrate best practices from national malaria programmes and implementing partners, through supporting work to identify new and innovative models for urban and continuous ITN distribution, and through establishing and populating the ITN continuous distribution tracker.
Background:
Over the last twenty years, significant reduction in global malaria case incidence and mortality rates as been observed globally. The malaria case incidence rate fell from 80 in 2000 to 57 in 2019, while total malaria cases declined from 238 million in 2000 to 229 million in 2019. The mortality incidence rate was reduced from 25 in 2000 to 10 in 2019, while the total number of deaths fell from 736 000 in 2000 to 409 000 in 2019[1]. Despite these achievements, of the estimated 1.5 billion malaria cases and 7.6 million malaria deaths averted globally since 2000, most cases (82%) and deaths (94%) averted were in the African Region, followed by the South-East Asia Region (10% and 3%). In 2017, WHO’s annual World malaria report warned that the global response had reached a “crossroads” and that progress towards critical GTS targets for reductions in disease and death was off track. For a second consecutive year in 2018, the World Malaria Report indicated a stall in progress. Of particular concern was the report’s finding that, among the 10 highest burden African countries, there were 3.5 million more cases in 2017 over the previous year.
Malaria continues to take a heavy toll on pregnant women and children, particularly in Africa. Left untreated, malaria in pregnancy can lead to maternal death, anemia and low birth weight – a major cause of infant mortality. In 2019, an estimated 11.6 million pregnant women living in 33 African countries with moderate-to-high transmission were infected with malaria (35% of all pregnancies). As a result, an estimated 822 000 children in these 33 countries were born with a low birth weight.
Coverage gaps are an important contributor to non-achievement of the WHO Global Technical Strategy targets, particularly in hard-to-reach, conflict-affect and marginalized communities. While expanded access to WHO-recommended malaria control interventions has played a critical role in reducing the global burden of the disease since 2000, a large proportion of the population at risk of malaria – particularly in the WHO African region – continues to lack access to prevention, diagnosis and treatment.
The Alliance for Malaria Prevention (AMP) is a workstream within RBM and is an integral part of the RBM’s Country and Regional Support Partner Committee (CRSPC). AMP is a global partnership of more than 40 organizations, including government, private sector, faith-based and humanitarian organizations. Housed and chaired by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), AMP is focused on three main activities: (1) coordination of partners involved in ITN campaign and continuous distribution activities; (2) development of operational guidance for planning and implementation of ITN distribution; and (3) supporting countries to identify, address and document operational successes and challenges to meeting the WHO Global Technical Strategy (GTS) targets for high coverage and use of ITNs.
In 2020, AMP was awarded a grant by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to identify ways to improve operational efficiency for ITN campaigns and develop associated operational guidance for national malaria programmes and partners. The activities in the grant are organized into seven workstreams, representing some of the most critical inefficiencies and challenges national malaria programmes and partners face with ITN campaigns and continuous distribution. AMP is collecting information about national malaria programme experiences, lessons learned and best practices in the adaptation of ITN mass campaigns to the COVID-19 context, payment systems used for campaign staff, strategies for urban distribution, SBC innovations, multi-product ITN distribution and campaign digitization. Additionally, AMP is collecting information about continuous ITN distribution plans across channels. Information collected for the project will be used both for operational guidance and for advocacy around resource mobilization, specifically for continuous distribution to ensure sustained ITN access.
Terms of reference for consultancy:
In 2022, as part of the work that AMP is undertaking with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) the following activities have been identified as priorities:
Workstream 1: Estimated LOE – 10 days
· To develop a summary PPT deck with the key points from the assessment for household registration and ITN distribution (see below for workstream 2) that can be used for dissemination (either by the consultant or by members of the AMP team) through channels identified by the AMP team
· To support with planning for webinars and trainings, including development of materials and tools (particularly assessment of household registration and post-distribution evaluation); note this work would be in collaboration with an M&E expert as well as a consultant that will be supporting animation and development of materials for any training organized
Workstream 2: Estimated LOE – 20 days
· To finalize operational guidance for household registration quality assessment and post-campaign assessment of ITN coverage, access and use based on inputs from partners and stakeholders
· To develop a summary PPT deck with the key points from the assessment for household registration and ITN distribution that can be used for dissemination through channels identified by the AMP team
· To finalize annexes and toolkit for national malaria programmes and partners to access models for country adaptation;
· To develop or support development of case studies highlighting implementation of improved, more efficient assessment processes
Workstream 6: Estimated LOE – 40 days
· To support work on urban ITN distribution including development of two to three case studies for innovative approaches or to demonstrate difficult decision making and implications; to identify gaps in operationalizing urban distribution approaches (either in HBHI countries or in the guidance coming from the WHO urban malaria consultation) and propose guidance or tools to fill them; to identify and document successful CD channels for urban areas
· To support the ITN Campaign Efficiency Project team with work to incorporate gender, including support for a review of gender barriers for ITN access and use and any specific concerns for multi-product campaigns
· To continue to populate the ITN CD tracker for additional countries with information from Global Fund application and PMI Malaria Operational Plans and identify where/if microstratification is being considered for continuous distribution channels; verify data with national malaria programmes; support uploading of completed CD trackers to the AMP website; summarize data into advocacy briefs in advance of next GF funding cycle in support of increased funding for channels to sustain ITN access
Deliverables of the consultancy will include:
· Final guidance for quality assessment of household registration and post-distribution outcomes, including tools and resources for easy adaptation to country context
· Continuous distribution tracker
· Two to three case studies (plus support for review of others developed under the project as applicable)
· Training materials
The exact deliverables and their format will be determined in consultation with partners and national malaria programmes to ensure limited overlap with partner work and easiest use presentation for implementers.
How to apply:
Please send your CV and cover letter to health.department@ifrc.org by Monday 13th of January. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.