Kenya: Consultant, Leading in Assessment of Youth Friendly Services in East and Southern Africa Region

Consultant, Leading in Assessment of Youth Friendly Services in East and Southern Africa Region | ReliefWeb Skip to main content Labs Blog Mobile About Us Help LoginRegister HomeUpdatesCountriesDisastersTopicsOrganizationsJobsTraining Print16 Sep 2014Consultant, Leading in Assessment of Youth Friendly Services in East and Southern Africa RegionJobfromInternational Planned Parenthood Federation—Closing date: 26 Sep 2014

Background Today, nearly half of the world's population is under the age of 25 years. This is the largest generation of young people the world has ever known. Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region of the world where the number of young people continues to grow substantially. Together with declining fertility rates in most countries this creates an unprecedented opportunity to accelerate economic growth and reduce poverty, but only if nations make the right investments in the current and future generations. A healthy transition into adulthood is directly related to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and other development goals. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) East and Southern Regional Office (ESARO) and the International Planned Parenthood Federation Africa Regional Office (IPPFARO), in partnership with other UN agencies (UNESCO, UNICEF, WHO, and UNAIDs), civil society organizations, the East African Community (EAC) , the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) , and the Regional SRHR Fund supported by the Ford Foundation and HIVOs collectively promote comprehensive sexuality education and access to quality youth friendly services for adolescents and young people in East and Southern African countries. Ensuring that national guidelines, standards and training materials for youth friendly service delivery within the ESA Region are harmonized and meet international standards set by WHO is essential for scaling up quality youth friendly services.
The evidence presented by a 2013 regional diagnostic report on ASRH including comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) and youth friendly service (YFS) delivery, suggest that many of commitments made by governments remain partially or wholly unrealized. Insufficient budget and poor institutional capacities of government agencies affect quality of national guidelines, training manuals and others relevant tools, service providers capacities, and monitoring and evaluation of YFS. Also, a number of existing legislative and policy frameworks in many ESA countries continue to be barriers for young people to access SRH information and services. Even in countries where significant progress has been made regarding policies, a lot remains to be done to develop appropriate guidelines and integrate them into service providers training modules and tools to facilitate increased access. To be able to capitalize on the favorable environment created by the recent ESA Commitment on CSE & ASRHR (in which Ministers of Health and Education from 20 African Countries endorsed a Commitment Document to improve and expand CSE and YFS for adolescents and Youth People), a review of existing YFS guidelines, standards and manuals and assess how they are being implemented in the ESA region is necessary. UNFPA, IPPFARO and RECs, in collaboration with key partners noted above, would like to assess the status of YFS in the ESA region to inform efforts to improve quality and coverage of youth friendly services,, capacity building and advocacy activities.

The YFS assessment/review process will be inclusive of key stakeholders (RECs, Governments and UN Agencies, Youth Friendly Centers and clinics, CSO including Youth-serving Organizations (YSOs), etc.) to develop harmonized guidelines, standards and evidence-based comprehensive YFS training manual/program that addresses the needs of YFS service providers as well as adolescents and young people.
Projects Major Objective To conduct a YFS assessment in 23 ESA countries and develop harmonized guidelines, standards and evidence-based comprehensive YFS training manual for service providers to scale up comprehensive, quality, equitable and responsive SRH services for adolescents and young people in the region Tasks Part I: Conduct Assessment of Youth Friendly Services; Review Existing Guidelines and Standards and Develop Harmonized Standards and Guidelines for the RECs

Review of YFS Standards and Guidelines (content and utilization) This review will include published and unpublished guidelines on youth friendly services from the 23 ESA countries. It will provide information on: ? Consistency of national guidelines and standards with international frameworks ? Successes, challenges and gaps while implementing the guidelines and standards ? In-country policies, institutional arrangements (e.g. legal, human, financial, infrastructure, commodities) and practices (e.g. culture and religion) that positively or negatively affect adolescent’s access to services. ? Results and recommendations for the Countries and RECsConduct assessment of status of YFS Services in the ESA Region and how guidelines and/or standards are being applied ? Consult countries to identify countries that carried out recent YFS Assessments and those that need to be assessed; ? Develop YFS assessment tools in partnership with partners experienced in this area including UNFPA, WHO, IPPF, Pathfinder International, and conduct the assessment of representative sample of public and private health services; ? Analyze data and write study report with key results and recommendations for countries and the RECs.Identify and document promising YFS practices (4 countries) Best practices in the implementation of guidelines and standards will be identified and documented to enrich country reports.Develop harmonized guidelines and standards to be adopted by the RECs (EAC, IGAD, SADC, & COMESA). Regional guideline and standards will be developed based on the outcomes of the assessments and the International Guidelines. A Technical Working committee will review and contribute to the quality of the documents before pre-testing and adoption by the RECs. The development/ review process will involve RECs, partners, and YSOs among others keys stakeholders.
Part II: Develop a state of the art YFS training manual to support implementation of the guidelines and standards The same approach outlined under part I will be adopted to collect and analyze existing YFS training manuals for both in-service and pre-service from the 23 countries in ESA. Activities including data collection, review and analysis will be aligned with the development of YFS delivery guidelines and standards. • Collect and review existing in-service and pre-service training manuals for youth friendly services from 23 African countries; • Develop a State of the Art YFS Manual which is aligned with the Harmonized Guidelines and Standards and the current needs of the various categories of adolescents and young people including those living with HIV. • Field-test and finalize for adoption by the RECsKey deliverable and timeline Deliverables The following deliverables will be expected from the lead consultant: • A joint inception report, detailing an initial assessment of the situation and tasks, process flow and timelines (work-plan), tools/analytical framework and report outline to fulfill the expected deliverables on time and in high quality • A preliminary results presentation after data compilation and initial analysis • Sub-regional (IGAD/EAC and SADC) reports and 23 country analysis reports • Four in-depth studies of promising practices in YFS service delivery • Four in-depth studies of promising practices in YFS pre-service/in-service training programs • Sub-regional (IGAD/EAC and SADC) YFS service delivery guidelines and standards • Sub-regional (IGAD/EAC and SADC) State of the Art YFS training manualsRequired Competencies a. Core & functional Competencies ? Demonstrates commitment to and understanding of adolescents and Young peoples’ Sexual rights agenda, principles and values; ? Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability; ? Understanding development issues; ? Knowledge of UN terms, language and standards; ? Experience in working with youth organizations;

b. Functional Competencies ? Strong research, analytical writing, editing and communication, skills; ? Ability to be flexible and respond to changes as part of the review and feedback process; ? Strong interpersonal skills, able to communicate and work with diverse people at RECs, Governments and UN agencies, IPPF and others partners; ? Sensitivity to the different perspectives and ways of working of various institutions; ? Demonstrated ability to put together multi-country research teams and coordinate delivery of quality results. ? Demonstrated Ability to meet strict deadlines and work under pressure; ? Demonstrated ability to work and deliver under pressure.

c. Required skills and experience ? PhD/MSc in Social sciences, International Development or Public Health ? Good knowledge of SRH&R especially Adolescent and Youth situation in Africa with a minimum of 5 years’ experience in SRH&R program design and management ? Minimum of 10 years’ experience in multi country large scale study and sound technical knowledge/experience in the development and design of training materials ? Proven experience in conducting literature reviews in the field of public health specially SRH and youth friendly services. ? Experience in qualitative and quantitative research techniques. ? Proven experience in policy, guideline and manual development ? Demonstrable efficiency in facilitating training workshop for data collectors and other study team ? High level analytic, writing and communication skills ? Well connected with potential key informants and actors at regional and countries level ? Familiarity in working with governments, especially ministries of health, RECs and youth as well as a range of stakeholders in the region ? Demonstrated effective interpersonal skills ? Fluency in English (working knowledge of French and Portuguese is an advantage);

How to apply: How to apply Interested applicants are required to provide technical and financial proposals that describe the following: ? A description of the project personnel, indicating how their qualifications and experience make them suitable for the assignment
? The approach to the assignment outlining the methodology, key data sources, structure of the report and key milestones. ? A sample of the overall report structure including country summaries. ? Evidence of capability to utilize documents in English, French and Portuguese ? Up-to-date curriculum vitae of the Team leader and researchers tasked with the project, including project management arrangements and accountability. Application to be sent to : hr@ippfaro.org Job ID: #692028 Training categories: Management Country: Kenya City: Nairobi Organization: International Planned Parenthood Federation Theme: Coordination Job years of experience: 5-10 years Job type: Consultancy HomeUpdatesCountriesDisastersTopicsOrganizationsJobsTraining About Us Help ReliefWeb Informing humanitarians worldwide. A service provided by

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