National Project Coordinator

Purpose of consultancy  

To provide technical support to WHO India Country Office and key stakeholders in India to phase out use of mercury-containing measuring devices in healthcare.

Background 

WHO is actively engaged in activities to address the health impacts of mercury and has long-standing programmes that regularly update the evidence about the health impacts of the different forms of mercury, provide guidance on identifying populations at risk from mercury exposure, develop and disseminate tools to reduce mercury exposure, and provide guidance on the replacement of mercury-containing thermometers and sphygmomanometers blood pressure measuring devices in health care. WHO also leads projects to promote the sound management and disposal of health-care waste and has facilitated the development of an affordable, validated, non-mercury-containing blood pressure measuring devices. WHOs activities are supported by a World Health Assembly Resolution WHA67.11 (2014) on the public health impacts of exposure to mercury and mercury compounds: the role of WHO and ministries of public health in the implementation of the Minamata Convention. 

In-line with its role as the leading international health agency and existing mandates and activities in support of the Minamata Convention, WHO will actively work to phase out the use of mercury-containing measuring devices in healthcare. WHO, in collaboration with UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Global Mercury Partnership is executing a Global Environment Facility (GEF) project to phase-out mercury in healthcare. This global project is being implemented in five countries in three regions, India (South-East Asia); Burkina Faso and Uganda (Africa) and Montenegro and Albania (Europe). The expected objective of the project is to eliminate the uncontrolled releases of mercury from healthcare settings. The project will comprise three components: 1) The development or improvement of national health-system wide strategies for phasing-out the import, export and manufacture of mercury thermometers and sphygmomanometers in line with WHO recommendations and related provisions of the Minamata Convention; 2) Implementation of national strategies to phase-out manufacture, import and export and piloting phase out of use and 3) knowledge management and awareness raising.

The proposed National Technical Consultant will support NPO (EH), WCO India in coordinating the project implementation.

The key objectives of the consultancy assignment will be as follows:

• Provide technical support to WCO India and key stakeholders in India in implementing the five- year project to phase out use of mercury-containing measuring devices in healthcare.

Deliverables

Monthly report to be submitted on 30th of each calendar month that will include the activities work undertaken based on the below scope of work:

Liaise with MoHFW, MoEFCC, WHO HQ, WHO SEARO and other stakeholders

• Act as day-to-day national technical focal point for the project and perform daily requests for technical information and project implementation.
• Arrange regular monthly national project coordination meetings, including drafting agenda, invitation letters; communication materials; meeting reports
• Participate in virtual or in-person global, regional and in-country meetings related to the project.
• Organize national inception meeting, national capacity-building and waste management meeting in coordination with national stakeholders.
• Participate in regular progress meetings at a periodicity to be mutually agreed.

Provide technical expertise on implementation of components.

• Conduct national situational analysis, following template and guidance provided.
• Prepare draft national phase-out plan following template and guidance provided.
• Prepare information on technical, progress and other information about the project and disseminate it through relevant channels including those of ministry of health, medical device and other technical networks.
• Provide technical support and implementation of pilots on waste management and safe disposal of Mercury as per the Bio Medical Waste Management Rules. 2016
• Support implementation of Pilots for substitution of mercury in health care devices

Contribute to reporting requirements of the GEF projects

• Provide input to quarterly project status reports, including progress on workplan, budget reports and contribute to forecasting of expenditure.
• Prepare a summary report for mid-project and end-project review.
• Liaise with Communications team of WCO India for developing communication products related to the project
• Liase and support Regional Advisor, EH, SEARO in organizing regional workshop to disseminate the learnings from the project in India
• In addition to the above, provide other technical and administrative support to the WHO Country Office for India, as needed.

Qualifications, experience, skills and languages

Educational Qualifications:  

• Essential: A Post graduate degree in Environmental Sciences or allied field

Experience 

Essential: 

• Experience of 2 years of working on Mercury, Bio Medical Waste Management especially with Government counterparts
• Experience of working with WHO/UN agencies
• Experience working with a range of health care settings related to the thematic area

Skills/Knowledge:

Essential:

• Knowledge of the Indian political system, economic structures, and socio-cultural landscape, and a network of professional contacts in India
• Experience in technical or scientific writing and oral presentations on health-related subjects to different audiences.
• Strong organizational and scheduling skills.
• Excellent communication, writing and editing skills.
• Excellent data management skills.
• Excellent interpersonal skills with the ability to build strong relationships with a variety of stakeholders across different sectors.
• Excellent analytical and presentation skills.
• Competence in the use of Microsoft Office (Word, PowerPoint and Excel).
• Ability to travel domestically and to work based in New Delhi
• Work in a fast-paced environment with minimal supervisions and handle multiple tasks and work well under pressure

Languages and level required (Basic/Intermediate/Expert):

• Proficiency in English and working knowledge of Hindi and/or one additional Indian language is preferred

Source: https://careers.who.int/careersection/ex/jobdetail.ftl?job=2406191