International Consultancy: Maternal & Perinatal Death Surveillance & Response (MPDSR) Status Update

United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) East and Southern Africa Regional Office, Johannesburg, South Africa. 

Background 

Maternal and Perinatal Death Surveillance and Response (MPDSR) is an established sound and robust system for reviewing maternal deaths and establishing nationwide enquiries into deaths during pregnancy labour and puerperium.

MPDSR is a system that measures and tracks all maternal deaths in real time, helps to understand the underlying factors contributing to the deaths, and stimulates and guides actions to prevent future deaths. It is a form of continuous surveillance that links the health information system and quality improvement processes from local to national levels, and permits the routine iden­tification, notification, quantification and determination of causes and maternal deaths, as well as the use of this information to respond with actions that will prevent future deaths.

Institutionalizing MPDSR is one of the priorities of the African Union Commission (AUC) action plan towards ending preventable maternal, newborn and child mortality in Africa. Maternal Death Surveillance and Response is also one of the key areas for implementation of the Commission on Information and Accountability (CoIA) framework for the UN Secretary-General’s Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health. CoIA aims to encourage countries and their partners to be more accountable for women’s and children's health. Real-time monitoring is therefore needed to enhance accountability at the country level for accelerating the pace of progress to reduce maternal deaths.

The joint UN ESA (WHO/UNFPA/UNICEF) regional offices have been supporting countries and facilitating south-south learning to strengthen MPDSR in ESA region. Up until now, the joint ESA UN team has produced MPDSR regional status report for 2016 and 2018, and disseminated the findings of these reports to enhance the quality and use of MPDSR. This exercise will increase the regional MPDSR knowledge base by documenting the progress made since 2018. 

The purpose of this consultancy is to collect data and write a report on the status of MPDSR in 23 countries in ESA region. 

The specific purpose of this consultancy are: 

1. To understand the progress made on strengthening MPDSR system since 2018.
2. To assess the status of the SP 2018 – 2021 indicator on MPDSR since this year us the final year if the SP. (i.e., what has been achieved during the current SP period).
3. To understand the implementation challenges.
4. To identify recommendations for the effective implementation MPDSR at scale.
5. To have a joint (WHO/UNFPA/UNICEF) progress report on strengthening MPDSR in ESA region.

Scope of work:

(Description of services, activities, or outputs)

 Scope of Work (description of services, activities and outputs)

1. Develop the detail methodology and outline of the report;
2. Customize MPDSR data collection questionnaire if necessary based on a discussion with the Un regional inter-agency team;
3. Collect data from countries the status of MPDSR;
4. Undertake desk review which includes but not limited to: 

• Previous status reports of 2016 and 2018 in ESA region,
• Global guidance on implementation of MDPSR, 
• Documentations on the UN ESA inter agency collaboration on MPDSR (to be supplied by the UN agencies);                                       5. Based on the findings, produce MPDSR 2021 East and Southern Africa Report. 

Duration and working schedule:

The assignment will be 26 days spread from commencement of the assignment to 15^th of December 2021. The following time frame is applied in calculating the total days. 

• Inception report - 2 days
• Adaptation of the MPDSR assessment questionnaire – 1 days
• Desk review – 4 days
• Literature review – 3 days 
• Data collection – 6 days 
• Prepare draft report - 3 days
• Prepare final report – 5 days
• Prepare power point for dissemination – 2 day  

Delivery dates and how work will be delivered (e.g. electronic, hard copy etc.):

Deliverables will include:

• A brief inception report (2-3 page) with clear methodology and outline of the report. (4 days from the commencement of the work)
• Electronic copy of final reports of Status of MPDSR in ESA region 2021. (By December 15, 2021)
• Power point presentation (By December 15, 2021)
• Complete Data set (By December 15, 2021)

Payment schedule 

• 30% upon submission of inception report. 
• 50% upon submission of draft report
• 20% upon submission of final report

• A Master’s degree or higher in Public health, Global Health, Health Communication, Health Services Research, or any other related field. A higher qualification will be an added advantage.
• A minimum of 10 years of experience in SRHR preferably with research experience on maternal and perinatal death reviews.
• Having authored or co-authored papers in peer-reviewed journals including being a principal author in at least 2 of them during the past 10 years on maternal and perinatal health. 

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