Call for proposal (Evaluation): Digital Health Promotion At Médecins Sans Frontières

MEDICAL HUMANITARIAN CONTEXT

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and its Operational Centre in Brussels (OCB) began using digital health promotion in 2018 to complement its existing health promotion strategies. The initial trials in Southern Africa proved to be promising and the experience provided a value opportunity to learn and refine the Digital Health Promotion Strategy.

Before there was an opportunity to absorb the experience from Southern Africa and fully develop the Digital Health Promotion Strategy, Covid-19 began to change the operational environment. The emergence of the novel virus at the beginning of 2020 saw an escalation of the number of countries in which MSF had emergency operations, including in several contexts that MSF had little or no experience working before. These operations had significant health promotion components and MSF needed to reach people quickly and provide health-related information. Many of the new contexts had the potential for use of social media that is not always the case in the contexts MSF works. At the same time the novel virus introduced significant limitations in terms of person-to-person contact, a willingness from teams to try non-contact approaches. Based on these needs and the positive early pilot projects, MSF chose to significantly upscale its Digital Health Promotion activities in response to Covid-19 and ultimately established a small team at Head Quarters level to provide support to the field teams.

One year on and MSF OCB has implemented numerous campaigns. During 2020 there were 63[1] campaigns in total and were managed in two groups. The first group, 49 small or ‘low coverage’ campaigns carried out autonomously by the teams in Sothern Africa who had conducted the original pilot projects and had the local capacity to operate autonomously. The second group includes larger ‘high coverage’ campaigns in relation to Covid-19 and carried out by field teams with support of the newly established Digital Health Promotion Unit. This group includes 14 campaigns during 2020 and an additional seven during 2021, running between June 1, 2020, and June 1, 2021. These campaigns were designed and implemented by Health Promotion staff in the project locations with support from the Digital Health Promotion Unit and various technical referents including Health Promotion, hygiene, sexual health, vaccination, etc. Each campaign aims to be tailored to the local environment and the project objectives and Health Promotion strategy and utilize different social media platforms including Facebook and WhatsApp.

PURPOSE

This evaluation provides an opportunity to reflect transversally on the experience of implementing digital health promotion in a variety of contexts and capitalising on this experience by identifying what works, why, for who, and under what circumstances.

INTENDED USE

This evaluation is intended to determine how successful the DHP campaigns have been in order to identify examples of good practice and areas of improvement. Based upon the evaluation questions and findings, the evaluators should lead a process of co-creating recommendations which can be used by the Digital Health Promotion Unit and Health Promotion referent and Medical Director to make adaptations at the implementation and strategic level.

EVALUATION QUESTIONS

The following evaluation questions (EQs) are indicative and can be elaborated during the proposal and inception phase of the evaluation in collaboration with the stakeholders.

EQ1: How well did DHP address the most important needs? Was it the right solution in all cases?

EQ2: How well designed and implemented were the various campaigns? Were they appropriately adapted to the specific contexts?

EQ3: What were the results achieved? Were there any unintended outcomes?

EQ4: What worked best in achieving the results, for who, under what conditions and why?

EQ5: Which parts or aspects of the campaigns generated the most valuable outcome for the time, money and effort invested? EXPECTED DELIVERABLES

1. Inception Report

As per SEU standards, after conducting initial document review and preliminary interviews. It will include a detailed evaluation proposal, including methodology.

1. Draft Evaluation Report

As per SEU standards. It will answer to the evaluation questions and will include conclusions, lessons learned and recommendations.

1. Working Session

With the attendance of commissioner and consultation group members. As part of the report writing process, the evaluator will present the findings, collect attendances´ feedbacks and will facilitate discussion on lessons learned.

1. Final Evaluation Report and Presentation

After addressing feedbacks received during the working session and written inputs.

Presentation (remote) to stakeholders within MSF.

1. Other dissemination deliverables

To be defined in a separate dissemination plan.

TOOLS AND METHODOLOGY PROPOSED

In addition to the initial evaluation proposal submitted as a part of the application (see requirement chapter), a detailed evaluation protocol should be prepared by the evaluators during the inception phase. It will include a detailed explanation of proposed methods and its justification based on validated theory. It will be reviewed and validated as a part of the inception phase in coordination with the SEU.

RECOMMENDED DOCUMENTATION

• Strategic documents and guidelines for Health Promotion, Digital Health Promotion, etc.
• Project documents, including log frames, Health Promotion planning, reporting, etc.
• Individual campaign proposals, reports, capitalizations, etc.
• External literature and documentation

PRACTICAL IMPLEMENTATION OF THE EVALUATION

Number of evaluators: One or two

Timing of the evaluation: 1st July 2021 – 29th August 2021

PROFILE/REQUIREMENTS FOR EVALUATOR(S)

The evaluation requires an individual or team of individuals who can demonstrate competencies in the following areas.

Evaluation-related competencies:

• Professional focus – acts ethically, reflectively, enhances and advances professional practice of evaluation.
• Technical focus – applies appropriate evaluation methodology.
• Situational focus – considers and analyses evaluation context successfully.
• Management focus – conducts and manages evaluation projects skillfully.
• Communication focus – interacts and communicates successfully with stakeholders.

Context-specific competencies:

• Humanitarian context – incorporates and acts according to the humanitarian principles.
• Organisational context – upholds the principles and values of MSF.

Subject-specific competencies:

• Results-based management – applies management principles, theory of change/logical framework for program analysis.
• Digital technology – applies appropriate technical solutions to problems.
• Health promotion – knowledge and understanding of health promotion.
• Behavioural change – ability to apply theories of behavioural change in evaluation practice.

[1] Medical Activity Report