Job Description

Job Summary

• Scope of work for the development of Kebbi state Human Resources for Health (HRH) policy, situation analysis and HRH costed strategic implementation plan
• Banyan Global leads the five-year, $19 million United States Agency for International Development (USAID)-funded Health Workforce Management (HWM) Activity in Nigeria. The HWM Activity works in Bauchi, Sokoto, Kebbi, and the Ebonyi States as well as the Federal Capital Territory. The HWM purpose is to establish a cost‐effective, well-trained, and motivated health workforce, particularly in targeted rural and remote areas to contribute to greater health systems responsiveness and improved health outcomes, especially among women and children. The HWM objectives are to: 1) Strengthen the pre-service training learning environment and in-service training program; 2) Support the building of a robust human resources information system to keep track of recruitment, deployment, retention, and continuing education; 3) Strengthen governance and management of the health workforce; and 4) Support the conduct of human resources for health (HRH) research to improve HRH practices and retention mechanisms. The activity responds to Nigeria’s National Strategy Health Development Plan 2018—2022 (NSHDP II) and aligns with the USAID/Nigeria Country Development Cooperation Strategy 2020—2025. Banyan Global’s partners on HWM are Abt Associates, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), and Solina Health.
• Globally, there is an acute shortage of human resources for health (HRH) and the greatest burden is borne by low-income countries especially in sub-Saharan Africa and some parts of Asia (WHO, 2017). World Health Organization (WHO) in the Global Strategy on HRH: Workforce 2030, projects that the health workforce in Africa will need to grow the workforce stock by 63% to attain Universal Health Coverage (UHC) by 2030. Nigeria records the largest stock of human resources for health in Africa. For example, the doctor population ratio in Nigeria is 36.3 per 100,000 population while the nurse/midwife population ratio stands at 88.1 per 100,000 population compared to a regional average of 72 per 100,000 population.
• Despite these HRH availability ratios, the country still suffers a significant and chronic shortage of health workers for its population needs, especially in the northern parts of the country. The Workforce Profile 2018 reports that Nigeria has a total of 74,543 medical doctors that equates to 36.3 medical doctors per 100,000 members of the population (doctor to population ratio of 1: 2753) based on the projected size of the Nigerian population. Also, the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria (NMCN) registered a total of 180,709 nurses and 120,870 midwives. This represents an increase of 19% and 17% from 2012 that showed nurses were 148,291 and midwives 101,275, respectively.
• Disease patterns and emerging conditions necessitate strategies to improve the production, recruitment, and retention of well trained, competent, and well-distributed health workers to achieve UHC and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) amongst other national health commitments. Thus, there is a need to model workforce needs comprehensively. While there is a growing awareness of the importance of ensuring the availability of adequate numbers of qualified, skilled, competent, and motivated health workers equitably distributed through various initiatives and reforms in the country, significant challenges still exist. They include maldistribution of the available health workers across regions and facility levels, weak human resources information systems for effective decision making and planning, weak coordination of HRH stakeholders, inadequate financing for the workforce and weak HRH management and leadership skills. There is therefore needed to develop policies and plans that enable HRH production, recruitment, deployment, retention and management strategies that ensure adequate health workers that can effectively and efficiently respond to the needs of the population..
• The aim of this assignment is to build on the HRH work with the Kebbi state ministry of health and take forward the development of the state Human Resources for Health Policy, human resources for health situation analysis and subsequently an HRH Strategic Implementation Plan that is aligned and integrated with the NHRHP, the Human Resources for Health Priority Area of the SSHDP and the state’s planning and budgeting cycles (FY January to December).

Approach:

• The approach will adopt participatory and collaborative techniques to facilitate stakeholder leadership, engagement and ownership in the planning process and its outcomes; informed by the principles of the country coordination and facilitation[1]
• (CCF) process and stakeholder leadership group[1]
• (SLG) guidelines and principles.
• Support the Kebbi state ministry of health (SMOH) to develop a Human Resources for Health Policy, human resources for health situation analysis report and HRH strategic and implementation plan (HRHSIP), through an agreed process that is responsive to the specific context and HRH issues in the state.
• Support the SMOH to facilitate regular state HRH technical working group (TWG) meeting to develop the documents
• Document the process and support the collation of all related documentation

Tasks
The Consultant will carry out the following indicative tasks and support the Kebbi State SMOH to facilitate the activities of the HRH TWG in collaboration with HWM Activity:

• Develop a protocol for the process with clear activity timelines which will be approved by the supervisor before proceeding to the other steps.
  • http://www.who.int/workforcealliance/knowledge/resources/CCF_Principles_Processes_web.pdf
  • http://www.capacityplus.org/files/resources/Guidelines_HRH_SLG.pdf
• Participate in preparatory meetings with the HWM Activity Team, SMOH, Solina Health Governance Specialist and Kebbi state HWM HRH Coordinator for briefing and joint planning for the assignment.
• Conduct a literature review on the national and HR situation of the state and document findings. Do a stakeholder mapping of the HRH stakeholders in the state including private practitioners and document findings
• Preliminary discussions (one meeting) with key stakeholders and build consensus on the development of the state HRH situation analysis prior to the HRH strategic implementation plan.
• Work with the HWM HRH Coordinator, SMOH HRH focal person(s) to identify stakeholders/members for the HRH TWG and draft Terms of Reference for the human resources for health TWG if none already exists.
• Develop a refined methodology, Work plan and timeframe for the assignment and present it to the Governance Specialist of the HWM Activity and the Director of Planning, Research and Statistics of the Kebbi state government for finalization and approval. Work with SMOH mandated HRH TWG to agree and finalize the structure and format of the HRHSIP and its alignment with the SSHDP.
• Identify HRH issues and challenges and develop strategies, activities and an M&E framework for the HRHSIP – in line with the agreed structure and format.
• Facilitate stakeholder consultations throughout the process to share information and build consensus and ownership.
• Present key deliverables to SMOH leadership for review and endorsement at pre-defined stages of the process
• Provide continuous feedback and monthly progress reports on the process to SMOHand HWM Activity

Key deliverables:

• The consultant is expected to work collaboratively with the Kebbi state HRH TWG, the state Director of Planning, Research and Statistics and the HWM Activity Health Governance Specialist to develop the Kebbi state HRH Policy, Situation analysis and a 5-year costed strategic plan.
• The HRH situation analysis and cost strategic plan will enable the state to define and cost its HRH interventions and integrate these with the existing SSHDP 2016-2021 for the remaining implementation period.

Key deliverables:

• Kebbi state Human Resources for Situation analysis report
• Validated Kebbi State HRH Policy
• List of the state HRH TWG members
• List of Key Kebbi State HRH Stakeholders, including public and private stakeholders
• Costed Kebbi State Five-year HRH Strategic Implementation Plan
• Final Report on the process, including achievements, limitations, challenges, lessons learned and recommendations for its further improvement and/or refinement.

Time:

• The consultancy shall be from April 2 to June 30, 2021. The anticipated level of effort (LOE) is 25 days.

Supervision:

• The State consultant will work in close collaboration with the Kebbi State HWM HRH Coordinator under the close supervision of the HWM Governance Specialist on the HWM Activity who will be supervised by the HWM Technical Director, HWM Activity.

Payment:

• Payment shall be made upon satisfactory completion of the outlined tasks according to the HWM Activity payment policy.

Travels:

• Consultant travel to the field is not expected to exceed 10 days and M&IE shall be paid at HWM Activity approved rates.

Qualifications
Skills and expertise required for this consultancy are as follows:

• An advanced degree in Public Health, Health Management / Human Resources, Demography or another relevant field.
• Previous Health Systems Strengthening experience in Nigeria.
• A minimum of 5years’ experience in a high-level management and/or consultant role.
• Demonstrated experience in policy development, strategic planning and implementation
• Extensive knowledge and working experience at the state and LGA levels.
• Strong interpersonal facilitation and communication skills and team working.
• Demonstrated ability to work proactively in an unsupervised role
• Computing skills for documentation, presentation and basic data analysis.
• Excellent written and communication skills.