• Country: New India, India
• No of vacancies: N/A
  
• Salary: N/A 
• Organization: WHO
• Gender: Both
• Deadline: 2024-02-12

Purpose of consultancy  

To support and collaborate with the Regional office/Member States for development, implementation and evaluation of national policies and strategies which ensure equitable and universal access to quality health care for improving the health, survival and well-being of newborns and children.

Under the overall guidance of the Director, Family Health, Gender and Life-course and direct supervision of the Medical Officer – Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health, the consultant/expert will be expected to carry out time bound assignments in one or more of the following areas related to Newborn and Child Health:

1. Provide technical assistance in the development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the regional or national policy/strategy/action plan aimed at reducing mortality/morbidity and promotion of health and well-being of newborns and children.
2. Technical inputs to implement strategies/actions for improving coverage, quality, equity and measurement of newborn child health programmes at the facility and/or community level as per the WHO guidelines and the Regional Technical Advisory Group Recommendations. This would entail identifying priority problems, developing tools to support implementation (operational guidance/frameworks/indicators/training packages), data triangulation and analysis, conducting implementation research, trainings, assessments, etc.
3. Technical and implementation support for priority programmatic areas such as essential newborn care, care of small and sick newborns including KMC, post-natal care, early childhood development (ECD), management of childhood illnesses, newborn and pediatric death audit, etc; and for introducing new emerging areas such as universal newborn screening, birth defects surveillance/management, integration of mental health & NCDs, risk stratification approach, well-being visits for children, etc.
4. Work together with MOH, WHO and partners in scaling-up newborn and child health programmes with quality in linkages with other areas like including maternal and reproductive health, immunization, nutrition, health promotion, NCD, mental health, primary health care and other relevant WHO programmes.
5. Provide technical and implementation assistance in shaping capacity development and advocacy efforts at the regional and national level through data management and analysis, evidence generation, information and knowledge management and its dissemination in collaboration with the regional/country offices and partners.
6. Provide technical inputs in development of proposals for resource mobilization at regional/country level, cutting across other programme areas towards realizing project objectives

Background 

The World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for South-East Asia (SEARO) provides technical assistance and strategic support to countries to improve RMNCAH programmes with a priority focus on accelerating the reduction of preventable maternal, newborn and child mortality. The region collaborates with the Member States and partners to set the roadmap to accelerate the progress toward the SDG targets by scaling-up coverage of lifesaving interventions with coverage and equity and advocating to keep RMNCAH at the center of Universal Health Coverage. The SDG target for under-5 mortality rate (U5MR) is to reduce to 25 or less per 1000 live births and for neonatal mortality rate (NMR) to reduce to 12 or less per 1000 live births by 2030

Deliverables

Deliverables are specific to individual consultancy and terms of reference.

Qualifications, experience, skills and languages

Educational Qualifications:  

Essential:

• PAY BAND A, B and C requires University degree in medicine, health sciences, public health,  community medicine, population studies or demography from a recognized university
• PAY BAND B and C level assignments require, in addition: Master’s level university degree or above in medical sciences (pediatrics, neonatology, community medicine), public health/community health or population studies/demography from a recognized university.

Desirable:

• Postgraduate degree in pediatrics, neonatology, child health, community health, public health, population studeies or demography.
• Training in the relevant field

Experience 

Essential:

• Pay Band A -: Up to 5 years of experience in the area of specialization, some of which is at the international level
• Pay Band B -: From 5 to 10 years of experience in the area of specialization, some of which is at the international level
• Pay Band C -: Over 10 years of experience in the area of specialization, including considerable experience obtained at the international level.

Desirable:

• Expertise in a specific topic or programmatic area
• Solid experience of developing/implementing/monitoring/evaluation of newborn child health programmes at the national level
• Proven experience of providing technical assistance in a developing country, especially in the SEA Region
• Experience in collecting, collating, analyzing data and producing high quality reports with specific recommendations

Skills/Knowledge:

Essential:

• Sound knowledge of principles of public health and health systems with technical knowledge of Newborn and Child Health
• Knowledge of proposal development, analysis, programme planning, monitoring and evaluation including data analysis
• Demonstrated ability in the establishment of networking with developmental partners
• Excellent communication (oral, written) and presentation skills

Desirable: Excellent knowledge of MS office applications and computer skills including to make high quality technical presentations; use of statistical software (R, Stata, SPSS, etc)

Languages and level required (Basic/Intermediate/Expert):

Essential: Expert knowledge of English with excellent written and verbal communication skills is essential

Desirable: Expert knowledge of Knowledge of regional language(s) would be an asset

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