Assessment and Development of Infant and Young Child Feeding Interventions in Botswana

1. BACKGROUND

UNICEF Botswana recently supported the Government of Botswana (GoB) to develop a National Nutrition Strategy which has prioritised reduction of the high levels of stunting among children under the age of five as one of the national focus areas. To support implementation of this strategy, UNICEF Botswana will support GoB to develop locally relevant, evidence-based interventions in high priority areas. To this end, UNICEF, the Ministry of Health and other partners wish to undertake an assessment of feeding practices in Gantsi District (a high malnutrition prevalence district) and other selected communities near Gaborone, Botswana. UNICEF is looking for a competent consultant to lead implementation of a process for the promotion of child feeding known as ProPan, and originally used by UNCEF and the Pan American Health Organisation. ProPan will be used to assess and improve infant and young child feeding practices in Gantsi District and the additional communities. 

2. PURPOSE

The purpose of this consultancy is to better understand factors that contribute to sub-optimal infant feeding practices and develop and field-test interventions that promote life-saving feeding practices while taking into account locally available and accessible foods, cultural norms and practices, and environmental influences to infant feeding. The consultancy will also inform intervention design processes for complementary feeding interventions across the country. 

3. TASKS

The ProPan approach has four (4) standard modules which are:

a) Module 1: Assessment

i. Identification of general nutritional status in the district
ii. Preparations for field work (includes training; updating food composition tables; database)
iii. Sampling, selection and data collection
iv. Data integration, analysis and formulation of priority recommendations

b) Module 2: Developing and testing recommendations and recipes in the community
c) Module 3: Developing intervention plan
d) Module 4: Designing M & E framework

New: In addition to these standard modules, Botswana will add a module on training and mentoring of health workers and relevant local partners for sustained delivery of recommendations into the future (Module 5). 
The consultant will provide advice to the local ProPan team on relevant ProPan components for implementation in this project, in view of current available data. The consultant will then provide overall technical leadership to the local team in implementation of Modules 1 (assessment; including all relevant preparations) and 2 (testing of recommendations), and provide recommendations for implementation of modules 3 and 4 as well as for health worker capacity building.

4. DELIVERABLES

• Inception report: First draft due 5 days after receiving summary paper of nutritional status, for comments by MoH and UNICEF. Final inception report due 5 days later
• Research protocol and data collection tools 
• Updated food composition tables in the ProPan software package
• An assessment database constructed using the ProPan software program 
• Consultancy report; to include:

o Report on training of local team on ProPan
o Recommendations and recipes following assessment
o Recommendations for the intervention design and M & E framework modules (Modules 3 & 4) plus the training & mentorship module

• Generic guide for development of complementary feeding interventions in other districts

5. QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE

• Minimum of Master’s degree in Nutrition or Public Health with sound Nutrition knowledge
• Minimum 5 years of professional experience in Public Health Nutrition, particularly in the area of Infant and Young Child Feeding
• Demonstrated research experience in young child nutrition, including assessments, data analysis and report writing
• Proven experience conducting ProPan modules 1 (assessment) and 2 (field-testing)

o ProPan experience in more than 1 setting will be considered an advantage
o ProPan experience in Eastern and Southern Africa region will be considered an advantage

• Proven experience in training other researchers on ProPan
• Demonstrated ability to effectively work with national authorities in research projects

6. TIME FRAME

The entire Module I and II are expected to be completed within 5 months of signing the contract. The consultant will be expected to be physically present in Botswana for a cumulative total of not less than 7 weeks during the consultancy (this duration may be more depending on agreed tasks). 

7. HOW TO APPLY

Interested and qualified candidates should send an e-mail requesting for complete Terms of Reference to cmekandi@unicef.org.

Applications should be sent to the same address with the following documents:

• Updated United Nations Personal History Form -P11 (searchable on the internet)
• Updated CV
• Consultancy proposal including timelines and consultancy fees

Closing date of application: 15th August 2014