Long Term Agreement for Engagement of Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) Consultants in Pacific

The overall objective is to set up a Long-Term Agreement to facilitate and expedite the process by which UNICEF in Pacific will hire individual consultants as required to provide technical assistance, capacity building support, and coordination for MoHs in specific PICTs to ensure successful BFHI implementation. More specifically, the assignment in each country includes:  

Review and identify bottlenecks in BFHI implementation:  

• The consultant will review the current implementation status of BFHI in selected countries. The focus will be on identifying the steps that are lagging behind and their bottlenecks, including capacity gaps.

Propose actions to address bottlenecks:  

• The consultant will propose approaches to addressing the identified bottlenecks in consultation with MoHs. For identified capacity gaps, the consultant will develop a capacity building plan with approach tailored to each country context. This may involve through on-job site sessions, off-job site trainings, and development of a team of trainers for continuous professional development to address longer-term needs. Coaching and mentorship mechanism should be embedded in the capacity building approach to ensure that knowledge and skills obtained through training will translate into the lasting practices.

Provide support for integration and institutionalization:  

• The consultant will collaborate with MoHs to integrate the BHFI’s 10 steps into quality-of-care assessments / continuous quality improvement mechanism within health facilities or other existing initiatives/frameworks. The consultant will also support efforts to include BHFI in pre-service training of health workers or other similar capacity building platforms

The financial proposal in a separate attachment should reflect a lump sum amount for all the deliverables (per country) with a break down for the following:  

• Daily consultancy fees – based on the deliverables in the Terms of Reference above.
• Travel (economy air ticket where air travel is applicable to take up assignment, as well as any in country travel cost, if in country support is required)
• Living allowance for international consultant that will need to relocate to PICTs, for the duration of in-country assignment.
• Miscellaneous- to cover visa, health insurance (including medical evacuation for international consultants), communications, and other costs.

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…  

Education:   

• A medical or advanced university degree in one of the following fields: nutrition, midwifery, public health, pediatric health, family health, or other related disciplines.

Experience, Skills and Knowledge :

• A minimum of 5 years of professional experience in breastfeeding related work including in clinical contexts.
• Experience in conducting BFHI training and mentorship. Preferably a certified trainer and BFHI Assessor with certification issued by IBFAN or a recognized lactation management certification.
• Work experience serving in a developing country is required. Work experience in the Pacific Islands region is an asset.
• Experience working in UNICEF or a UN system agency is an asset.
• Able to work effectively with people – internal and external stakeholders.
• Excellent pedagogical skills for training.
• Communicates clearly and concisely.
• Excellent analytical and conceptual skills.
• Proven ability to work independently under difficult conditions.
• Health care systems, the BFHI approach.

Language:   

• Fluency in English is required, and knowledge of a local language would be an asset.

Source: https://jobs.unicef.org/cw/en-us/job/572543