National consultant: Maternal & Perinatal Death Surveillance and Response Vacancy at UNICEF

UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential.

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone.

And we never give up.

For every child, Health

Despite significant efforts and investments, maternal and perinatal mortality continues to challenge the Tanzanian healthcare system. The country is far from realizing the 2030 SDG 3, with the maternal mortality ratio and neonatal mortality rate standing at 238 per 100,000 live births and 24 per 1,000 live births, respectively.

Maternal & perinatal death Surveillance and response (MPDSR) is a globally promoted intervention to address preventable maternal mortality through a continuous surveillance, review and action cycle. Interpretation of collated reports is used for recommending measures that will prevent future deaths at different levels of the health system.

Tanzania implements MPDSR at the national and sub-national levels in line with the global and national guidance stipulated in One Plan III. Its implementation has evolved from focusing on maternal deaths only – MDSR – to also include perinatal deaths – MPDSR. As a country, a lot of gains have been achieved, including the adaptation of the WHO guideline, national-level commitment to MNH, roll out and implementation at the facility level.

While annual reports offer insight on the progress of MPDSR nationally, there are remaining limitations and areas for improvement to realize the full potential of MPDSR. One such area is the lack of a unified MPDSR repository and dashboard to enable reports to be collected and collated systematically. The Ministry of Health depends on the daily manual reporting of maternal and perinatal death from each region to obtain national-level MPDSR data. Cognizant of this challenge, UNICEF seeks to engage a consultant to collate and produce a report of all MPDSR data collected in 2022. In addition, this report will also outline the functionality of the existing reporting and response mechanisms, to identify areas for improvement and alignment with other existing systems such as CRVS/death registration, supportive supervision, quality improvement/work improvement teams and health facility planning

How can you make a difference?

To provide technical assistance to the government in producing the 2022 annual MPDSR report, outlining analyses of available data, including GIS mapping of high mortality burden facilities, and an assessment of the functionality of the reporting and response mechanisms.

SCOPE OF WORK

1. Design methodology and time frame for assignment, including data collection/extraction forms, interview guide and approach to analysis, including GIS analysis, and report writing

2. Data collection

a. Work closely with the Ministry of Health, Reproductive, Child and Adolescent Health Department to collate all available MPDSR reports from January 1st to December 31st, 2022.

b. Conduct key informant interviews (KII) at national, regional and district level through a purposive sampling technique: 3 KII at national level, 6 KII at regional level (RMO and RRCHCo) across 3 regions and 12 at district level (DMO and DRCHCo) across 6 districts.

3. Data analysis

a. Quantitative data analysis of collated MPDSR data

b. GIS analysis of high burden facilities

c. Qualitative data of narrative MPDSR reports and of Key informant interviews

4. Report writing

a. Draft the MPDSR annual report 2022

b. Present to MoH and RMNCAH stakeholders

c. Review report following comments

5. Final presentation of MPDSR report 2022

National consultant: Maternal & Perinatal Death Surveillance and Response Vacancy at UNICEF

DELIVERABLES

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…

• Advanced degree (master’s or MMed) in public health, maternal and newborn health, quality of care, epidemiology or other relevant field
• 8-10 years of experience of working in RMNCAH programmes
• Experience in stakeholder engagement and communication at both, national and sub-national
• Experience in report writing
• Experience in data analysis of both quantitative and qualitative data
• Experience in GIS analysis
• Experience of working in MPDSR is an added advantage
• Fluency in written and spoken English is required
• Proficiency in Swahili is an asset

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, Accountability, and Sustainability (CRITAS).

To view our competency framework, please visit  here.

UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most disadvantaged children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, or any other personal characteristic.

UNICEF offers reasonable accommodation for consultants/individual contractors with disabilities. This may include, for example, accessible software, travel assistance for missions or personal attendants. We encourage you to disclose your disability during your application in case you need reasonable accommodation during the selection process and afterwards in your assignment.

UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.

Remarks: 

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.

Individuals engaged under a consultancy or individual contract will not be considered “staff members” under the Staff Regulations and Rules of the United Nations and UNICEF’s policies and procedures, and will not be entitled to benefits provided therein (such as leave entitlements and medical insurance coverage). Their conditions of service will be governed by their contract and the General Conditions of Contracts for the Services of Consultants and Individual Contractors. Consultants and individual contractors are responsible for determining their tax liabilities and for the payment of any taxes and/or duties, in accordance with local or other applicable laws.

The selected candidate is solely responsible to ensure that the visa (applicable) and health insurance required to perform the duties of the contract are valid for the entire period of the contract. Selected candidates are subject to confirmation of fully-vaccinated status against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) with a World Health Organization (WHO)-endorsed vaccine, which must be met prior to taking up the assignment. It does not apply to consultants who will work remotely and are not expected to work on or visit UNICEF premises, programme delivery locations or directly interact with communities UNICEF works with, nor to travel to perform functions for UNICEF for the duration of their consultancy contracts.