INTRODUCTION

Save the Children is the world's leading independent organisation for children. We work in 120 countries. We save children's lives; we fight for their rights; we help them fulfil their potential. We work together, with our partners, to inspire breakthroughs in the way the world treats children and to achieve immediate and lasting change in their lives. We have over two million supporters worldwide and raised 1.9 billion dollars last year to reach more children than ever

before, through programmes in health, nutrition, education, protection, and child rights, also in times of humanitarian crises.

Following a major transition, our international programmes are now delivered through a merged operation with 15,000 staff, managed through seven regional hubs and reporting to a relatively small, central office. We're changing to become more efficient, more aligned, a better partner, a stronger advocate, a magnet for world-class people and relevant for the 21st century 

Project Background

Somalia immunization project is a four-year project aimed to improve access to quality immunization by directly strengthening the capacity of health structures and communities with identified immunization gaps in the Galgaduud and Jubbaland states in Somalia. The project is delivered in partnership with Ministry of Health and UNICEF (as strategic partners), Acasus (doing data management using digital platform), WASDA and WRRS as local implementing agencies in Jubaland state. Owing to the varying levels of insecurity in the regions targeted, implementation of the project was done in phased approach. A rapid and intensive scale-up of immunization services was established with 27 health facilities and sites operationalized in a phased approach and supported to deliver optimal immunization services. In the first phase, the project scaled-up immunization services in 12 health facilities then reviewed quarterly and additional five new health facilities added progressively to attain the 27 health facilities fully supported by end of the initial 12 months. In the subsequent years, it was largely consolidation of services and continuous quality improvement. In the current supplement ending Mar 2023, Save the Children expanded the project scope to cover identified pockets of missed communities using integrated mobile health clinics across the target districts.

As part of a broader vision for long-term sustainability, the project supported the set-up and strengthening of community-driven immunization systems as well as district-level immunization management systems to promote ownership of the immunization programs within the target locations. To achieve this the project is anchored on four pillars namely capacity strengthening (at community, facility, and district/regional level), immunization logistics and supply chain strengthening, use of data for decision making and scaling-up innovative approaches. Based on the administrative data, the project achieved most of its targets throughout the implementation period, more so in the second and third year. Between April 2021 and February 2022, supportive supervision increased from 54% to 100% of facilities in the month. The average number of monthly fixed and outreach immunization sessions increased by 54% and 31%, respectively, as of January 2022 while the number of Penta3 doses delivered in Q1 2022 compared to Q1 2021 more than doubled. The overall objective of this immunization cluster survey was to demonstrate the effect of the project by comparing the project intervention communities and non-intervention communities (control group) in terms of access to immunization services. The survey will also determine the immunization coverage for children aged 12 – 23 months and TT2 coverage for women of childbearing age (WCBA) and assess common barriers affecting immunization services. This assignment is designed to:

-      Demonstrate the effect of the project on the immunization coverage for children aged 12 - 23 months and WCBA in the implementation districts.

-      Collect qualitative and quantitative data relating to existing barriers from intervention districts and compare the outcome from the BMGF-supported clusters against those with other support or no support at all.

-      Recommend improvements for the longer-term resilience intervention strategy for the same or similar intervention areas and/or communities.

About the R

R programming language is a useful tool for data scientists, analysts, and statisticians, especially those working in humanitarian settings. R's ability to handle complex analyses such as evaluations, including baselines, surveys, machine learning, and more makes it a valuable asset for a wide range of data-related tasks. The R language supports many types of data structures that you can use to organize and store values in your code, including vectors, factors, lists, arrays, matrices, and data frames. Each data structure type serves a specific purpose and can contain specific kinds of data.

R offers a large selection of libraries relevant to statistics and creates an environment that is conducive to statistical computation and design. Furthermore, because it is helpful for importing and cleaning data, a lot of quantitative analysts utilize the R programming language as a programming tool. The syntaxes of this option are user-friendly. Users clearly prefer R's user interface over other languages as a result. R programming has several important benefits, such as its adaptability, open-source nature, variety of extensions, high-quality data visualization, etc.

Participants expectation

The incumbent of this consultancy is supposed to discuss the training's overarching goal, gather participant expectations as extra input, and work with the goals and purposes of the training. Furthermore, following the training, the participants were expected to use R programming to manage evaluations (baseline, midline, endline, smart survey, SQUEAC survey etc.), post distribution monitoring, and other common assessments.

Furthermore, the training should be tailor-made course to meet organization-wide needs. A training needs assessment will be done on the training participants to collect data on the existing skills, knowledge gaps, training expectations, and tailor-made needs.

OBJECTIVE OF THE TRAINING

SC has a robust MEAL department that designs programs for monitoring, evaluating, researching, and learning (MEAL) activities. These activities include field monitoring, proactive calls, PDMs, and evaluations (baseline, midline, endline, impact, etc.) in order to assure high-quality programming. Data management abilities, particularly the ability to analyze data using readily available tools, are required for all these tasks. Thus, the purpose of this TOR is to increase capacity using R software for managing data obtained from the Immunization Cluster Survey, which was conducted in a few chosen communities in the Somalia states of Galmudug and Jubaland; it is also utilized for data management and analysis for other SC programs.

However, at by the end of this training the participants should enable to have the following capacities:

−      An introduction to R, basic data types, and R/RStudio installation

−      Overview of base R concepts and specific data wrangling packages in R

−      Connecting to databases, executing database queries in R

−      How to use R for a graphical summary

−      R programming

−      How to carry out a range of analyses using R

TIME FRAME

The consultancy work will last approximately 7 days including 2 days for materials preparation and customization and 5 days for training. The days will be 17th – 23rd November 2023.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

Consultancy fee: The consultant will come up with his/her own rate which will be subject to negotiation within the bounds of donor requirements and set standards of SC in Somalia. The consultant is expected to estimate all relevant costs for the exercise, including costs for transportation to/from the training venue.