Consultant, Support to the Service Delivery Assessment Project for Monoclonal Antibodies and Long-Acting Injectables for Malaria

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) is the world’s largest humanitarian network, with 191 member National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. IFRC uses the Triple R – response, resilience and respect – to deliver on Strategy 2030. IFRC responds to disasters and crises, ensuring timely, coordinated and locally led humanitarian action. IFRC supports its members in building community resilience in the areas of climate and environment, health and wellbeing, and migration and displacement. IFRC promotes respect for our fundamental principles of humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity, and universality, including in our work on values, power and inclusion. The IFRC focuses throughout on our core mandate – our raison d’être – of strategic and operational coordination, humanitarian diplomacy, National Society development, and accountability.

IFRC is led by its Secretary General and has its Headquarters in Geneva and five regional offices in Africa (Nairobi); the Americas (Panama); Asia Pacific (Kuala Lumpur); Europe (Budapest); and MENA (Beirut) as well as representation offices, service centres and delegations across the globe.

The IFRC has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment and other forms of harassment, abuse of authority, discrimination, and lack of integrity (including but not limited to financial misconduct). IFRC also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles.

At Geneva level the Health and Care Department focuses on two strategic directions:

1. Health System Strengthening
2. WASH System Strengthening

These two strategic directions are supported by four pillars:

1. Global Health Security
2. Global Health Protection/UHC
3. Global WASH Services
4. Transformative Partnerships

Beginning in the 1990s, the world laid the foundation for a renewed malaria response that contributed to 1.5 billion cases and 7.6 million deaths averted over the past two decades. Between 2000 and 2019, there was a marked reduction in global malaria case incidence and mortality rates:

• The malaria case incidence rate (cases per 1000 population at risk) fell from 80 in 2000 to 57 in 2019, while total malaria cases declined from 238 million in 2000 to 229 million in 2019. In this same period, the population in sub-Saharan Africa, which accounts for more than 90% of the global burden of malaria, increased from 665 million to over 1 billion.
• The mortality incidence rate (deaths per 100 000 population at risk) was reduced from 25 in 2000 to 10 in 2019, while the total number of deaths fell from 736 000 in 2000 to 409 000 in 2019.

Of the estimated 1.5 billion malaria cases and 7.6 million malaria deaths averted globally since 2000, most cases (82%) and deaths (94%) averted were in the African Region, followed by the South-East Asia Region (10% and 3%).

According to the 2023 World Malaria Report, the large disruptions to malaria services during the COVID-19 pandemic drove up malaria incidence and mortality rates at a time when progress against the disease had already stalled. In terms of both malaria cases and deaths, the world is worse off now than before the pandemic. The impacts of extreme weather events, conflict and humanitarian crisis, resource constraints, biological threats, and inequities have impeded recovery. The number of global malaria cases in 2022 was significantly higher than before the pandemic in 2019.

Coverage gaps are an important contributor to non-achievement of the WHO GTS targets, particularly in hard-to-reach, conflict-affect and marginalized communities. While expanded access to WHO-recommended malaria control interventions has played a critical role in reducing the global burden of the disease since 2000, a large proportion of the population at risk of malaria – particularly in the WHO Africa region – continues to lack access to prevention, diagnosis and treatment.

The Gates Foundation has provided funding to the IFRC to assess options for introduction of new chemotherapies for malaria – monoclonal antibodies and long acting injectables. The project focuses on an assessment of existing and potential service delivery channels and strategies for introduction, scale up and feedback on these new interventions in the context of a malaria landscape with limited financial resources. The work will look at trade-offs between interventions based on work done by WHO on sub-national tailoring of interventions based on available data and will also look at the potential roles of community structures, community health workers and community volunteers in new product introduction, monitoring for compliance and adherence and product scale up.

Support on assessment of service delivery channels and strategies for introduction and scale up of new chemotherapies for malaria

• Project planning and coordination (IFRC internal team)
  • Lead maintenance and regular (monthly) updating of project workplan and timeline to ensure the project is delivered on time (before end of 2026)
  • Organize team meetings, national consultant check-ins and donor coordination meetings
  • Support document management, including version control and organization of shared project files and tools
• Tool and framework development
  • Finalize information collection tools with inputs received from the Project Advisory Group (PAG) post field-testing
• Literature and desk review
  • Coordinate input from national consultants and partners to refine review findings and summarize/contextualize what is useful for presentation to national stakeholders (two-pager, PPT – to be decided)
• Support for data collection
  • Interviews with key informants at global/regional level
• Support to national consultants
  • Support follow up on workplan and timeline
  • Support review of project documents (PPT, two-pager, PGI, malaria vaccine review, assessment framework, information collection tools)
  • Support updating and alignment of assessment framework and data collection tools to national context, identify sources of information for information collection
  • Organize weekly check-in calls, including to assess progress against research milestones
  • Establish sharing system for uploads of data and information collected
  • Review data and documents uploaded, discuss areas for follow up with national consultants
• Communication and stakeholder engagement
  • Support coordination (including information exchange and document sharing) between IFRC project team, national consultants, national partners and the PAG
  • Validate findings from national level work with project team, PAG, IFRC cluster offices and other stakeholders and integrate feedback into final deliverables
• Data analysis
  • Develop a standardized data analysis plan for use by the national consultants and based on the final assessment framework and information collection tools (in collaboration with national consultants)
  • Clean, structure and analyze data collected by national consultants and other sources (e.g. global key informant interviews) (in collaboration with national consultants)
  • Execute descriptive and thematic analyses to identify trends, gaps, and patterns (in collaboration with national consultants)
  • Prepare tables, figures, and summary outputs for internal use and donor reporting (in collaboration with national consultants)
• Synthesis and reporting
  • Support the project team on compiling information and developing reports
  • Compilation of global plus in-country findings for validation and analysis
  • Support to donor reporting, including drafting of narrative updates, reports and annexes (or other format as agreed with donor)

Deliverables of the consultancy

The consultant is expected to deliver the following from the consultancy:

1. Final information collection tools (global and national level).

2. Final report and summary for any key informant interviews conducted.

3. Final report and summary for any country-level travel undertaken.

4. Final country reports (in collaboration with national consultants), including full Word document and PPT summary deck, identifying key considerations for introduction and roll out of new malaria chemotherapies.

5. Draft summary of cross-cutting issues arising from global interviews and review of country reports.

Alignment to the IFRC’s Strategy 2030

The consultancy aligns to the Federation’s Strategy 2030 as it supports the achievement of Global Aims:

Global Aim 1: People anticipate, respond to and quickly recover from crisis.

Global Aim 2: People lead safe, health and dignified lives and have opportunities to thrive.

Project objectives and timelines:

Objective #1: Support assessment of existing and new service delivery models for malaria chemotherapies to ensure easy introduction and scale up when products are approved for full deployment.

Desired outcomes: Service delivery models identified that will successfully achieve the objectives and targets set by national stakeholders.

Objective #2: National Societies and IFRC are engaged in health service delivery and potential roles for community health workers and volunteers are identified.

Desired outcomes: Opportunities for IFRC and National Societies for scaled up engagement in health service delivery, particularly introduction of new chemotherapies, are identified.

Support to be provided to the consultant

The consultant will be supported by the Lead, Malaria Programmes, and will work with other malaria team staff, as well as various consultants that work together with the malaria team on a regular basis.

Timelines

The project will be completed in November 2026. The consultant will work virtually with the project team and other consultants as applicable. Travel is planned with the consultancy.

Required

• Minimum master’s degree in applicable field (e.g. research, applied science, public health, etc.)

Required

• Experience with data collection, analysis and reporting, as well as visualization of results for clear communication.
• Proven experience in conducting mixed methods research.

Preferred

• Multi-country experience.

Required

• Proven track record in conducting literature review, interviews, and iterative expert reviews.

Languages

Required

• Fluency in English.

Preferred

• Fluency in French and/or Portuguese in addition to English.

Application Instruction

Please submit your application in English only.

Notes

The consultant will be contracted by the IFRC and the standard contractual terms will apply.