BACKGROUND
Ministry of Health and Child Welfare, Ministry of Women Affairs, Gender and Community Development, Zimbabwe National Family Planning Council, National AIDS Council and other partners are implementing the Integrated Support Programme (ISP) for sexual and reproductive health and HIV prevention in Zimbabwe. A component of this programme provides integrated HIV, SRH and GBV services through low cost activities that include intensive demand generation using a home visit approach to facilitate interpersonal communication with families, couples and individuals. The home visits are conducted by community volunteers called behaviour change facilitators (BCFs) who visit households and use a structured participatory approach to assess personal health risks of eligible young people, men and women (10 years and above) in the household. Based on the results of the assessment, the BCFs then discuss issues around SRHR and GBV, provide information on services and issue specific referrals to SRHR and GBV services based on the individuals’ health needs. The programme is implemented in 26 districts by 1,600 BCFs. The BCFs are organised through seven implementing partner organisations who manage the implementation of the programme at district and community level.
PURPOSE OF THE CONSULTANCY
UNFPA seeks to recruit a research agency or institution as an implementing partner, which has both a qualitative and quantitative research specialist in their team, to conduct an evaluation of the effectiveness of the home visit approach in generating demand for SRH, HIV and GBV services in the 26 ISP supported districts.
QUALIFICATIONS OF RESEARCH PARTNER
The research team must possess the following qualifications and experience:
- Experienced Social Scientist / Public Health Specialist
- Minimum qualification of Master’s Degree in Public Health or Social Science
- Proven research background and experience in either public health or social research
- Strong appreciation of Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights and HIV programming (including community interventions);
- Experience in attaining appropriate ethical clearance for research (preferably operations research or a similar approach);
- Excellent evidence-based report writing skills;
- Very good communication skills;
- Experience in Zimbabwe and/or other countries in the region;
- Good interpersonal skills and experience in conducting research about sensitive topic relating to sexual and reproductive health and rights, and HIV.
- Quantitative Research Specialist: Demonstrable experience in quantitative research design, methodologies, data collection, and analysis. Expertise in conducting in-depth quantitative bivariate and multivariate analysis using SPSS or STATA (samples of previous work in quantitative research must be submitted with the proposal)
- Qualitative Research Specialist: Demonstrable experience in qualitative research design, methodologies, data collection, and analysis. Experience of conducting in-depth qualitative analysis using NVivo or equivalent analysis software (samples of previous work in qualitative research must be submitted with the proposal)
Terms of Reference for the consultancy may be requested from loning@unfpa.org
HOW TO APPLY:
Please submit applications as specified in the Terms of Reference in a sealed envelope marked “Research Partner – Effectiveness Home Visit Approach” no later than 12 noon (UCT+2) on Monday 7 September 2015 to:
The UNFPA Country Representative, Ref: Research Partner – Effectiveness Home Visit Approach,Block 7, 1stFloor, Arundel Office Park, Mt. Pleasant, PO Box 4775, Harare; or by e-mail to mailzwe@unfpa.org
