Tors: Consultant for Costing and Financing World Health Assembly Goals for Nutrition

TORs: Consultant for Costing and Financing World Health Assembly Goals for Nutrition

Background and Rationale  The 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, during which the Government of Brazil will host a high-level summit focused on nutrition, presents a prime opportunity for the international community to secure additional financial and policy commitments to achieve the World Health Assembly (WHA) global nutrition targets. Moreover, the new post 2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) offer a tremendous opportunity to ensure that nutrition does in fact become central to development and that more global and country-level resources are directed toward achieving measurable progress in reducing malnutrition (i.e. meeting the WHA global nutrition targets). The six WHA targets aim to, by 2025, reduce by 40% the number of children under 5 who are stunted; achieve a 50% reduction in the rate of anemia in women of reproductive age; achieve a 30% reduction in the rate of infants born low birth weight; ensure that there is no increase in the rate of children who are overweight; increase to at least 50% the rate of exclusive breastfeeding in the first six months; and reduce and maintain childhood wasting to less than 5%. Currently, the world is off track to meet all six.  The historic Nutrition for Growth Summit in 2013, where political leaders, members of the private sector, and civil society organizations pledged to combat malnutrition, represented an important first step towards the achievement of these targets. Yet despite this promise, funding for nutrition at the global and national levels remains woefully inadequate.  The World Health Organization has developed a series of six policy briefs linked to each of the WHA global nutrition targets that can guide national and local policymakers on the evidence-based, effective interventions they may adopt in order to achieve these targets. However, key questions persist, including the level and source of resources required to achieve the WHA targets. How much funding is needed, globally and in specific countries? How do these financing requirements compare with currently available and pledged resources? What are the key resource mobilization strategies to achieve the WHA global nutrition targets, and how far could they go to fill these gaps?

 Project Description  To help answer these questions the World Bank, in partnership with R4D and 1000 Days will undertake analytic work to generate the first global estimates of financial resource needs to achieve the six WHA global nutrition targets, as well as estimates of funding gaps and alternative financing scenarios to close those gaps. The project also aims to initiate discussions on the design and development of a flexible costing tool that can be used to model cost projections for achieving the WHA targets based on different scenarios and country contexts. Such a widely-accepted tool has been critical for advocacy in favor of increased funding for other global health areas such as HIV and Malaria, and its development for nutrition would be a key building block in a larger, sustained effort to achieve the ambitious WHA targets.

The World Bank project seeks to recruit a nutrition consultant to join a team to develop in this work program.

Scope of work of the nutrition consultant will be as follows: 1. Support the team to:

1  Collate the most recent literature on impact models for child stunting, wasting, breastfeeding and anemia, including the size of the impact for each intervention  Develop impact models  Develop and maintain a data-base of unit costs for each intervention of interest in different country/contexts  Undertake quantitative estimations of the benefits (stunting reduction, DALYs, lives saved) of scaling up nutrition interventions 2. Preparing and planning logistics for country missions (PPT materials, background data, liaise with the government, setting up meetings, etc) 3. Writing-up, revising and editing draft reports 4. Any other tasks relevant to the project

Qualifications and experience: The successful candidate will have: • At a minimum, Masters degree in Nutrition (PhD preferred). Qualifications/experience in Health Economics, or Health Financing is an added advantage. • At least 2-3 years of relevant work experience (technical and operational). Experience in developing countries on health financing, nutrition, economics, agricultural economics, or in social protection is a plus. • Evidence of strong analytical skills; Excellent quantitative skills and demonstrated track record of working with epidemiological data sectoral data and analytical tools and models; an understanding of the underlying statistical concepts is necessary. • Some knowledge and familiarity with agriculture and social protection issues would be a plus. • A drive for results, including a proven track record of high standards/accountability for work products, meeting deadlines, an ability to prioritize tasks within his/her work program and strategies for working collectively with others on the team to deliver products of the highest caliber. • Willingness to travel is essential. • Some knowledge and familiarity with agriculture and social protection issues would be a plus. • Working knowledge of french language is a plus.

Duration: Initial contract will be for 50 days between March 1, 2015 and June 30, 2015 with option to extend at mutual consent. Travel costs, as needed, will be covered by the World Bank.

Supervision and reporting: The consultant(s) will work closely with the larger team and will report to Meera Shekar, Lead HNP Specialist,

Please send CVs to Meera Shekar: [email protected].

Application deadline: February 28, 2015