Consultancy: Quality Improvement for Maternal, Newborn, and Adolescent Health

The Young Child Survival Development (YCSD) Section, UNICEF East Asia and Pacific Regional Office (EAPRO) is seeking an individual consultant to develop and strategically disseminate country specific policy briefs for equitable and quality maternal and early essential newborn cares as well as gender-responsive adolescent health, based on robust analysis on the current coverage and quality improvement initiatives in the region as well as the ongoing EAPRO’s gender responsive adolescent health assessment; and to provide follow up technical advices by using the policy briefs, undertaking the assessment and using the results and other effective resources to UNICEF priority country offices and their partners.

If you are a committed, creative professional and are passionate about making a lasting difference for children, the world's leading children's rights organization would like to hear from you.

For 70 years, UNICEF has been working on the ground in 190 countries and territories to promote children's survival, protection and development. The world's largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments.

Background:

Maternal and Neonatal health situation: In the UNICEF East Asia and Pacific region, more children are surviving to their fifth birthdays than ever before. In 2015 alone, however, still 538,000 children in the region died before the age of five. Of these deaths, more than 270,000 (50.2%) occurred in the first 28 days of a child’s life - during the neonatal period. These deaths were concentrated among the poorest, most marginalized, hard-to-reach and emerging urban poor population. Most of the 270,000 neonatal deaths in the region are concentrated in China, Indonesia and Philippines. Lao PDR, Papua New Guinea (PNG), Kiribati and Timor-Leste are the highest under five mortality rate countries in the region.

The majority of newborn death is due to complications of being born too soon (prematurity) or too small (low birth weight), labour (e.g., lack of oxygen around the time of birth – birth asphyxia) and infections (e.g., sepsis, meningitis, pneumonia, and diarrhea). Most of these deaths and conditions could have been prevented or managed, if births were attended by skilled professionals, and quality essential care for mothers and newborns and emergency obstetric care were provided.

Maternal health continues to be a major concern in the East Asia and Pacific region. Every year 18,000 women die due to pregnancy and child birth in the region – most of these deaths are preventable.

Adolescent health: In the new UNICEF Strategic Plan (2017-2021), Gender Responsive Adolescent Health (GRAH) will be identified as one of the key areas of focus. Global and regional consultations are evolving in the organization, as well as among sister UN agencies and partners, to strengthen adolescent health interventions with a gender-responsive approach. The operationalization of the concept “GRAH” however requires careful understanding of the current situation of key adolescent health issues and related gender disparities in health status and outcomes. EAPRO Health section, in close collaboration with EAPRO Gender Section, has conducing a gender-responsive adolescent health analysis in contacting with a Swiss-based research institute, and its results would be available by the end of 2017.

Work Assignment:

Under overall guidance from Regional Advisor for health and with support from the concerned country offices, the consultant will:

• Conduct several structured and semi-structured interviews in collaboration with WHO WPRO/SEARO, UNFPA APRO, and other key development partners to explore needs and perspectives on how a policy brief for quality maternal and essential early newborn care could receive increased political and policy attention and commitment and then facilitate mobilization of continued high-level policy supports and resources.   
• Review available evidenced and data on the economic and social impact of quality maternal, early essential newborn care and adolescent health, and identify gaps in the evidences and possible research agendas/topics that could be addressed (in the process of the development of a policy brief).
• Define data requirements to conduct new analysis, review data availability, and suggest potential approaches to address information gaps.
• Engage with and manage the ongoing EAPRO’s gender responsive adolescent health assessment as a primary contact for the assessment in the section.
• Support to plan, organize and follow up a regional technical review meeting and high level policy advocacy event, in close collaboration with WHO and other key partners, to advocate for investing in quality maternal and early essential new born cares.
• Develop country specific quality improvement road maps with a short policy brief for priority countries by visiting, observing, and discussing with national stakeholders for each country.
• Outline a roll out plan for the introduction and capacity development of the quality improvement road map for each priority country.[1] 
• Develop a country specific policy brief for improving quality of maternal and early essential newborn cares for each priority country.[1]

End Product(s):

Country specific policy briefs (each policy brief would be 2-4 pages) and country[1] report (each report approximately 7-10 pages, including quality improvement roadmap) and summary power point presentation (around 20-25 slides)