Technical Assistance for DFID Ethiopia Reproductive Maternal & Neonatal Health Innovation Fund

Contract For: Technical Assistance for DFID Ethiopia Reproductive Maternal & Neonatal Health Innovation Fund
Purchase Order Number: PO 6271

Objective:

Objective DFID Ethiopia is seeking a Technical Assistance Supplier (TAS) to provide TA to support the FMOH to establish and manage the RIF, that will contribute to the objective of increasing demand for and the use of quality, acceptable RMNH services by poor and underserved women and girls in target regions. The RIF aims to increase the utilization of RMNH services, enhance accountability of service providers (civil society, regional development agencies) to the government and improve regional equity. The RIF will support interventions aimed to: 1. Reduce barriers and increase demand for, and use of, modern family planning methods by population groups with the least access: poor women in rural areas, and sexually active adolescents; 2. Prevent unintended pregnancies and assure safe pregnancy and child birth through the increased use of family planning, antenatal, childbirth and postnatal care; 3. Make services more accessible and responsive to the needs of women and youth by scaling up approaches to empower young women and increase their reproductive health choices. 4. Reduce disparities in health indicators and the inequitable access to RMNH services in the Developing Regional States (DRS). 5. Build further evidence of what works in the diverse cultural and geographical settings of Ethiopia. The RIF will support interventions in four regions where fertility is high, use of reproductive maternal and neonatal health services is low and where communities lack access to services e.g. pastoralist women. Specific districts will be identified by the Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH) but are likely to include pastoralist districts in Somali, Afar ,Oromiya and Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples Region ( highly populated agrarian regions that have pockets of remote communities with poor health indicators). The RIF will be managed by the FMOH and the Ministry will invite proposals from Regional Health Bureaus (RHBs), Regional Development Agencies (RDA), Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), Faith Based Organisations (FBOs) and others.Proposals to the RIF will be reviewed by Joint Core Coordination Committee where DFID is represented appraised based on the following key principles:

• Increase equity in access to RMNH services;

• Increase local level accountability and respond to the needs of women and girls;

• Increase health seeking behavior around pregnancy and deliveries;

• Unlock key bottlenecks in service delivery and key socio cultural barriers based on assessment on needs and situation analysis;

• Focus on the needs of adolescent girls and most neglected populations; and

• Feasibility of measuring results and evaluating impact of the programme;

• Alignment to national polices, major community mobilization and service provision strategies.