Needs assessment – Thailand

La Chaîne de l’Espoir is an international NGO founded in 1994. Its mission is to strengthen health systems to give everyone, especially children, the same chances of survival and development. Helping the most vulnerable children is more than an ethical obligation, it is a prerequisite for achieving the 2030 goals for children’s health and well-being.

We work in 28 countries with a comprehensive approach, focusing on children, mothers and disadvantaged communities:

• Prevention and screening from an early age, particularly through school health programs.
• Care and surgery, to meet the most urgent needs of children and their mothers.
• Strengthening the medical and surgical workforce thanks to our international network of experts.
• Construction and equipment of hospital structures adapted to local needs.

Today, CDE is present in 28 countries. In 2020, CDE’s programmes enabled it to treat more than 210,000 beneficiaries, operate on more than 4,653 children and organise 50 international volunteer missions.

La Chaîne de l’Espoir has been established for more than 25 years in Thailand and works to reduce inequality of access to health care and previously to education. It also carries out school health actions in the fields of sexual and reproductive health, oral health and eye health, currently in Buriram province.

The association wishes to carry out a needs assessment on access to healthcare for vulnerable children in Thailand, in order to (re-)direct CDE strategy and programme development in the country for the period 2022-2024.

The consultant hired will be in regular contact with Timothée Pocard-Kieny, CDE head of mission in Thailand, who will follow up his work.

2. Objectives

The objectives of the consultancy are to:

• Identify priority areas for the CDE programme in Thailand related to access to care for vulnerable children, in order to help designing projects that would fill the existing gaps.

To do so the consultant will:

• Provide a detailed and comprehensive understanding of access to health for vulnerable populations and identify the population excluded from access and use of health services (children of migrant workers, refugees, ethnic minorities…).
• Provide a detailed understanding of the specific issues of access to surgical care for vulnerable populations (discrimination, access to the information, exclusion from the social welfare system, availability of health facilities, etc.). To do so, the consultant will carry out a field investigation and present several case studies.
• Do a mapping of key actors working in Thailand to improve access to health care, including tertiary care.

The consultant will also assist the Head of Mission in his prospective work: preparing interviews with stakeholders and field exploratory missions, developing tools to facilitate the prospective work etc.

3. Methodology

The consultant will propose a methodology to meet the objectives of the consultancy, including a literature review and field surveys and interviews with potential beneficiaries and/or health/child protection actors, including government agencies.

4. Deliverables

• An intermediate report (approx. 30 pages);
• A workshop with CDE’s headquarters and field teams to reflect on the results of the consultancy and identify priority areas for CDE programme in Thailand;
• A final report (approx. 30 pages) taking into account the results of the workshop. The final report should include an executive summary providing the key findings of the consultancy (approx. 3 pages):
• The main needs in terms of access to care for excluded populations;
• Priority areas for CDE programme in Thailand, taking into account CDE’s mandate and expertise.

All reports must be submitted in English.

5. Planning

• • Applications deadline: 7th of February 2022
  • Starting date of the consultancy: week of 14 February 2022
  • Field investigation should be conducted by 4 March 2022
  • Date of submission of the intermediate report: 8 March 2022
  • Synthesis workshop: week of 14 March 2022
  • Date of submission of the final report: early April 2022

  The consultancy service shall take a maximum of 17 working days.

6. Profile and desired skills

The consultant shall have the following skills and experience :

• Knowledge of the political, socio-economic and health context of Thailand as well as of the actors evolving in the field of health / children;
• Knowledge of health and/or child protection issues;
• Proven consultancy expertise in the field of intervention desired;
• Proven experience of conducting needs assessment;
• Previous experience with local and international NGOs;
• Excellent oral and written skills in English (or French). Knowledge of Thai is a plus.