Consultant, GIRL-H SRHR at Mercy Corps Nigeria

Mercy Corps is a leading global organization powered by the belief that a better world is possible. In disaster, in hardship, in more than 40 countries around the world, we partner to put bold solutions into action - helping people triumph over adversity and build stronger communities from within, now, and for the future.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Consultant, GIRL-H SRHR

Location: Kano
Firm or Individual: Individual
Program: GIRL- H SRHR
Duration: From: February 2023 To: July 2023

Program Overview

• Girls Improving Resilience through Livelihoods and Health (GIRL-H) is a Mercy Corps program targeting adolescent girls and boys, aged 10 to 24 years, in Kenya, Uganda, and Nigeria. The program aims to improve girls’ well-being by increasing their access to and uptake of life skills, health information, basic numeracy and literacy, and financial literacy, as well as to foster pathways to formal education, economic opportunities and civic engagement.
• The Sexual Reproductive Health and rights component is embedded within the GIRL-H program to create an enabling environment by working with communities to transform unhealthy social norms and increase access to SRHR knowledge, products and services.
• The GIRL-H SRHR program relies on Family Planning 2020, National Youth Policy, National Health Promotion Policy, Health Sector Strategic Plan, and The National Action Plan for Advancing the Health and Development of Young people in Nigeria which calls for the integration of Adolescent & Youth Friendly Health Services (AYFHS) into the Primary Health Centre (PHC) system as one of the important ways for improving the access of young people to appropriate youth friendly SRH services. In Nigeria, this SRHR intervention will run from October 2022 to July 2023 alongside the core GIRL-H program on livelihood and resilience.

Goal:

• To ensure that the adolescent and young people’s wellbeing is improved in Nigeria

Objectives of the Project
The objectives of the GIRL-H SRHR program include:

• Increase awareness and knowledge on SRHR services and products among the participants
• Create an enabling environment where adolescents and young people can freely access SRHR services and products
• Increase the uptake of SRHR services and products among adolescents and young people aged 10-24 years

Targets:

• 5,000 adolescents and young people aged 10 – 24 years.
• 500 community health workers

Purpose of Engagement
SRHR Program Components:

• To address these issues, GIRL-H will use the Socio-Ecological model as its fundamental foundational approach. In addition, the SRHR implementation will integrate various strategies such as Advocacy, Community Engagement, Capacity building, outreach services, and research for a flexible approach to meet differing youth needs. The following diagram explains the different outcome level of the program. 

Through this consultancy, GIRL- H seeks to engage a consultant who will work to manage selected and agreed program activities, ensuring program deliverables are implemented to meet the agreed scopes of work and contracting arrangements, as well as donor requirements for proof of impact results across GIRL- H SRHR activities.

Scope of Work

• The adolescent and youth sexual and reproductive health and rights (AYSRHR) Consultant supports technical strategy, program design, implementation, monitoring, evaluation & learning (MEL) and ensures technical quality of GIRL-H’s SRHR programs and projects. They should be passionate about expanding sexual and reproductive health and rights to young people in Kano.
• They will work closely with the GIRL-H Program Manager, State Program Officers and MEL Officer and partners to support the SRHR programming. The position will play a key role in advancing GIRL-H’s SRHR strategy and support the design, implementation and evaluation of programs. The Consultancy position requires someone with sound technical knowledge, an appetite for learning and collaborating, and solid programmatic experience. The Consultant will directly contribute to business development by supporting proposal development, donor engagement, and/or advocacy related to resource mobilization.
• Driving technical excellence: Supports Kano teams to develop, implement, monitor and evaluate SRHR programs that are solidly grounded in meaningful youth engagement. Review Mercy Corps SRHR curriculum with MoH and PHCB and gain approvals to utilize the curriculum in training adolescents and young people in the state by Health Mentors.
• Resource Mobilization: Ensure health mentors and supervisors are mobilized from the community and trained to use the Mercy Corps SRHR curriculum to disseminate SRHR information to adolescents and young people for a period of 12 weeks in there safe space groups.
• Collaborations: Lead and drive partnership engagements between Mercy Corps and other development agencies, private sectors and government MDAs for implementation at scale especially towards outreach interventions and community engagements.
• Strengthening SRHR programming: Identify, engage, and provide technical assistance to build the SRHR capacity of state teams, program partners, government partners and local institutions. Keeps abreast of the latest evidence on AYSRHR (and adolescent and youth empowerment, as needed) and disseminate across the organization and externally. Support the GIRL-H Program Manager in advocacy and maintenance of effective partnerships with the relevant departments of the state and local Government to elevate GIRL-H SRHR objectives.
• Resource Development: Works with the GIRL-H program Manager, Program Management Unit, Technical Support Unit and GIRL-H team to develop, review, and roll out tools, resources and trainings to improve SRHR programming. Lead the development of training manuals, safe space guide, program tools, and Information, Education, and Communication (IEC) materials; facilitate GIRL-H SRHR related training for SRHR safe space mentors.
• Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL): Works closely with MEL team to monitor and evaluate SRHR program/services impact , capture performance and results and promotes the use of data for decision-making to strengthen programs
• Reporting and Communications: Provides accurate and timely reporting, data collection and updates on the SRHR programs’ progress and difficulties. Identify and document best practices, lessons learnt and success stories in the GIRL-H SRHR program.
• Engagement: Supports GIRL-H Program Manager, PMU and state level team to cultivate and strengthen positive, productive relationships with donors, partners, Ministry of Health and other governmental agencies so that GIRL-H is achieving SRHR targets. Represents GIRL-H in relevant SRHR interagency working groups and conferences.
• Partnerships: Identify and build new program partnerships with media, Legal unit such as FIDA, SRHR private sectors stakeholders, community/religious institutions, other development organizations for collaborations on referral protocols and enhanced GBV reporting mechanism.
• Support and Supervision: Oversee and supervise all the SRHR the activities, team members and community resources. Conduct regular field monitoring of safe space activities and other program interventions. Provide performance feedback to SRHR team members; conduct routine review meetings, adhere to timelines, troubleshoot challenges, and standardize implementation approaches.
• Work with GIRL-H Program Manager and Officers to ensure that activity budgets, requests and liquidations are processed promptly.
• Business/Proposal Development: Directly contributes to GIRL-H proposals, including responses to competitive bids to ensure appropriate SRHR technical content, strategy and activities are included. Contributes to the design and planning of innovative, effective, state appropriate projects. Writes, reviews, and/or and edits technical proposals.
• Any other task assigned by the GIRL-H leadership.

Minimally Required Job-Specific Competencies

• Global Health System: Deep knowledge of SRHR ecosystem with the global health and community engagement context, with a focus on AYSRHR.
• Program and Project Planning and Management: Deep skills in program and project management and planning to fulfill performance objectives, including the timely implementation and reporting of donor-funded program activities.
• Adolescent and Youth Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Programs and Services: Strong up-to-date knowledge of adolescent development, family planning and reproductive health principles, policies, and programmatic practices and services, including program strategies and monitoring frameworks, and the latest professional developments in AYSRHR, including related issues such as child marriage, adolescent pregnancy, comprehensive sexuality education, youth participation and leadership.
• Technical Assistance: Proven skills in providing short-term technical assistance to complex health and development programs.
• Interpersonal skills: Skilled in developing productive relationships with varied stakeholders, including colleagues, partners, governments, and clients.
• Self-awareness and personnel development: Committed to growing as a leader and as a professional.
• Presentation Skills: Proven ability to communicate effectively on a range of topics related to AYSRHR to small and large groups.

Deliverables:
The SRHR intervention will be implemented in three phases; Inception phase, Intensive phase and closeout phase. The SRHR Consultant will work to deliver on these seven (7) major strategies as follows:

• Advocacy and Sensitization
• Capacity Building
• Community Engagement
• Health Outreaches
• Establishment of Community Accountability Watch Group
• Research
• Partnerships

Required Qualifications

• Education: Bachelor’s Degree in Public Health, Community Medicine, Social Science or related discipline. Master’s Degree is an added advantage.
• 5-10 years of related professional experience in adolescent programming, youth, women empowerment, or livelihoods.
• Experience working with relevant government MDAs such as MoH, PHCB etc.
• Proven skills in networking, team building, community consultations, and organizational development.
• Ability to mobilize and supervise a team of health mentors that will disseminate the SRHR curriculum to participants
• Excellent reporting, communication, and representation skills and a proven ability to establish and maintain interpersonal and professional relationships.
• Willingness to consider new perspectives, promote gender equality and engage in gender training
• Proven knowledge and capacity in using computer basic applications MS Word, Excel, and internet
• In-depth knowledge of the social, cultural, and economic context of Kano is a plus
• Experience in capacity building of health service providers
• Must be based in Kano state. Fluency in the local language (Hausa) is highly desired.
• Proven expertise in quantitative and qualitative methodologies, operations research, reporting, quality assessments, data analysis and presentation. This includes expertise in research to practice - identifying and adapting best practices to specific project context.
• Strong analytical and technical skills.

Ownership / Control of Work Product / Publication

• Matters relating to ownership and control of work product and publication of materials produced during course of this engagement are addressed in the main contract agreement entered between Mercy Corps.

Authorship and Acknowledgement:

• Matters relating to authorship and acknowledgment of any materials produced by the Consultant during this engagement are addressed in the main contract agreement entered between Mercy Corps and the Consultant for performance of services for GIRL- H.

Task Manager / Reporting:

• Task Manager is Mercy Corps GIRL- H Program Manager and the Program Director have final sign-off on deliverables and invoices.

Payment and Schedule:

• Payment will be made by milestone upon satisfactory delivery and acceptance of services rendered in the cause of this consultancy.
• All activities and deliverables related to this consultancy will be completed before July 2022 with the Program Director’s final sign-off on deliverables and invoices.

Proposal Submitals & Evaluation Criteria
Applicants will submit the following key documents:

• Motivation notes outlining experiences and how the applicant meets the requirements of this assignment and Curriculum Vitae (CV) of the applicant (30%);
• Technical proposal outlining how they propose to undertake this assignment including a work plan (30%);
• Finance Proposal that breaks down the consultant’s payment plan by milestone inclusive of transportation (20%).
• Two previous reports on similar or related work (if any) (10%)
• Three referees’ names and contacts related to similar work (10%)

Application Closing Date
8th March, 2023.

Method of Application
Interested and qualified Applicants will submit the following key documents to: [email protected]

• Motivation notes outlining experiences and how the applicant meets the requirements of this assignment and Curriculum Vitae (CV) of the applicant (30%);
• Technical proposal outlining how they propose to undertake this assignment including a work plan (30%);
• Finance Proposal that breaks down the consultants payment plan by milestone inclusive of transportation (20%).
• Two previous reports on similar or related work (if any) (10%)
• Three referees’ names and contacts related to similar work (10%)