CONSULTANT - Malaria Data Management across the Health Management Information Systems

1. Purpose of the consultancy

Please briefly describe why the work is needed and the context.

Sub-Saharan Africa remains the home of malaria, and it is a significant health and development challenge. It accounts for an average annual reduction of 1.3% in economic growth in high endemic countries of Africa. Overall, the WHO African Region accounted for 95% of all malaria cases and 96% of all malaria deaths in 2021. During the period between 2000 – 2015, the WHO-AFRO region witnessed some progress in malaria control with a decline in mortality of 66% and a halving of malaria prevalence and incidence in children aged 2–10 years². After this period of unprecedented success, progress in reducing the global malaria burden has stalled. In the African region, only 9 countries met the Global Technical Strategy (GTS) 2020 milestone, and we are not on track to meet milestones for Malaria mortality and morbidity for 2025 at global level.

Maintaining strong country program leadership, political commitment, technical capacity and engendering partnership and coordination including the private sector and community engagement continue to be critical to achieving set goals. WHO-AFRO with its partners in malaria has continued to work with countries to strengthen evidence-based malaria programme environment, in the face of ever-dwindling external resources that have hitherto, sustained the malaria control and elimination efforts.

It is against this backdrop the WHO regional office for Africa seeks to update its roster of international consultants with requisite skills in specific relevant technical areas to provide additional surge capacities as may be needed.

The renewed emphasis on strengthening Malaria Surveillance Capacity across a broad spectrum of transmission settings (from high to very low) and health system context as a critical pathway to the attainment of malaria strategic goals as articulated in the 2015-30 Malaria GTS cannot be overemphasized. An important component of capacity strengthening efforts relates to improving the efficiencies of Malaria Data Management across the Health Management Information Systems, and promoting data use for action across levels of malaria programmes.

The Consultancy roster provides a prequalified list of consultants with relevant competencies and experience in information systems development and offers the required flexibilities to support multiple streams of work being implemented under the supervision of the WHO–AFRO malaria team. The prequalification will also allow for rapid selection and deployment of a technical resource as required supporting activities related to Malaria Data Management across levels of Health Information Systems.

The purpose of this consultancy is to to ensure that member states are adequately supported, and also appropriate guidance provided in the adoption and implementation of malaria chemoprevention interventions

Objectives:

The overall objective is to ensure that member states are adequately supported, and also appropriate guidance provided quality data management and use for decision making and specifically:

The specific objectives are as follows:

1. To support the development of modern data systems, guidelines and tools in line with the National health management information system of member states.
2. To strengthen the capacity of the MoH and national malaria programs in members states to use innovation data collection and analytic tools
3. To support the evaluation and improvement of malaria data quality in the public and private sectors as well as at community level
4. To facilitate the elaboration and dissemination of reports, epidemiological bulletins on malaria within the African region

Organizational Context

Under the overall supervision of the Communicable and Non-communicable Diseases (UCN) Director and in collaboration with the TVD Team Leader, the primary supervisor shall be the Multi-country assignment team (MCAT) focal point in the sub-region for activities to be carried out within respective sub-regions and the second contact point at AFRO office as designated by UCN Director and TVD Team Leader.

2. Description of duties

Outline clear tasks and deliverables, to be carried out in the framework of the background described above.

These need to be time-bound and specific.

Summary of Assigned Duties:

Under the overall supervision of the Communicable and Non-communicable Diseases (UCN) Director and in collaboration with the TVD Team Leader, the primary supervisor shall be the Multi-country assignment team (MCAT) focal point in the sub-region for activities to be carried out within respective sub-regions and the second contact point at AFRO office as designated by UCN Director and TVD Team Leader. The consultant will perform the following tasks:

1. Work with Malaria Technical Officers and MCAT focal points to provide onsite technical assistance to Ministries of health (MOHs) with regards to routine data management, including data extraction, transformation and cleaning using DHIS2 software or other HMIS platform to ensure completeness and quality data.
2. Support the development of an electronic platform to effectively integrate data management of malaria with other health and related data sources, in alignment with WHO’s guidance on digital health
3. With guidance from appropriate team leads, build new components of database data collection and aggregation tools using any scripting languages including R, VBA, Python or Java.
4. Report any errors identified during data review to appropriate team members and assist in resolving issues
5. To generate/update pivot tables and charts of the indicators of interest for routine monitoring purposes as well as ad hoc requests
6. To run basic, descriptive data analyses and create/update information product including standard graphs and maps
7. To contribute to the development of malaria bulletin or report following WHO Surveillance guidelines.
8. Maintain master copies of data collection forms (ensuring accurate updating as needed) and supporting documentation for data management system in electronic venue accessible to relevant teams
9. Facilitate hands-on field exercises
10. Perform other related tasks as needed

Deliverables

The work will encompass:

• Participation in Malaria Surveillance and information system quality audits and assessments
• Developing/updating malaria data repository
• Support risk stratification exercises and evidence based subnational tailoring of interventions;
• Field visits to districts and interaction with the Malaria HMIS Focal Points;
• Support the introduction and use of digitalized data management systems both for routine and campaign interventions.
• Participation in the Malaria data validation at selected district level and/or at national level - Analysis and interpretation of existing available data in collaboration with MOH.
• Capacity building in using pivot table (Excel and DHIS2) for data analysis at national level and/or Subnational level
• Report writing and or developing epidemiological malaria bulletins
• Engage national authorities and other stakeholders on key action points to be addressed for the containment of ongoing upsurge.

The deliverables will include:

• Reports of field visits to the affected district and other activity reports
• Minutes of meetings with national authorities, key partners and other stakeholders

3. Qualifications, experience, skills and languages

Identify the educational qualifications and expertise needed for the terms of reference outlined above.

Educational Qualifications

Essential:

• University degree in Information Systems management or Public Health or health-related field. (Bachelor’s degree in Health Informatics, Computer Science, Biostatistics, or related fields)

Desirable:

• Diploma in relevant IT related field such as Database Management and Monitoring, Evaluation & Surveillance

Experiences

• Essential: At least five (5) years of experience in malaria data management or infectious disease surveillance, epidemic preparedness and response and data management
• Five years of experience in management and utilization of program data (preferably public health related programming) for decision-making
• Experience working with National Malaria Programmes
• Working experience with WHO will be an asset

Skills

• Strong knowledge of the principles and practices of communicable disease epidemiology with specific experience in malaria surveillance and data management;
• Proven experience in the management of health-related data, DHIS2 or HIMS;
• Proven experience in using Business Intelligence tools like PowerBI or Tableau Software, SQL Server Reporting (SSR) tools
• Proven skills in using advanced Excel for data management
• Proven experience in working on malaria surveillance in moderate or low transmission settings
• Proven skills and knowledge in automating data ETL (extract, transform, load) using either SQ or any scripting languages including R, Java, VBA or Python; - Presentation skills and competencies in communication

Competencies:

Candidate should be able to:

1. Produce results
2. Communicate in a credible and effective way
3. Ensure effective use of resources
4. Move forward in a changing environment
5. Respect and promote individual and cultural differences; building and promoting partnerships across the organization and beyond.

Languages and level required

• The with proficiency at expert level in either English, French or Portuguese
• Good working knowledge of the second international language considered an added advantage.

4. Travel - If travel is involved, full medical clearance is required

Please specify any expected travel(s): dates, location and purpose.

A living expense is payable to on-site consultants – please refer to Information Note 08/2019 for details on eligibility.

Place of assignment: WHO Regional Office, Brazzaville, Republic of Congo

7. Remuneration and budget (travel costs excluded)

Rate [daily or monthly or for language and publishing services by word count or number of pages]:

Proposed level: P3 based on qualification and experience.

Currency:

United States Dollars (USD)

Work schedule (if applicable) :

Please refer to Information Note 09/2021 for guidance on rates for consultants.