November 3rd, 2021 at 10:56 pm
Background
Job Description
People for Health (P4H) is a USAID-funded project (2016 to 2021). The project is being implemented in 20 selected districts in the Northern, Eastern, Volta, and Greater Accra regions of Ghana.
The implementation started in 15 districts in the Northern, Eastern, and Greater Accra regions in the first two years (2017 – 2018) and the remaining 5 districts in Volta Region in 2018. P4H is implemented by a consortium led by SEND-Ghana and including Penplusbytes and the Ghana News Agency (GNA).
The goal is to strengthen the organizational and institutional capacities of both government and civil society for mutual accountability in family planning, maternal, newborn, and child health, nutrition, water, sanitation and hygiene, HIV/AIDS services for key populations, malaria prevention, and treatment, and related interventions to improve the management and performance of health systems that support these services.
P4H aims to reduce inequities in the delivery of health services through the promotion of good governance practices of accountability, transparency, equity, and participation.
The specific objectives are:
- To increase the capacity of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) to effectively advocate on key issues in the health and HIV sectors to mobilize and empower communities to demand better and equitable service delivery to strengthen CSOs demand for accountability, compliance, and equitable service delivery.
- The approach for achieving these objectives is enhanced social accountability, which blends SENDs tried and tested Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation framework (PM&E) with consortium members’ methodologies.]
- These are innovative technological approaches to increase citizens’ voices to demand and champion improved access to quality health services.
- The project works through CSOs and government partnerships at the community, district, regional, and national levels.
Rationale and Purpose of Evaluation
- To carry out an overall assessment of the performance of the project in accomplishing the outcomes against each stated objective.
- To assess the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, and sustainability of project strategies and activities.
- To identify, analyze and document key lessons learned, best practices and make recommendations for improvement of the P4H model to foster equity in Ghana ‘s health planning and delivery system
Scope of Work
The evaluation will be conducted between December 2021 and January 2022 covering the entire project lifespan.
It will be guided by the outcome statements in the Activity Monitoring and Evaluation Plan (AMEP). The assessment will cover 12 out of the 20 operational districts in all 6 P4H regions and from 40 out of 100 catchment communities.
The sampling of the communities will however be informed by the specific activities implemented in each region.
For instance, all HIV and AIDS and key population (KP) sensitization and advocacy actions were implemented only in 10 districts in the Eastern and Greater Accra regions and during the initial 2 years of the project.
Activities implemented with the community structures – e.g., community health management committees(CHMCs) water and sanitation management teams (WSMTs) occurred in 58 communities during the last 3 years of the project.
Technical areas addressed with these community structures were: malaria, WASH, maternal and child health(MCH), nutrition, family planning, national health insurance scheme (NHIS), patients’ charter, and code of ethics for health workers.
Implementation strategies to be assessed include the four stages of the PM&E (i.e., policy literacy, evidence gathering policy dialogue, and responsiveness), digital technologies (use of the dashboard), and communication tools (poster, leaflet, radio station, community centers).
The evaluation will include cross-cutting themes such as gender equality and equity throughout the process.
The evaluation exercise will engage the following stakeholders
National stakeholders: National Health Insurance Authority (NHIS), Ghana Federation of Disabled Organizations (Communication Officer), National Association of Persons (NAP+) living HIV&AID
District stakeholders: District Focal NGOs/Focal Persons, District Citizen Monitoring Committees, District Health Management Team, District Assemblies, Planning and Budget Officers
Community stakeholder: Community-based Health Planning Services (CHPS), Community Health Management Committee (CHMC), Water and Sanitation Management Teams (WSMTs), Key population, e.g. Persons Living with HIV and others.
Target beneficiaries refer to pregnant women, breastfeeding mothers, adolescent boys and girls, under-fives, elderly, PLHIV, and PWD
Evaluation Questions
To analytically address the evaluation objectives, the exercise will be guided by structured questions modeled around the OECD DAC evaluation criteria: relevance, effectiveness, and efficiency to be followed by sustainability and lessons learned
Relevance of the implementation of P4H
The broad evaluation questions are to what extent :
- The overarching methodologies and strategies (SEND’s PM&E and PBB digital technologies) were suitable in addressing the identified needs of the stakeholders, target groups, and beneficiaries?
- Were PM&E and digital technologies implementation appropriate for the realization of the project’s stated priorities and outcomes?
- Did the project activities meet the needs of the key stakeholders, target groups and beneficiaries presented above?
- Was the consortium approach relevant to responding to the objectives?
Effectiveness of the implementation of P4H
To what extent:
- Did the project deliver on each objective and expected outcome?
- What factors contributed to, or prevented the achievement of the P4H outcomes and objectives?
- Were the P4H thematic and technical areas: HIV, malaria, nutrition, family planning, NHIS, maternal and child health (MCH), and Water and sanitation (WASH) addressed?
- Did the implementation strengthen CHPS capacity to deliver on their mandate to provide quality health care including MCH, family planning, and nutrition education to their catchment communities?
- Did the implementation improve the access of the target groups and beneficiaries to the NHIS?
- Did the digital technology (i.e., the dashboard) deliver on its stated purpose in the project design to empower the stakeholders to collaboratively make health planning and implementation equitable to the benefit of the target groups and beneficiaries?
Efficiency of the implementation of P4H
To what extent
- Did the management arrangements of the consortium between the prime and sub-awardees and within each consortium member contribute to the attainment of the outcomes?
- Did the different implementation partnerships agreements involving national, regional, and district stakeholders achieve their stated purposes and also identify and document strengths, weaknesses, and challenges?
- Did the monitoring and evaluation system add value to the implementation and what were the strengths, weaknesses, and challenges?
Sustainability of P4H
Broad evaluation questions are:
- How were the capacities of the following structures and groups were strengthened to deliver creatively on their mandates and purposes long after the P4H and they are CHPS and CHMC, FNGOs and DCMC; PLHIV and KP groups; WATSANs committees, F4FG?
- What is the potential for the sustainability of the P4H dashboard and whether stakeholders and target groups will continue to use the ICT skills acquired to increase their participation in health planning and delivery?
- What P4H policy changes are likely to be maintained and adopted by the District Assemblies?
Lessons learned and recommendations
To identify and describe key lessons learned focusing on the project: design, objectives, outcomes, and implementation strategies including the consortium approach.
The end of project recommendations should among others, highlight any potential for replicating or scaling up the P4H implementation model to promote equitable health planning and delivery in Ghana and also what happens to the P4H dashboard
Evaluation Methodology
The consultant will develop an evaluation operational plan to be discussed and approved with the project team.
The selected methodologies will ultimately be guided by the evaluation purpose.
Consistent with P4H orientation, the assessment will adopt a mix of participatory tools (e.g., literature review, focused groups discussion, key informant interview, and survey) to appraise the existing and gather new quantitative and qualitative data to answer the evaluation questions stated above.
Categories of documents and tools to support the evaluation exercise include:
Document review:
These documents will be reviewed by the consultant to help in the selection of the most appropriate methodologies and the development of the evaluation tools.
They are the P4H technical proposal, Activity Monitoring and Evaluation Plan (AMEP), baseline report, annual work plans; quarterly and annual, Bi-weekly Reports; success stories compendium, P4H newsletters, Local Capacity Initiative (LCI) evaluation report of P4H, and PM&E survey reports.
The quantitative and qualitative tools development: the consultant working with the P4H M&E team will design and develop appropriate sampling technique/process, the sample size, selection criteria, and data collection tools, data management, and quality check document.
The qualitative tools may include: key informant interviews and focus group discussions.
Evaluation Products and Timelines
Inception Report:
The consultant will prepare and submit an inception report in English detailing how she/he understands the ToR.
The report must outline an understanding of the context and level of complexity of the P4H project, the evaluation design, sampling methods to be used and questions to be answered, and a detailed work plan for the entire exercise.
Draft questionnaires, qualitative tools/instruments, and other data collection tools will be submitted to the P4H M&E team for review and approval before data collection starts.
As part of the inception report, the consultant must provide a data analysis plan showing the questions and analysis for each of the project indicators to be investigated.
This will be delivered in the first week of December 2021.
Preliminary Evaluation Report:
The consultant will submit a draft evaluation report in English to the P4H. The draft report will be reviewed and comments provided on the report within a week of submission. Time (7th January 2022)
Final Evaluation Report:
The consultant will submit a detailed final report with annexes in English. The structure of the report will be agreed on with SEND programme team. Time (20th January 2022)
Budget
The consultant will develop and submit a detailed budget and work plan based on the details in the TOR.
Required Skills or Experience
Consultant selection criteria
- The lead consultant for this assignment must have a strong background and experience in Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) advocacy interventions evaluation. The consultant key qualifications and skills should include the following:
- Demonstrable experience (at least 5 years) in evaluating health-related advocacy interventions to improve health outcomes (i.e., in malaria, nutrition, maternal and child health, HIV and AIDS, WASH) for underserved population
- Prior experience in and/or familiarity with grassroots CSOs operations
- Experience in multi-methodological and interdisciplinary approaches and data collection and analysis techniques in the evaluation of development programmes.
- Appreciable understanding of complexity responsive evaluation
- Ability to conduct high quality and credible research, meet deadlines and respond to requests and feedback provided timely and appropriately
- Able to design and conduct quantitative and qualitative research, analysis, and evaluation
- Demonstrable experience evaluating USAID funded projects
- Health sector governance specialists will be an asset
How To Apply
Format for Submission of Proposals
Expressions of interest are welcome from both individual consultants and groups of consultants.
The consultant is expected to submit technical and financial proposals, separately comprising the following components:
- Cover letter
- CVs of the consultant (team leader and members of the evaluation team)
- Samples of recent end of project evaluation reports
- Proposal (technical and budget) with suggested elements such as: an overview of the methodology, proposed work plan, and budget (with a breakdown of costs for professional and field costs associated with primary data collection
- Dates of availability for fieldwork.
- Deadline for submission of Proposals
Medium Of Application
Applications should be submitted electronically to SEND GHANA using the e-mail address: career@sendwestafrica.org.
Application Closing Date
Submission and review of the application are on a rolling basis until 25th November 2021.
For Technical concerns and clarification, please, contact SEND GHANA through this email (anane@sendwestafrica.org).