National Action Plan Antimicrobial Resistance Consultant at the Management Sciences for Health (MSH)

The Management Sciences for Health (MSH), a global health nonprofit organization, uses proven approaches developed over 40 years to help leaders, health managers, and communities in developing nations build stronger health systems for greater health impact. We work to save lives by closing the gap between knowledge and action in public health.

We are recruiting to fill the position of:

Job Title: National Action Plan Antimicrobial Resistance Consultant

Job Requisition ID: R2719
Location: Abuja
Job Type: Part time
Number of consultants: One

Background

• The government of Nigeria approved the establishment of Nigeria’s national one-health antimicrobial resistance (AMR) coordinating body at the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) on November 26, 2016. This was after the WHO’s Joint External Evaluation assessment conducted in June 2016; Nigeria was rated as having limited capacity (level 2 – “limited capacity”) for all indicators in the AMR technical areas.
• Following this, a national AMR Technical Working Group (AMR-TWG) was created that comprised stakeholders from the human health, animal health, food animal production, and environment sectors. The Antimicrobial Resistance Coordinating Committee (AMRCC) oversees the activities of the national one-health AMR-TWG.
• Nigeria developed her five-year one-health national action plan (NAP) on AMR in 2017 in line with the 2015 world health assembly’s recommendation. This plan includes well-defined strategic objectives for a coordinated AMR response involving human and animal health, the environment, and the agro-food sectors, and has been implemented in the last five years.
• In view of these, the AMRCC with support from WHO and MTaPS, will be engaging a consultant to develop the 2023-2028 One-health national action plan on AMR. This aims to provide a whole of government response to tackle AMR and would require coordinated effort between numerous stakeholders including (but not limited to) international partners, government counterparts as well as regulatory agencies.

Description of Services to be Provided
The consultant will work collaboratively with the NAP 2.0 development committee and AMRCC for proper coordination, timely delivery and ensure all recommendations from the NAP 1.0 review reports and considerations from the Muscat Declaration and supports Nigeria towards achieving the AMR specific SDG targets are captured, with utmost consideration to the five NAP focus areas listed below:

• To improve awareness and understanding of antimicrobial resistance
• To strengthen knowledge through surveillance and research
• To reduce the incidence of infection
• To optimize the use of antimicrobial agents; and
• Develop the economic case for sustainable investment that takes account of the needs of the country, and increase investment in new medicines, diagnostic tools, vaccines, and other interventions.

Specific Objectives / Tasks

• Understudy the NAP 1.0 review report and other relevant documents and instruments and come up realistic national action points.
• Develop and present a concept with a clear work plan to the NAP 2.0 development committee.
• Conduct a desk review and SWOT analysis of the existing AMR documents.
• Develop a zero draft of NAP 2.0.
• Facilitate stakeholder workshops to further develop the zero draft.
• Finalize the draft with input and submit the final version to AMRCC.

Develop a Methodology

• The consultant shall develop a draft methodology using the WHO NAP development guidelines which will be validated by the NAP development committee and AMRCC.
• This should reflect all necessary steps in alignment with best practices as appropriate to accomplish drafting of new national action plan.
• The consultant will equally propose a detailed timetable clearly indicating the different stages of the process as well as the dates for submitting the deliverables.
• The validation of the methodology will mark the effective start of this assignment.

Supervision and Reporting Responsibility

• The consultant will be supervised by, and report to Kabir Abdullahi at MTaPS Nigeria. The consultant will liaise with the Seydou Doumbia, other country team members and will work in collaboration with the NAP 2.0 development committee and the AMR CC chair at NCDC.

Consultant’s Duty Station

• The consultant will be based in his/her primary location in Nigeria. Any travels must fall within the work plan (meetings and workshops) and would require prior approval by the NAP development committee. The consultant is also expected to have his/her own workspace and IT equipment to carry out this task.

Preparation and Facilitation of Review Workshop(s)

• As part of the preparation for the NAP 2.0 development workshop(s), the consultant will develop and propose to the committee secretariat, the TORs, agenda, indicative list of participants and presentations for validation. All tools and lists will be validated by the NAP development committee before any workshop(s).

Consultant Qualification Requirements
The consultant should have the following requirements and competencies:

• A Postgraduate Degree in Public Health, Health Economics, Animal Health, Environmental Health or PhD in Public Health, Health Economics, Animal Health, Environmental Health or other related fields. 
• A professional experience of at least seven (7) years.
• Have a good knowledge of the field (actors involved in the AMR space).
• Demonstrate a good knowledge of the “One Health” approach to tackling AMR
• Experience with the development of National Action Plans on AMR that meets and adheres to the objectives of the global action plan on AMR.
• A good knowledge of Nigeria’s systems in human health, animal health and environmental statutory bodies would be an added advantage.
• Excellent project management capability
• Provide previous consultancy references if possible.

Desired Skills / Attributes:

• Could work in a team and produce quality results within the negotiated timelines.
• Have a sense of contact and interpersonal communication.
• Have skills in facilitating workshops.
• Could write quality reports.
• Have a good command of English language.
• Have a perfect command of computer tools, in particular Windows or Mac and MS-Office environments.

Application Closing Date
Not Specified.