Multi-Country Learning Consultant: Adolescent- and Gender-Responsive Health Systems At Save the Children – US

Support for multi-country learning on adolescent- and gender-responsive health systems

Period of Engagement: We anticipate the consultancy will take approximately 24 days over the period of five months from April 2024 to September 2024.

Location: Remote

Background:

Moving Integrated, Quality Maternal, Newborn, Child Health and Family Planning and Reproductive Health (MNCH/FP/RH) Services to Scale (MOMENTUM) Country and Global Leadership is a global project funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to provide targeted MNCH/FP/RH technical and capacity development assistance (TCDA) to countries to facilitate countries’ journeys to sustainable development. MOMENTUM Country and Global Leadership also aims to contribute to global technical leadership and learning, and USAID’s policy dialogue for achievement of global MNCH/FP/RH goals through support to globally endorsed MNCH/FP/RH initiatives, strategies, frameworks, guidelines, and action plans.

This consultancy will be hired and managed through Save the Children US, in support of the organization’s adolescent health portfolio on MOMENTUM Country and Global Leadership. The consultant will support a multi-country research and documentation activity to capture the learning from MOMENTUM’s effort to advance adolescent- and gender-responsive health systems across 3-4 countries. The consultant will be a thought partner to the activity leadership team, review existing evidence and synthesize learnings, and lead the development of a research protocol for new data collection. We envision the research will answer three learning questions, noted below in draft, and will draw from a combination of existing implementation research findings and new data to be collected after ethical review and approval.

Draft research questions (subject to change in discussion with the consultant and broader team)

1. What was the process of implementing the adolescent- and gender-responsive health systems assessment across multiple countries? What were the similarities, differences, opportunities, and challenges?
2. What actions were prioritized in the responsive systems assessments across multiple countries? What happened next? Were actions taken, if so, which ones? If not, why not?
3. How did the attitudes, behaviors, and actions of the youth and ministry of health officials involved in the adolescent- and gender-responsive health systems assessment process change during and after the process?

Description of Services

The consultant will:

1. Draft multi-country research protocol and research tools (14 days)
   • Engage with activity team to understand research intentions, propose creative research methodologies.
   • Develop global research protocol and tools.
   • Revise research protocol and tools through a process of review and revision (2 rounds of review and revision within activity team expected)
   • Develop three country-specific ethical review board protocols and application packages in partnership with MOMENTUM staff and points of contact in each country and adhering to country-specific ethical review board guidance.
2. Respond to any requested changes from the ethical review process in collaboration with activity team. (4 days)
3. Using existing data and learning already gathered by MOMENTUM, draw out the information needed to respond to the research questions. Prepare synthesized findings in a format that could be used for a manuscript. (6 days)

In summary, the following deliverables are expected from the consultant:

1. Protocols and other required documents for submission to ethical review bodies in the US and at country level.
2. Synthesized information pulling from existing implementation research data in response to research questions.

Management of Consultancy

The consultant’s main point of contact and supervisor will be Callie Simon, MOMENTUM Country and Global Leadership Youth Lead. The consultant will also work closely with the activity’s Monitoring, Evaluation, and Research Lead, Ben Stephens (Save the Children), as well as the activity’s Gender Lead, Elizabeth Arlotti-Parish (Jhpiego).

Consultant Qualifications

• Minimum of a Master’s degree in Public Health, Health Sciences, Social Sciences, Anthropology, or relevant field.
• At least 5 years of experience working in adolescents sexual and reproductive health and gender, including familiarity with health systems strengthening.
• Demonstrated experience developing research protocols for ethical review by university institutional review boards in the USA and university or national ethical review committees in Africa and/or Latin America.
• Demonstrated experience developing peer reviewed publications.
• Demonstrated experience using both quantitative and qualitative research methods; ideally experience with implementation learning methods, such as after-action reviews, most significant change, outcome harvesting, and pulse polls.
• Familiarity working with global USAID-funded projects, including core-funded activities.
• Excellent English oral and written communication skills.
• Oral and written Spanish language skills preferred.
• Ability to produce high quality work efficiently and effectively under tight timeframes.