Crown Agents (CA)

Deadline: 4 November 2020

Background

The Expanded Programme of Immunisation (EPI) was introduced in Zimbabwe in 1982 with support from the World Health Organisation (WHO). The primary objective was to vaccinate all children below the age of one year against six killer diseases: polio, diphtheria, tuberculosis, pertussis (whooping cough), measles and tetanus. Since then, new vaccines against other severe vaccine-preventable diseases have been developed and introduced such as the pneumococcal vaccine introduced in 2012, human papilloma virus (HPV) and the rotavirus vaccines which were both introduced in May 2014.

Zimbabwe is in a fortunate position because the EPI National Policy adopted in 2000 is able to include many of the new options into the National EPI and adjust the EPI schedule according to the disease epidemiology in the country. Zimbabwe is currently not meeting the Global Vaccine Alliance Performance (GVAP) target that all districts within a country should have DTP3 coverage of at least 80%. In June 2017, 15.9% of districts, representing about 58,000 surviving infants (11.2% of Zimbabwe surviving infants), did not reach this target. The Zimbabwe Joint Appraisal Report (JAR) 2018 mentions that all provinces had an increase in the number of unvaccinated children for Penta 3 except for Chitungwiza and Masvingo that had a decrease. Children not vaccinated with Measles 1 showed a decrease from 2015 to 2016 and were on the rise again in 2017. It also states that there are districts who failed to achieve 80% coverage for DTP3, MCV1 and MCV2. Crown Agents (CA) seeks to address the religious hindrance to EPI service utilization by involving Pro-vaccine / pro-health religious leaders in healthcare management through community engagement / dialogue and incentivising positively to positive outcomes. It is against this background that CA seeks to outsource a consultant to carry out a baseline survey before the intervention starts so that benchmarking data will be available to measure progress on targets.

Objectives of baseline consultancy

The overall objective of the baseline survey consultancy is to provide quantitative estimates of EPI project indicator values specified in the project EPI M&E plan, based on health facilities surveyed.

Outputs

The Final Baseline Report

Key qualifications and competencies of the consultant

Degree in Health-related disciplines or Social Sciences / Epidemiology / Monitoring and Evaluation, Public Health, Nutrition with extensive EPI experience and programming; Proven experience of not less than 5 years in surveys and project evaluations (and at least 4 years of leading them), including large scale quantitative surveys of donor funded health projects;

Aware of the latest developments in the area of EPI;

Excellent skills in quantitative sampling and statistical analysis for health-related surveys, including analyses of surveys with complex sampling, e.g., use of EPI Info, SPSS, STATA, etc;

Experience in organising the logistics and operational tasks of cross-sectional surveys; Possesses knowledge of electronic data collection and willingness to familiarise themselves with the process and devices;

Strong communication skills- Fluency in vernacular local languages, with excellent English report writing skills;

Ability to work independently with minimum supervision.

The Consultant must be able to provide evidence of past performance via past enumerator training programs and evaluation reports as well as writing examples.