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UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential. 

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone. 

And we never give up. 

For every child, support. 

Child mortality rates in Solomon Islands have been gradually declining since the early 1990s, and the country has met the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target on newborn and child mortality for 2030, with NMR at 7 and U5MR 18 per 1,000 live births (Levels & Trends in Child Mortality Report 2023, Estimates developed by the United Nations Inter-Agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (UN-IGME). However, rural areas have significantly higher mortality rates than urban areas. The maternal mortality ratio stands at 122 deaths per 100,000 live births (Trends in maternal mortality 2000 to 2020, Estimates by WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA, World Bank Group and UNDESA/Population Division), which is still significantly above the SDG target for 2030. Prevalence of childhood stunting, wasting and underweight in Solomon Islands is 31.6 percent, 7.9 percent, and 15.5 percent respectively (DHS, 2017). Anaemia is a significant issue in the country.

In 2018, UNICEF collaborated with Ministry of Health in Solomon Islands in identifying Primary Health Care (PHC) system gaps and in the development of guidelines for supportive supervision and community engagement. Health system gaps are an underlying cause of poor health and nutrition indicators in Solomon Islands. In order to improve indicators, there must be greater attention paid to building PHC systems and improving quality of service. Weaknesses in PHC systems range from governance and leadership to procurement and logistics, health workforce, information and financing. Poor quality hinders the effectiveness of essential PHC services such as immunization, newborn care, treatment of childhood illness, maternal health and nutrition services. Improving services requires system wide quality improvements rather than disease specific approaches. Weaknesses in the system are pronounced at the subnational level where accountabilities lie but where investments in resources, energies, and managerial capacities have not reflected the importance of this level. Health system weaknesses have also resulted in low demand for PHC services with patients bypassing primary health care services for tertiary care resulting in overburdening of tertiary services and delays in seeking care. This has resulted in a concentration of healthcare expenditure and service delivery at national level, which compromises health seeking and quality of care.

Since 2021, UNICEF has been providing technical assistance towards improving subnational health management capacity in Solomon Islands. The consultancy focused on translating the theory of how to manage a subnational health system into doable planning, budgeting, and actions to improve the quality of PHC services. In Malaita and Western Provinces, with technical assistance from the on-site provincial health system strengthening consultants, various guidelines and tools have been developed and implemented to enhance supportive supervision, quality of care improvement, community engagement and social accountability, sub national level health worker skills mapping and training needs identification, assets management and evidence-based annual operational planning and budgeting amongst others. Additionally, in Malaita, Provincial Health Council has been reactivated with a number of tangible achievements made to address the health system gaps in terms of governance, human resource management, financing, and service delivery.

To build on the achievements made to date and institutionalize PHC systems strengthening approaches in Solomon Islands, UNICEF Pacific is seeking a qualified and skilled consultant to be based in the Ministry of Health and Medical Services (MHMS), working closely with Policy and Planning directorate and other directorates such as PHC. With this consultancy, UNICEF will build on lessons learnt and consolidate good practices from Malaita and Western provinces for subnational health system strengthening and sustainably scale up the approach in other provinces in Solomon Islands.

How can you make a difference? 

The overall goal of the technical assistance is to strengthen PHC system in Solomon Islands through empowering provincial health management teams with strengthened support to frontline service providers and communities. This involves capacity development for planning, management, and leadership at national, provincial and facility levels to organize and deliver quality PHC services with special attention to the use of data for decision making, governance and accountability mechanism, institutionalization of integrated supportive supervision to PHC facilities for quality-of-care improvement, and operationalization of systematic community engagement to strengthen feedback loop between sub-national, national, facility and community levels.

The specific objective of the consultancy is to help consolidate good practices in Malaita and Western provinces for subnational health system strengthening and sustainably scale up the approach in other provinces in Solomon Islands with MHMS leadership and stewardship in this process. The approach entails three major strategies: i) Strengthen institutional capacity: Improve provincial health management team leadership and management to translate policy to practice and address system bottlenecks; ii) Strengthen community engagement and health system accountability: Engage communities and Provincial Health Council; and iii) Strengthen quality of care: Improve availability and access to integrated quality maternal, newborn, and child health and nutrition service. This consultancy will bring MHMS to the equation for greater impact, institutionalization and sustainability. Concretely, MHMS institutional capacity will be strengthened in providing necessary guidance, support and quality assurance to provincial health teams. This includes reviewing existing tools and guidelines that support provincial health management and standardizing them where beneficial for further scale-up in other provinces; capacity building in leading the bottom-up, evidence-based planning, monitoring and budgeting process with engagement of provincial health teams; institutionalization of supportive supervision to provincial health teams and PHC facilities for stronger feedback loop, including to trigger national level actions. Based in the MHMS at national level, the consultant will engage in accompaniment which entails shadowing key staff offering advice, instilling confidence, and assisting with troubleshooting.

Through this technical assistance, UNICEF will spur more comprehensive changes to drivers of national and provincial level health system performance going beyond supporting the system with inputs such as vaccines, equipment, and training, and enabling a focus on changes to the way policy and regulation is operationalized at national and subnational level, to organizational structure and management, and fostering the practice of relationship building and coordination.

As such, the technical assistance will foster MHMS and provincial health teams fulfilment of their roles in: providing evidence-based planning, oversight and delivery of health services collaboratively; strengthening health system resilience and responsiveness through greater community focused engagement and feedback initiatives; promoting evidence-based joint planning and decision making to understand health system performance and guide improvement; and promoting collaborations between stakeholders for multisectoral policy and action.

As part of the assignment, the consultant will organize and conduct capacity building sessions for key national and provincial level staff.

Please refer to the ToR ( TOR Subnational Health System Strengthening Consultancy.pdf) for further information on the deliverables and the timelines. 

GUIDANCE FOR APPLICANTS:  

Please submit a separate financial offer along with your application. The financial proposal should be a lump sum amount for all the deliverables and should show a break down for the following:

• Monthly / Daily fees– based on the deliverables in the Terms of Reference above.
• Travel (economy air ticket where applicable to take up assignment and field mission travel
• Living allowance where travel is required.
• 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:

• An Advanced degree in health economics, health system management, public health, health service planning and other related disciplines

Experience:

• 5-10 years’ experience working in low- or middle-income countries with an emphasis on health systems strengthening is required.
• Minimum of 5 years hands on experience strengthening sub national health systems focusing on evidence-based planning and budgeting and shepherding change management is desirable.
• Experience working in an international development context, particularly in Pacific Island Countries and Solomon Islands is a great advantage.

Skills:

• Basic computer skills, and ability to balance and reconcile figures and transcribe accurately is required.
• Able to manage relationships with government ministries, district local governments, national and district partners, service providers, communities and other stakeholders.
• Communicates clearly and concisely.

Knowledge:

• Technical expertise in PHC system strengthening and sub-national health system strengthening approach.
• Familiarity with health systems in Pacific Island Countries, Fluency in English is required, and knowledge of a local language would be an asset.

For every Child, you demonstrate… 

UNICEF's values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, Accountability, and Sustainability (CRITAS). 

To view our competency framework, please visit  here. 

UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most disadvantaged children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, or any other personal characteristic.

UNICEF offers reasonable accommodation for consultants with disabilities. This may include, for example, accessible software, travel assistance for missions or personal attendants. We encourage you to disclose your disability during your application in case you need reasonable accommodation during the selection process and afterwards in your assignment. 

UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.  

Remarks:  

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process. 

Individuals engaged under a consultancy will not be considered “staff members” under the Staff Regulations and Rules of the United Nations and UNICEF’s policies and procedures and will not be entitled to benefits provided therein (such as leave entitlements and medical insurance coverage). Their conditions of service will be governed by their contract and the General Conditions of Contracts for the Services of Consultants. Consultants are responsible for determining their tax liabilities and for the payment of any taxes and/or duties, in accordance with local or other applicable laws. 

The selected candidate is solely responsible to ensure that the visa (applicable) and health insurance required to perform the duties of the contract are valid for the entire period of the contract. Selected candidates are subject to confirmation of fully-vaccinated status against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) with a World Health Organization (WHO)-endorsed vaccine, which must be met prior to taking up the assignment. It does not apply to consultants who will work remotely and are not expected to work on or visit UNICEF premises, programme delivery locations or directly interact with communities UNICEF works with, nor to travel to perform functions for UNICEF for the duration of their consultancy contracts.