AMP Technical Assistance to support national ITN campaign in Tchad with technical/M&E and logistics aspects

Overall objective

The consultancy assignment will aim to provide remote and face-to-face technical assistance to support the mass distribution campaign of ITNs in Chad in the technical/M&E and logistics aspects of the campaign.

Background

In Tchad, the main vector control strategy against malaria, one of the main causes of morbidity and mortality, is the use of ITNs. To this end, the population has benefited from four mass campaigns between 2011 and 2021. However, the country has not achieved universal coverage, as only 77% of households have at least 1 ITN and only 58% of the population uses it.

Tchad will organize its fifth ITN distribution campaign in 2022 and 2023. This campaign will be co-financed by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GF) and the government of Tchad. Tchad has planned a 7-phase mass campaign with distribution starting in January 2023 for Phase 1. The campaign will target 19 provinces listed below: Lac, Guéra, Kanem, Ouaddaï, Wadi Fira, N’Djaména, Bahr El-Gazal, Logone Occidental, Logone Oriental, Tandjilé, Mandoul, Moyen Chari, Mayo Kebbi Est, Mayo Kebbi Ouest, Chari-Baguirmi, Salamat, Sila, Hadjer Lamis and Batha.

Twelve of these provinces will receive AMF-supplied ITNs PBO (Mandoul, Moyen-Chari, Salamat, Logone Oriental, Logone Occidental, Tandjilé, Mayo Kebbi Est, Mayo Kebbi Ouest, Chari Baguirmi, Hadjer Lamis, Sila, and Batha). Five provinces will receive standard ITNs provided by the Global Fund (Guera, Ouaddai, Wadi Fira, Lac and Kanem). In two provinces (Bahr El-Gazal and N’Djaména), ITNs will be purchased from government counterpart funds. It is important to note that the GF has guaranteed funding for operational costs for all 17 provinces, with funding for the last two provinces coming from government counterpart funds.

The Global Fund is funding the purchase of ITNs and all campaign activities in these seven regions. However, 10 provinces are still not covered. The announcement of a partnership with the Malaria Foundation (AMF) to cover the gap may change this distribution of regions, particularly between the Global Fund and AMF, with the two government provinces remaining within the commitment of counterpart funds.

The 2022 – 2023 campaign will be a digitized campaign that aims to improve the quality and availability of data for decision making during the campaign. The health context with the COVID-19 pandemic will also influence the working methods and implementation strategies.

The NMCP will need to develop an implementation plan for the campaign activities, a logistics plan, a communications plan, a scanning plan, a monitoring and evaluation plan, a risk analysis and mitigation plan, a timeline and a detailed budget for the campaign. This process, which will take place within the framework of the National Steering Committee (NSC) of the LLIN campaign, will require technical assistance to move the activities forward in a timely manner.

MACROPLANNING

DEVELOPPEMENT OF TOOLS

Technical/M&E – Distance support – 9 days

Based on the list of documents needed for the implementation of activities developed at the end of the first TA period and validated by the NMCP, support the finalization of all documents, tools, etc., for each phase of the campaign (trainings and implementation) to ensure meticulous monitoring of the country for the next steps. A partial list is presented below.

Expected results:

• Tools for collecting data from community agents and for synthesizing and compiling it at each level of the M&E system
• Tools for supervision and monitoring (operations, communication, M&E)
• Protocol for monitoring enumeration and tools for implementation (as applicable)
• Protocol for rapid post-distribution coverage survey (as applicable)
• Agendas for training at all levels
• Training manuals for all levels (as applicable)
• Standard operating procedures for all campaign actors (EM, communication) and for all phases of activity (enumeration, distribution)
• Reporting templates for all activities

MICROPLANNING – FINALIZATION OF THE PACKAGE FOR MICROPLANNING AND FOR THE TRAINING OF TRAINERS

Logistics aspects –finalization of the framework and materials and training of trainers – in-country support – 21 days

• Support the updating of microplanning plan of action
• Support the development of a last mile transportation planning document
• Support the update of the information collection list (includes waste management and reverse logistics)
• Support the updating of agendas for facilitator trainings and microplanning workshops at the district level
• Support the updating of PPTs, materials and supports for microplanning, especially for last mile transport planning
• Support the updating of the framework for consolidating district and regional microplanning results
• Support the development of a simplified risk analysis and mitigation plan for use by the districts during the microplanning workshops
• Support the training of trainers for microplanning
• Support the review and consolidation of microplans
• Support the development of the microplanning report including challenges and lessons learned

Expected results:

1. Microplanning plan of action, including last mile planning
2. Package for train-the-trainer and microplanning workshops, especially for last-mile transport planning
3. Template for consolidation of microplanning results
4. Simplified framework for risk analysis and mitigation
5. Finalized microplans
6. Finalized microplanning report

MICROPLANNING – CLEANING OF MICROPLANS

Technical/SE – remote support for microplan cleanup – 8 days

• Support the review and consolidation of microplans
• Support microplanning data validation (research options for data validation [GRID3 or other platform])
• Support the development of the microplanning report including challenges and lessons learned for the next phases of the campaign.

Expected results :

1. Finalisation of microplans
2. Finalised microplanning report
3. Logistics aspects – distance support to clean up microplans – 8 jours

• Support the review and consolidation of microplans
• Support the development of the microplanning report including challenges and lessons learned

Expected results :

1. Finalized microplans

2. Finalized microplanning report

SUPPORT FOR TRAINING AND MONITORING OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF ACTIVITIES

Technical/M&E – in-country support – 30 days

• Support the NMCP with training of trainers for the implementation of technical/M&E activities
• Support the NMCP with daily monitoring of the implementation of activities including:
• Review of implemendation data, identification of issues, development of feedback
• Review of WhatsApp group information and feedback based on questions, comments and images shared
• Participation in daily debriefings
• Decision making based on data for high quality implementation activities
• Review of independent monitoring data, participation in daily meetings with the monitoring team, identification of problems, elaboration of feedback
• Identification of solutions for problems encountered on a daily basis.

Expected results:

1. Completed high quality trainings of trainers
2. Implementation of a high quality campaign, timely problem solving, use of data for decision making and improvement of implementation activities.

SUPPORT WITH THE DRAFTING OF MASS CAMPAIGN REPORTS

• Technical/M&E – Distance support – 7 days
  • Develop documents for a remote process evaluation (e.g., online questionnaire) to collect comments and suggestions from stakeholders at all levels for consideration in regional and national review meetings and analysis of the data collected
  • Support the development of agendas, materials and supports for provincial debriefings at the end of the campaign
  • Support the development of the agenda, materials and supports for the campaign validation meeting
  • Support the development of a standard format for capturing lessons learned from the campaign
  • Establish the reporting framework for the campaign
  • Report on the campaign

Expected results

1. Process evaluation documents developed for validation, pre-test and deployment
2. Agendas, materials and supports for review meetings available for validation
3. Standard template for lessons learned available for validation
4. Campaign report template available for review
5. Campaign Report

Project objectives and timelines:

Objective #1: To support national malaria programmes and partners with high-quality guidance and technical support to ensure achievement of ITN distribution objectives.

Desired outcomes: National malaria programmes and partners have high-quality guidance, tools and materials that they can use to improve the effectiveness and outcomes of the critical microplanning process.

Support to be provided to the consultant

The consultant will be supported by the Manager – Malaria Programmes and the AMP Coordination Officer.