Call for consultancy for formative assessment on feasibility of delivering VAS through school system
The Nutrition International (NI) (the former Micronutrient Initiative (MI)) is a leading international organization working to deliver health and nutrition programs to the region’s most vulnerable
Background
Vitamin A is an essential nutrient for cell proliferation, immune system function and vision. It is also an important nutrient for the gene expression and excretion of growth hormone in addition to playing a major role in the development of the central nervous system.
Vitamin A deficiency is a public health problem in Ethiopia, and is a priority issue in the Federal Government’s Health Sector Transformation Agenda and National Nutrition Program. Since 2004 FMOH together with different development partners has been providing vitamin A supplementation to children aged 6-59 months through Enhanced outreach services (EOS) and Child health days (CHD). Starting from 2012 to 2018 the Federal Ministry of Health (FMoH), with technical and financial assistance from Nutrition International (NI), transitioned the implementation VAS program from campaign based to routine health extension program in 460 woredas of the four agrarian regions and 3 administrative cities. Last year with the help of World Bank, 260 additional woredas transitioned increasing the total number of routine woredas to 760.
In routine HEP program the HEW are providing VAS program in three contact points including the health post, outreach programs and home visits during weekdays.
Even though the expansion of routine VAS service has been going well, it is also facing challenges including disparities in coverage resulting from poor planning of the delivery services and inadequate monitoring. During supportive supervisions and reviewing the service reports sent by WoHO the major disparity is witnessed in urban areas between toddlers and preschool children. Since children in urban areas start school or staying in day care approximately around three years of age, preschool children are missing the supplementation which is usually provided during weekdays.
Different change ideas have been tried in different regions, like providing VAS through home visits on weekends but since it increases operational cost, it was not accepted by managers. In Diredawa administrative city, school VAS program was piloted by the health office in two schools. The HEW used two of the kindergartens found in her catchment areas as an outreach destination. The school VAS program has showed promising results by improving the coverage of VAS from 54% to 80% in the kebele which it was piloted.
Therefore NI wants to assess the extent to which this promising strategy can be scaled -up to other urban settings and so looking for consultants to conduct a formative assessment on the feasibility of providing VAS in schools/kindergartens of urban areas.
Objective
Scope of Work
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Qualification
Required content and documents to be submitted in the proposal
All qualified candidates are invited to submit a proposal clearly stating the following: