Location: South West Ethiopia Region
Duration: 18 months (20 June 2022 to 19 December 2023)
No. of consultant: One
Reporting to: EPI team of MOH in collaboration with UNICEF ECO SBC Specialist at Health Section
1. Background and Justification
World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a public health emergency of international concern, WHO’s highest level of urgency. On 11 March, WHO made the assessment that COVID-19 could be characterized as a pandemic. On March 13, the first confirmed COVID-19 case was declared by the Ministry of Health of Ethiopia. By November 25, 2020, 106,591 positive cases and 1,661 passed away with COVID-19. 62.2% of the cases are community transmission and 14.6% are contact with confirm case. On 3 August 2020, Ethiopia announced the rollout of a mass testing and community mobilization campaign followed by intensified Risk Communication and Community Engagement (RCCE) interventions. As of 1 December 2020, more than 40 million people in Ethiopia have been reached with key messages on COVID-19.
The COVAX Facility, one of three key pillars of the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, is a global collaboration co-led by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and WHO to accelerate the development and manufacture of COVID-19 vaccines and to guarantee fair and equitable access globally. Vaccines will be the most effective means to protect the populations from corona virus while key behaviors still going to be important to continue. As only limited number of vaccines will be available in the early days, it is crucial to have a well-rounded communication plan to provide accurate and timely information to the communities on the vaccine, eligible population for each cohort and importance to continue preventive behaviors such as wearing mask, handwashing and physical distancing even after vaccination.
In Ethiopia, the Ministry of Health has successfully launched COVID-19 vaccine at national, regional and city administrations level on 13th March 2021 by vaccinating health workers and support staffs followed by next target group vaccination based on prioritization. As of May 22, 2022, a total of 24,534,697 people has received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine.
In order to ensure vaccine uptake and buy-in, community trust plays a vital role. Thus, the Federal Ministry of Health formed the Communication, Demand and Community Engagement Working Group on COVID-19 vaccine introduction in early November 2020. As it is a new vaccine, the communities have many questions including about the vaccine, its safety, who approved the vaccine, the effectiveness of the vaccine, potential side-effects, and so on. Thus, the demand, communication and community engagement plan need to be robust in order to address those issues. Risk/crisis communication also needs to be part of the overall demand plan for addressing rumors, fake news and potential adverse events after vaccination. The plan also needs to ensure specific strategies to reach the vulnerable groups, such as marginalized populations living in conflict or post-conflict settings, or within large refugee or migrant populations.
Hence, the MOH in collaboration with UNICEF Ethiopia Country Office, is seeking assistance in the form of a consultancy equivalent to 18 months to provide technical support on the subnational rollout of COVID-19 vaccine in South West Ethiopia Region and to ensure that public acceptance and uptake of COVID-19 vaccines in the country is adequate with effectively planned, developed, implemented and monitored social mobilization and other communication activities and interventions ultimately ensured interruption of the virus transmission is achieved.
2. Purpose
The overall objective of this consultancy is to provide technical support on the rollout of COVID-19 vaccine in South West Ethiopia Region and to ensure that public acceptance and uptake of COVID-19 vaccines in the region is adequate with effectively planned, developed, implemented and monitored social mobilization and other communication activities and interventions ultimately ensured interruption of the virus transmission is achieved.
3. Specific Tasks
Under the overall guidance and supervision of the Ministry MCH/ EPI unit and technical support from SBC Specialist (Health Section of UNICEF Ethiopia), the technical assistant will be responsible for the coordination of communication technical working group at the regional/sub-national level to accelerate demand generation approaches and strategies to promote evidence-based Social and Behavior Change interventions including social mobilization, advocacy, community engagement, community empowerment, social listening, monitoring and evaluation for the COVID-19 vaccine introduction in Ethiopia.
Key responsibilities include, but are not limited to, the following:
• Provide technical support to EPI team of MOH/RHB and Communication Technical Working Group (C-TWG) to ensure the demand generation strategies and approaches are developed and implemented to reach the eligible population with COVID-19 vaccine and routine immunization in South West Ethiopia Region
• Coordinate the regular C-TWG meetings and ad-hoc meetings as necessary including preparation of meeting agenda, meeting minutes and follow up the action points
• Ensure that C-TWG is supported to develop plans and activities to promote acceptance among the prioritized population of sub-national COVID-19 vaccine rollout, increase trust in health and immunization services, and generate demand and uptake for COVID-19 vaccine among eligible population as well as demand on routine immunization services
• Develop, maintain, and update the demand generation strategy with approaches, plans and activities geared towards generating demand for COVID-19 vaccine and other primary health care (PHC) services including routine immunization, maternal and child health as needed
• Support the development and endorsement of contextualized SBC activities for the vaccination at the sub-national level including development, review and pre-testing of multi-channel communication materials in local languages
• Coordinate with the government and media agencies at the sub-national level on regular public opinion monitoring and social listening particularly on rumors, fake news, media coverage on AEFI cases and misinformation around COVID-19 vaccines and broader immunization services
• Provide support for capacity building of frontline health workers, social mobilizers, media and hotline operators on demand generation activities including risk communication plan at the sub-national level
• Facilitate and participate in monitoring and evaluation for demand generation and risk communication activities for the COVID-19 vaccination and routine immunization including conducting rapid assessment for public awareness, acceptance, hesitancy and trust around the new vaccine and field visits to regions in close collaboration with MOH/RHB and partners at the sub-national level in South West Ethiopia Region
• Ensure approaches used are inclusive, consultative and participatory to carry along all stakeholders
• Collect human-interest stories from the field on the voices and experiences of communities and stakeholders around the COVID-19 vaccination and routine immunization in the specific regions/city administrations
• The technical assistant will need to present the draft documents as well as the monthly reports and final report to MOH/RHB
• At the beginning of the assignment, the consultant is expected to produce and agree with MOH/RHB on work plan schedules for the assignment period
• Capture and share lesson learned and good practices that can potentially leverage the routine immunization and outbreak response practices
• Participate in COVAX post introduction evaluation exercise at sub-national level
• Perform any other activity as required by sub-national MCH Director/EPI manager
• Ensure the operationalization of COVID-19 precautions during immunization services provision
• Facilitate and monitor timely budget utilization and liquidation of COVID-19 implementation budget and other RI budget at the sub-national level in collaboration with MOH/RHB
• Frequent traveling to regions/woredas/zones/communities as necessary
• Submit a detail final report at the end of the assignment
4. Expected Deliverables and Timeline
No. Deliverables Deadline Payment
1. Submission of report with detailed demand generation plans with roles and responsibilities, timeline and associated budget after consultation with the EPI team of MOH/RHB Monthly Monthly payment:
20 June 2022 to 19 December 2023
2. Submission of guidance/protocol for the rapid assessment on key knowledge, risk perception, behaviours and social drivers for COVID-19 vaccination among prioritized population and routine immunization at the sub-national level Bi-annual
3. Social and behaviour drivers of COVID-19 vaccination data collected and analysed at the sub-national/community level Minimum once per every three months
4. Sharing session on the key findings from the rapid assessment conducted and submission of the assessment report to MOH/RHB and UNICEF
5. Submission of meeting minutes on the coordination meetings Bi-weekly
6. Submission of pretesting results on different communication materials in local languages After developing IEC materials
7. Messages and camera-ready materials are finalized and endorsed by the MOH/RHB After developing IEC materials
8. Social listening and rumour tracking mechanisms at the regional/sub-national level are functioning Bi-weekly
9. Trainings completed and field monitoring reports provided Monthly
10. Submission of documentation of the demand generation process including lesson learned, good practices and human-interest stories Every three monthly
5. Reporting
The consultant will be directly recruited by third party HR contractor and will report to the EPI team of MOH/RHB in close collaboration with UNICEF ECO SBC Specialist at health section.
6. Payment Modality and Schedule
The fees for this contract shall be paid on monthly basis based on the submission of reports/documents against the deliverables indicated above.
7. Expected background and Experience
The consultant must meet the following criteria
• University degree in social science, public health, sociology, anthropology, psychology, communication for development/Social and behavioral change communication or relevant fields
• Minimum of three years of relevant C4D/SBCC experiences in immunization or health sectors in Ethiopia
• In-depth understanding of Ethiopian communities and key stakeholders at national and regional levels
• Capacity in the designing, planning, monitoring, evaluation, training and skills-transfer of participatory governance in social and behavior change communication interventions
• Excellent communication skills with fluent English, Amharic Afan Oromo (in Oromia) language
• Proven ability to work effectively with government and multi-stakeholders
• Experience in generating evidence around social and behaviors around health practices
• Capacity in documentation of best practices and lesson learned around SBCC/C4D interventions and collection of human-interest stories from the field
• Language skills: Amharic, English and regional languages would be an asset.
• Other Skills: Computer literacy with proficient in use of Microsoft Office applications, and statistical software
Suitable candidate: Excellent facilitation, organizational and analytical skills. Excellent inter-personal skills. Ability to write in a clear and concise manner and to present information in Word and PowerPoint formats. Ability to manage and analyze basic data in Excel and produce charts/graphs. Basic familiarity with WHO, UNICEF and bilateral agency work in support of vaccination programs and implementation and their practices and procedures. Strong interpersonal skills and work effectively with people at all levels.
Desirable: Previous experience working with MOH/RHB, UNICEF or UN agencies. Familiarity or experience with immunization program will be an asset.
• The consultant will not work from UNICEF office, rather work from MOH/RHB.
• The consultant should use his/her own materials, i.e. computer, mobile phone, internet, printer, etc.
• The consultant will use rented car, when needed (provide by the ABH Oartners Plc
• The consultant will be paid monthly upon completion of deliverables as indicated on this TOR and approved by the supervisor on monthly basis through the ABH Partners Plc.
Policy both parties should be aware of:
• ABH Partners Plc. will manage all the administrative issues and aspects based on the HR’ policies and procedures.
• All remuneration must be within the contract agreement through the third-party ABH Partners Plc.
• No contract may commence unless the contract is signed by both ABH Partners Plc. and the consultant.
• Travel will be facilitated after travel request approved by the consultant’s supervisor and managed by the ABH Partners Plc.
• Consultants will not have supervisory