Consultant V

PROGRAM BACKGROUND

International Medical Corps (IMC) provides life-saving health and nutrition services to displaced persons and the host communities in South Kordofan, Blue Nile and Darfur. IMC has worked in Sudan since 2004 and has provided lifesaving and quality humanitarian health services in Darfur since the start of the conflict in 2004. The program in 2018 expanded to Blue Nile and South Kordofan States. The current active grants support a catchment population of over 2 million people affected by conflict and disasters. Currently, IMC supports 89 health facilities in West, Central, and South Darfur, South Kordofan, and Blue Nile states. IMC provides essential primary healthcare, nutrition, and WASH interventions to conflict-affected populations through supporting the health systems and emergency response. Support to the health systems includes infrastructural rehabilitation, WASH, drug supply, capacity building, health and nutrition service delivery, and data management. Nutrition services include community-based management of acute malnutrition (CMAM) and infant and young child feeding (IYCF) activities. IMC provides improved WASH coverage through increased, water supply, sanitation infrastructure, solid (medical and domestic) waste management, and community mobilization around health and hygiene promotion at community and health facility levels. Currently with the in-kind and financial support received from BHA, ECHO, UNICEF and WFP, International Medical Corps provides a comprehensive malnutrition prevention and treatment package using the CMAM approach in different centers within Blue Nile, South Kordofan States, and South, Central and West Darfur states.

As per the S3M II, 2020, survey report, across Sudan the prevalence of wasting is on average 13.6% among children under the age of five while 2.72% of children are severely wasted at national level. The magnitude of acute malnutrition varies across the country. 56 of the 185 localities have a severe acute malnutrition rate (Severe wasting by weight-for-height z-score (WHZ)) that is classified as very critical (above 3 percent). Across the country 61.5% of children aged 0-5 months being exclusively breast fed. Similarly, the main challenge with infant and young child feeding in Sudan is the low age-appropriate dietary diversity of children 6-23 months old which varies across the country. According Results S3M II survey report 2020, the prevalence of diarrhea, acute respiratory infections, and fever were 20.15%, 20.67% and 17.99%, respectively, among children below five years)[1].

A SMART survey conducted in November 2020 in South Darfur, East Jabel Mara locality indicates that the Global Acute Malnutrition (GAM) prevalence was 18.1 %, while the severe acute malnutrition (SAM) prevalence was 5.3% showing both the GAM and SAM prevalence are above the emergency threshold of 15% and 1%, respectively.

The localities of the proposed SMART surveys were selected by WFP and WFP has requested IMC to provide technical support to conduct these surveys since the partners working on the ground do not have enough capacity to conduct the surveys. These surveys will be conducted to better understand nutritional and health needs in order to be able to design programme that fills the gaps identified. These findings will be backed up with nutrition screening for under fivechildren and PLW which has been conducted by partners working on the ground and SMOH.

PURPOSE

IMC is recruiting a consultant to carry out SMART nutrition surveys among vulnerable community in Sharg El Jabal locality of South Darfur. The overall objective of the surveys is to assess the level of malnutrition of children 6-59 months, women of reproductive age, morbidity and mortality rates, Infant and young child feeding practices among children 0-23 month and WASH practices within IMC’s operational areas in South Darfur state.

OBJECTIVES

• To determine prevalence of acute malnutrition, chronic malnutrition, underweight and overweight among children 6-59 months and PLWs
• To assess retrospective morbidity among children under 5
• To assess retrospective mortality (Crude Mortality and U5 Mortality rates) over 3 months recall period among populations
• To assess the coverage of measles vaccine and Vitamin A
• To assess IYCF practices among the households with children 0-23 months in the target population (early initiation, exclusive breastfeeding, continued breastfeeding to 1 year and 2 years, timely introduction of complementary feeding, dietary diversity, meal frequency, minimum acceptable diet, and bottle feeding).
• Determine key water Hygiene and Sanitation (WASH) practices among people living in selected area in Darfur.
• To establish recommendations on actions to address identified gaps to support planning, advocacy, decision making and monitoring.

DELIVERABLES

• Inception report: Present the design, implementation and supervision strategy of the SMART survey, IYCF survey, and seek validate with IMC country team , TU Nutrition advisor and MEAL advisor and SMOH
• Implement two SMART nutrition surveys—one in East Jabel Mara (South Darfur) and one IYCF survey in Um dhukun,
• Present a draft survey reports for all the surveys including background, methodology, results, limitations, conclusions and recommendations (short term and medium-term recommendation)
• Incorporate comments from stakeholders, IMC country team and HQ to finalize the report
• Present survey reports for all the surveys final reports incorporating the feedback from the IMC country team and the TU nutrition advisor and MEAL advisor
• Submit all the data and analysis outputs (both raw and cleaned –electronically to IMC country team
• Present all survey report result in respective sites to nutrition cluster both at state and Federal level

JOB QUALIFITCATIONS AND REQUIREMENTS

Required Skills, Knowledge & Abilities

• A health professional or nutritionist with MPH, MSc or advanced professional degree or field-related experience.
• Significant and proven experience, at least three years, in community based studies including SMART surveys.
• Knowledge in designing and implementing CMAM and IYCF programs
• Excellent analytical and statistical skills.
• Strong communication skills, able to effectively present information clearly and respond appropriately to questions from IMC staff and other relevant stakeholders
• Strong supervisory and organizational skills
• Ability to work on own initiative and to meet deadlines.
• Ability to cope with stress; hardship; patience and flexibility and willingness to work additional hours in order to meet tight deadlines;
• Ability and willingness to travel to field sites and nutrition facilities
• Advanced proficiency in the use of MS Office, EPI INFO, SPSS and for ENA SMART Software.
• Fluent in written and spoken English and /Arabic and /local language are added advantage
• The candidate must present an approved final reports of the most two recent SMART survey that he/she had conducted.

[1] Sudan S3M II (2020): Report of a Simple Spatial Surveying Method S3M II in Sudan. Federal Ministry of Health, Sudan.

Job Description

Not Applicable

Job Requirements

Please refer to the Scope of Work above to view this Individual Consultancy details and requirements.

Code of Conduct As applicable to this position, an individual must promote and encourage a culture of compliance and ethics throughout the organization and maintain a clear understanding of International Medical Corps and donor compliance and ethics standards and adheres to those standards.

Safeguarding It is all staff shared responsibility and obligation to safeguard and protect populations with whom we work, including adults who may be particularly vulnerable and children. This includes safeguarding from the following conduct by our staff or partners: sexual exploitation and abuse; exploitation, neglect, or abuse of children, adults at risk, or LGBTI individuals; and any form of trafficking in persons. Staff are also responsible for preventing violations to our Code of Conduct and Ethics, which may involve Conflicts of Interest, Fraud, Corruption or Harassment. If you see, hear or are made aware of any violations to the Code of Conduct and Ethics or Safeguarding Policy, you have an obligation to report.

Equal Opportunities International Medical Corps is proud to provide equal employment opportunities to all employees and qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national or ethnic origin, age, disability or status as a veteran.