THET CWPAMS CONSULTANT IN SIERRA LEONE

The THET Consultant in Sierra Leone will carry out activities for the Commonwealth Partnerships for Antimicrobial Stewardship (CwPAMS) programme, which runs until March 2025.

The activities expected of the consultant as part of this scheme will fall into the following workstreams:

Workstream 1: Inception Phase

Objective: To support the set-up of the programme to ensure that the grants funded will contribute to the country’s National Action Plan on AMR.

• Identify and recruit members of the National Oversight Mechanism (NOM). This body will consist of 3-4 national stakeholders with expertise in AMS, including Ministry of Health and Sanitation representation. They will provide an advisory function, to ensure national oversight and ownership of the design and delivery of the programme in each country, and to align with national policies and programmes and provide an open and transparent choice for Sierra Leonean stakeholders;
• Disseminate information on the call for proposals to potential applicants;
• Review grant holder applications and coordinate NOM’s review of applications (alongside THET and CPA).
• Attend full programme inception event.

Workstream 2: Developing and strengthening Co-ordination between Grant holders, Ministry of Health and Sanitation and Other key Health institutions to align with strategic priorities

Objective: To ensure that project activity is in line with country, Fleming Fund and MoHS plans, to strengthen and expand stakeholder buy-in to improve the sustainable impact of the projects and to ensure the programme is accountable to national stakeholders.

• Chair in-country introduction meeting between grant holders and national stakeholders.
• Provide secretariat of the NOM, keeping them updated on project progress, and organising biannual meetings;
• Establish and promote key relationships between grant holders and national stakeholders (e.g. Fleming Fund grantee, MoHS departments, AMR and AMS taskforces, etc);
• Responsible for mapping and prioritising stakeholders based on how significant they are to the successful delivery of the project in their respective countries. Where appropriate, represent grant holders at meetings with key stakeholders, e.g. at relevant working groups/steering committees;
• Facilitate, where appropriate, grant holder involvement in national stakeholder meetings;
• Provide regular updates to THET UK on the above, as well as changes in health sector priorities, stakeholder relations, changes in the operating environment, media engagement opportunities and upcoming events.

Workstream 3: Facilitating Learning and Collaboration Between Grant Holders

Objective: To ensure learning, synergies and sustainability, and to avoid duplication.

• Facilitate introductions, and strengthen relationships, between grant holders and other relevant programmes and organisations, ensuring maximum effectiveness and to minimise duplication.

Workstream 4: Supporting Grant holders to Improve their operations and deliver effective and sustainable projects in line with national plans.

Objective: To facilitate the effective delivery of projects and support partners, particularly the Sierra Leone grant holder, to have the capacity to take a leadership role within the partnership. Strengthening project management processes will allow partners to spend time more efficiently on achieving their project outcomes.

• Work with THET to ensure that in-country grant holders understand what is required of them with regards to project management (including M&E, finances, activity plan and reporting, grant holder relations, procurement etc.) and support them where necessary to overcome identified challenges.
• Advise grant holders on how activities can be scaled up, and support linkages with the MoHS, appropriate regulatory bodies, other donors and programmes etc, ensuring that projects are embedded into the health system.
• Provide logistical support around grant holder events/visa processes/ethical approvals, UK volunteers, etc
• Attend or present at grant holders’ events and their introductory meeting with THET/CPA colleagues.

Workstream 5: In-Country monitoring of grant holders and risk management

Objective: To accompany progress of the projects and to ensure any potential challenges and risks are identified and mitigated as soon as possible.

• Conduct visits to the grant holder institutions, and hold regular phone calls, to accompany progress, ensure that challenges identified through reports and monitoring visits are being successfully overcome and that any new challenges, concerns, developments or opportunities are identified quickly.
• Contribute to the review of the grant holder reports and provide feedback to THET
• Identify any changes to the personnel amongst the grant holders
• Maintain country risk registers to monitor the operational, delivery, reputational, safeguarding and fiduciary risks, in conjunction with THET, alerting THET and grant holders to heightened risks as appropriate.

Ongoing activities across the programme:

Every quarter*, engage in the following activities.

*Frequency of meetings to be assessed as programme goes on.

• Check-in meetings with THET and CPA
• Review meetings and check-ins between THET and CPA in-country consultants to share experiences and help one another with any challenges during the programme implementation
• Update individual workplan to reflect any key activities, meetings and events that are taking place

Proposed timeframe
Between 4-5 consulting days a month from February 2024 to March 2025. Please note there will be a degree of flexibility within this, with some months requiring more capacity, others much less.

Contractual responsibilities

The contract is for 56 days for 13 months, which works out at just over 4 days’ work a month. Consultants will receive a daily rate of £190, which totals to £10,640 for the whole programme. The consultant will invoice THET on a monthly basis. Please note that this is non-negotiable and will cover all expenses apart from project-related travel and communication expenses. Consultants will be given an allowance to help deliver the work, with £100 a month available for transport, communications and meeting costs.