Switzerland: Community Health Strategy Consultant

Background and Rationale:

Community Health and Red Cross & Red Crescent

Well-designed, locally-adapted community-based health approaches are a central part of primary health care and essential to achieve Universal Health Coverage. Community based activities help to fill the human resources gap, to promote trust and understanding within communities, to rapidly detect and respond to outbreaks, and to strengthen resilience and adaptation to health challenges caused by disasters or climate change.

Red Cross and Red Crescent movement has significant experience in community health. The movement ensures access to health and social services and protection for people left behind through community based action. Red Cross Red Crescent volunteers strengthen capacity for addressing health challenges in acute or chronic humanitarian situations, and build resilience of affected communities and people.

Addressing risks, vulnerabilities and inequalities is at the core of National Societies’ work in community health and WASH. This programmatic modality includes (i) community based disease prevention and health promotion programs; (ii) provision of services to vulnerable populations and individuals (people with disabilities, adolescents, old people, substance abusers, people living with HIV, unregistered migrants, homeless etc.); (iii) long term health and WASH programs (e.g. immunization, communicable and non-communicable diseases programs, water and sanitation interventions, etc.), particularly in fragile settings and underserved areas, e.g. slums or rural communities.

Community health volunteers including Red Cross and Red Crescent volunteers are key to address communities’ health priorities, as they live and operate in the communities they come from. Yet, volunteers’ effectiveness goes beyond their proximity. Volunteers are effective because of the perspective they bring. Since they are present in communities before and after a crisis hits, they see it not as an event in isolation, but as something that is linked to the past, to unaddressed risks, vulnerabilities and inequalities.

Strategy 2030 and IFRC Health and Care Framework

In 2019 the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies will adopt Strategy 2030, which outlines the strategic directions of the organisation for the decade 2020-2030. Various departments including health and care are working to define ways to implement Strategy 2030.

To this aim, the Health and Care Department, under the guidance of the Reference Group on Global Health composed of 40+ National Societies, is working on a Health and Care Framework, that presents the collective priorities and programming modalities that define the work of the IFRC Network[1] in health and care. The framework also illustrate a pathway for National Societies’ engagement with public health authorities in their auxiliary role around health and care; and links the work of the IFRC Network in health and care to the global agenda of the Sustainable Development Goals.

In order to support National Societies to plan and present their programs on health and WASH in a coherent way across 191 National Societies, the Framework offers three programming modalities: community health and WASH; (ii) emergency health and WASH; and (iii) strategy, policy and advocacy. The programming modalities will be used by all National Societies and IFRC Offices when designing strategies and programs for health and WASH.

In order to operationalise the framework, the guiding strategy on community health needs to be developed. That will be followed by a monitoring and evaluation framework to identify key indicators to track the IFRC Network’s progress in this sector. The indicators should ideally link to global indicators adopted under the SDGs

Objectives of the Consultancy

The consultancy aims to develop an IFRC strategy on community health to harmonize and guide the IFRC Network’s approaches in this area for the next decade.

The first phase of the consultancy will include a desk review of IFRC and National Societies’ experiences in community health, volunteer management, training, supervision and support, including review of existing reports and tools, and interviews with selected National Societies and key informants within IFRC and potentially beyond.

Based on the above, an overall strategy frame will be defined indicating (i) the overall objective of community health services provided by the IFRC Network; (ii) the key unifying elements of community health for the IFRC Network; (iii) how community health differs in emergencies, in non-emergencies settings, and in fragile contexts; (iv) how community health interventions can target the most vulnerable communities and individuals; (v) how to measure the impact of community health within the IFRC Network.

The second phase of the consultancy will include a gap analysis of capacity of the IFRC network (and particularly of the IFRC Health and Care Department) on community health and recommendations to ensure that (i) IFRC can play a leadership role on community health at the global level; and (ii) capacity within the Network can be adequately strengthened to reach the objectives highlighted in the strategy.

Expectations.

The Community Health Strategy will align to the vision of the organization, auxiliary role of Red Cross Red Crescent to public authorities, Strategy 2030 and the draft Health and Care Framework. The document should facilitate internal and external communications on community health and the role of volunteers, facilitate fund raising efforts and support the monitoring of the organizational performance against programmatic modalities in community health.

The document will include the following section:

· Executive summary

· Introduction

· Guiding principles

· Content section

· Strategic supportive areas including measurable indicators

· References (bibliography)

Tasks of the consultant

The tasks of the consultant, under the supervision of the Team Lead Community Health and in close consultation with the Director, Health and Care are

· to assist the community health team in synthesising the outcomes of the different review/discussion/consultation initiatives;

· to facilitate meetings (virtual and physical) as needed, including during statutory meetings in December;

· to write a first draft document (max 15 pages) to be shared for consultation within the Reference Group on Global Health;

· to finalize the document based on inputs received from the membership.

Timeline

The consultancy should start ASAP and consists of 50 consultancy days over the next 3 months until December 31 2019.

Specific benchmarks include:

· Literature review and first round of consultations: October-November

· First draft strategy mid November

· Second round of consultations: November-December

· Final draft strategy: end December

Deliverables

Outline of strategy

Drafts and final draft strategy

Profile of the consultant:

· Familiar with facilitating strategic discussion process

· Client centred consultancy approach

· Familiar with the Federation /RC/RC context and a similar membership organisation

· Basic knowledge in Public Health an additional asset

· Ability to write and work in English

[1] For the purposes of this document, the IFRC Network is defined as the 191 National Red Cross Red Crescent Societies and the IFRC Secretariat.

If you are interested don't hesitate to apply on Community Health strategy Consultant before 26 September