If you are a committed, creative professional and are passionate about making a lasting difference for children, the world's leading children's rights organization would like to hear from you.
For 70 years, UNICEF has been working on the ground in 190 countries and territories to promote children's survival, protection and development. The world's largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments.
Purpose of the Assignment
Despite impressive progress in reducing under-five mortality from 117 to 85/1,000 live births over the last decade and increasing facility delivery to 78%, Lesotho still has some of the highest maternal and neonatal mortality - 1,024/100,000 live births and 33/1000 live births respectively in the Southern Africa region, coupled with one of the highest HIV prevalence (25% of the adult population) in the World. The MoH also recognizes that increase in service coverage (ANC, Institutional delivery, PNC) has not translated into reduced mortality rates especially for mothers and newborns. These findings suggest a lingering gap in the leadership and quality of care for implementation and delivery of key life-saving interventions and MNCH services in the country.
The Lesotho Maternal and Child Health (MCH) needs assessment is to provide critical information and data for the Ministry of Health, development partners and stakeholders for policy review, planning, managerial and clinical decisions to improve maternal and child health in Lesotho. The assessment is intended to be the basis for a blueprint for an accelerated program to improve maternal and child health quality and availability in Lesotho.
The purpose of this consultancy is to review the MNCH programme in Lesotho and to recommend how the health system, in particular the MNCH programme, has to change in order to accelerate improvement in health outcomes for mothers and children.
The specific Objectives are:
- Assess current status of programme and achievements in MNCH service delivery in the country.
- Identify the factors that are facilitating and constraining the delivery of MNCH services
- Develop a roadmap for improved programme management, coordination, mentoring and additional areas as necessary for strengthening reforms and efficiency in the implementation of MoH mandate specifically in MNCH service delivery.
- Provide hands-on support to officials of the MOH to implement the key pillars (as determined by the MOH, Consultant and relevant Development Partners) of the roadmap.
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