Addis Ababa, Addis Ababa
Marie Stopes International Ethiopia
BackgroundEthiopia has registered substantial progress in reducing maternal and newborn morbidity and mortality over the past decades as a result of strong leadership of the FMOH, coordination of efforts and intensive investment in the health system by the government, development partners and the community at large. The Health Sector Transformation Plan (HSTP) 2016-2020 provides a clear guidance on where the country plans to be by 2020. The Reproductive Health Strategy (2016-2020) and the Adolescent and Youth Health Strategy (2016-2020) both provide strategic guidance on key priority areas in reproductive, maternal and adolescent health through out the country. Ethiopia has strong policies and plans to continue implementation at scale of reproductive, maternal and adolescent health interventions as part of five-year health systems plans and movement toward SDGs. However, the experience so far focused on development of five-year ‘incremental’ strategies based on lessons from implementing preceding strategies and global new interventions. With the global move towards Universal Health Coverage and the Ethiopia’s commitment to the Sustainable Development Goal, the FMOH believes that it is now the time to develop a long-term vision for reproductive, maternal and adolescent health programming in Ethiopia based on critical review of lessons learned so far, in-depth analysis of the environment (national and global) relevant for good health outcome taking into account its fast changing nature including the demographic and epidemiologic shifts, as well as experiences of other countries and putting them into 15-20 years strategy context to pave the way towards universal health coverage.The FMOH has identified experts from partner organization (implementing partners as well as donors) and key departments within the Ministry and tasked them with the development of the long-term sexual and reproductive health visioning document.  These pool of experts will serve as the Working Group for the task, the working modality and process of which will be detailed further in a separate document.  To facilitate the Working Group, coordinate inputs, streamline the overall process and shape the visioning document using an agreed upon framework, the FMOH seeks to engage individual consultants with experience working with the FMOH for a six months’ period. The position is funded by the USAID through Marie Stopes International Ethiopia (MSIE). Key tasks of the consultancy The Consultant is expected to play a critical role in the development of the visioning exercise.  In addition to facilitating smooth functioning of the working group through development of guiding framework for inputs, coordinating the inputs and presenting it back to the group for further debates and enrichment, and writing various drafts of the visioning document, the Consultant will also serve as a technical resource person through identifying key documents relevant for the exercise and contributing to synthesizing the documents to inform the visioning exercise.  More specifically, the Consultant will: Identify list of key documents relevant to the visioning exercise and share with Working Group.  This will include both national and global documents; and list will be finalized in consultation with FMOH.Review, extract, distill, and document key learning from Ethiopia’s implementation of high impact reproductive, maternal and adolescent health interventions over the past years. Organize the information around common high level themes /framework (to be drafted by the consultant and finalized with inputs from the Working Group). Participate in all the Working Group and all sub-group meetings and retreats to document minutes /outputs of the discussions that will inform the visioning document.  Develop relevant templates to capture outputs from various sessions (individual work, small-group meetings and the Working Group meeting). Organize the outputs from small-group and larger group meetings into the visioning exercise framework (to be drafted by the consultant and finalized with inputs of the Working Group) in preparation for presentation in subsequent Working Group meeting /retreat.  Using outputs from Working Group retreats, draft the visioning document for review and feedback from Working Group and beyond.Regularly meet/communicate with the FMOH (co-chairs of the Working Group) to (i) clarify specific objectives and deliverables for each Working Group meetings /retreats; and (ii) debrief after each meeting /retreat to identify gaps and address as appropriate.Prepare and deliver presentations at external consultation and validation workshops.Any other tasks that may be identified along the process over the six-months period that are critical for realizing the final deliverable.  Deliverables Key /high level Consultant deliverables are listed below.  These will be unpacked in to specific deliverables under the key tasks outlined above once the timeline for key milestones is finalized in consultation with the Working Group and the FMOH.   Terms of Reference for the Working Group detailing the task, the process, sub-groups, timeline for different tasks and deliverables (inception for each of the meetings and retreats).Templates to record sub-group meeting outputs.Minutes/proceedings of all Working Group meetings and retreats.Minutes/outputs of sub-group meetings.Reference list /list of documents to support a good analysis of the environment (in-country and global) to help frame reproductive, maternal and adolescent health in a long-term context.Outline/high level themes/frame to help distill the documents and develop short synthesis that informs the long term strategic direction.Summary/synthesis of key documents based on the outline /theme /framework developed.8.      Conceptual Framework for the visioning document.Presentations at Working Group meetings, retreats and consultation /validation workshops.Multiple versions of draft visioning document.Final visioning document incorporating all feedbacks including from the validation workshop.