Terms of Reference for Consultancy Service to Produce an Activity Brief
1. Background
Marie Stopes International (MSI) is one of the largest international Sexual Reproductive Health (SRH) and Family Planning (FP) organizations in the world. Marie Stopes International Ethiopia (MSIE) as a partner of MSI works with result oriented social enterprises to provide efficient, effective and sustainable SRH/FP programmes for low income women and couples in Ethiopia.
As part of expanding voluntary FP service and options to communities, MSIE has been implementing a component of USAID’s program on the global Support for International Family Planning and Health Organizations 2: Sustainable Networks (SIFPO2). The project component implemented by MSIE has a goal to reduce maternal deaths from unintended pregnancy through increased modern contraceptive prevalence in Ethiopia. The intermediate results of the project focus on increased awareness and access to quality, voluntary FP methods, with a focus on voluntary Permanent Methods (PM), and improved coordination, collaboration and best-practices in order to increase client choice to high quality voluntary FP services.
During implementation of the SIFPO 2 project since October 2015, MSIE has been expanding awareness and access to voluntary PM services in four regions of the country, Amhara, Oromia, SNNPR and Tigray. The project has also been supporting the public health sector through training of qualified service providers. Specifically, for ensuring sustaining services to demands created and the unmet needs in the country, the project acknowledged and included in its sustainability plan the critical importance of availing clinical trainers that would train qualified service providers in the country. The general objective aims at supporting regional governments with sustainable capacity in provisions of voluntary PMs; while the clinical trainers will be key resource persons to train and couch FP service providers both for the public and private health sector.
Accordingly, in the last year of the project period MSIE in collaboration with the regional health bureaus selected and trained government FP providers working in public facilities as Clinical Trainers in the provision of voluntary PMs. A competency-based training approach was used to train these government providers to be able to deliver training and supervise and endorse other providers in voluntary PMs. The training package consisted of intensive practical clinical exposure to voluntary PMs overseas in Bangladesh, followed by a ToT training in Ethiopia, led by MSI Master Trainers. The foreign training and exposure was conducted in Dhaka, Bangladesh through MSI bureau-to-bureau (B2B) collaboration between MSIE and MSI-Bangladesh; while the ToT was conducted in Ethiopia involving ToT master trainers from MSI-Malawi and MSI-Ethiopia.
By the end of this task, MSIE intends to document the process undertaken to qualify Clinical Trainers in the public sector. Specifically, this documentation should detail the purpose of the training within the Ethiopia context, the outputs and approach undertaken, from collaboration between government and MSIE outreach teams to select of trainees, to the final certification of providers through ToT and training opportunities.
The Activity Brief will be shared for use by partners and relevant public and private stakeholders working in the field of comprehensive voluntary FP service provision. For this purpose, MSIE plans to engage a qualified consultant for technical assistance on a short-term basis.
Objective of the Task:
The aim of the Activity Brief is to share learning from the activity, so that it can be replicated by MSIE and other partners in the future. The objective of the task is to methodically document the act of training of the clinical trainers of MSIE/SIFPO 2 project in order to share the experience to partners and relevant programs. As well, the Activity Brief should recommend relevant actions and strategy required from the government for best integration and use of the clinical trainers for expanding PM Service.
3. Scope and Purpose of the Consultancy:
The scope of the task is to prepare an end-to-end Activity Brief on the process and purpose of the clinical trainers training undertaken by MSIE under its SIFPO 2 project. Specifically, the consultant is required to:
4. Tasks and Responsibilities from the Consultant:
In the course of delivering the final product, the consultant shall assume the following specific tasks:
5. Tasks and Responsibilities from the MSIE
MSIE will execute the following to support the work accomplishment of the consultant.
6. Deliverables from the consultant:
The consultant will deliver the below key deliverables in consecutive order and per the agreed time line.
7. Time frame and Duration
The consultancy will start immediately and should be completed in 15 days duration. It should be noted that this task and the payment associated with it are strictly time-bound. The deadline for delivery of the finalized brief shall be 15 working days from the point of approval of the contract.
8. Terms of payment
Payment will be made up on successful and timely submission of deliverables per the terms of contract agreement signed with the consultant.
1. Required Qualification and Experience
The following mix of qualification, experience and competencies are required from the consultant.