VACANCY ANNOUNCEMENT - CONSULTANT

WHO Rwanda in Collaboration with Rwanda Biomedical Centre (RBC) is inviting applicants from suitable qualified candidates to fill the following Consultancy:

TERMS OF REFERENCE FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURES (SOPS) TO STRENGTHEN THE CIVIL REGISTRATION AND VITAL STATISTICS (CRVS) SYSTEM

Project title: Development of SOPs to Strengthen the Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) system 

Reporting: To WHO/ M&E Officer

Duty Station: Kigali

Date issue: 25/05/2023

Deadline:  04/06/2023

Duration of Assignment: 2 months

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1. Background

Civil registration is the continuous, permanent, compulsory, and universal recording of the occurrence and characteristics of vital events (births, deaths, marriages, divorces, adoption, recognition, guardianship) and other civil status events pertaining to the population as provided by decree, law or regulation, in accordance with the legal requirements in each country.

A well-functioning civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) system is essential for achieving and measuring the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Universal Health Coverage (UHC), as well as regional and national targets. By providing a timely and continuous source of data, at national and sub-national levels, disaggregated by age and sex, the CRVS system provides reliable population data and forecasts, alerting governments to health emergencies and their impact and supporting health policy decisions to improve overall health and well-being.

Moreover, 17 indicators of SDG 3 require cause-specific mortality and population data. The goal of UHC, itself an SDG target, relies on counting all deaths by age and sex and on the cause of death information on which to base health services delivery. Additionally, the cross-cutting nature of CRVS implies that it is essential for measuring most of the non-health-related SDGs.

Rwanda is among the countries that committed to establishing a well-functioning CRVS system through the  National Identification Agency (NIDA), the agency responsible for the CRVS in Rwanda. The  World Health Organization (WHO) has provided technical and financial assistance to the Government of Rwanda to strengthen the CRVS system in the country since 2016.

Recent achievements include a CRVS assessment, a five-year costed strategic plan, a strong coordination mechanism, and a legal review process that allowed the timely registration of vital events at the places of occurrence using the one-stop centre principle. The National Centralized and Integrated Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (NCI-CRVS) system is now fully functional. Civil registration points of services are now 3,260 and include sector offices, embassies, but also health facilities, and cell offices to register births and deaths, including those occurring in the community. 

The NCI-CRVS systems incorporate multiple business processes and a variety of actors and institutions.

In this regard, the WHO is recruiting one firm or a consultant to develop detailed Standard Operating Procedures (SoPs) and user manuals for the registration of each of the nine vital events to provide standardized guidance on the registration, correction access, and sharing of data for a period of two months.

2. Work to be conducted

The Consultant will perform the following duties:

1. Explore registration processes associated with each of the nine (9) civil registration events;
2. Define the scope to develop detailed Standard Operating Procedures (SoP) and civil events’ registration user guides, through interactive workshops attended by the CRVS Core Technical Team members, NIDA’s leadership and partners where applicable;
3. Review documents, including laws, orders, guidelines or any other publication(s) proved to be essential in the development of detailed Standard Operating Procedures (SoP) and civil events’ registration user guides within the context of Rwanda;
4. Ensure thorough practical methodologies of soliciting inputs from all concerned stakeholders and partners in civil registration, where applicable, individuals and focus groups to identify expected results in arriving at a simplified civil registration process at all points of service by all civil registrars;
5. Prepare the draft Standard Operating Procedures (SoP) and civil events’ registration user guides for all the nine (9) civil registration events;
6. Present the draft Standard Operating Procedures (SoP) and civil events’ registration user guides to the CRVS Core Technical Team members and/or NIDA management and stakeholders/partners for more inputs and feedback to improve the documents;
7. Based on inputs from consultations through meetings/workshops, prepare a final copy of the CRVS Standard Operating Procedures (SoP) and civil events’ registration user guides that shall be validated by CRVS Core Technical Team members and NIDA Senior Management Team,
8. In case CRVS Core Technical Team members and/or NIDA Management provide more inputs before validation, the consultant shall incorporate these inputs in the Standard Operating Procedures (SoP) and civil events’ registration user guides before taking it back for validation.
9. Prepare final validation workshops both technical and high level to ensure the work done is in line with the aspirations.

Deliverables

The Firm / Consultant will be expected to deliver on the following:

1. An inception report elaborating the methodology to be undertaken
2. Determine the AS-IS and carry out a comparative analysis of where such CRVS Standard Operating Procedures (SoP) and for the civil events’ registration user guides may have been developed and used.
3. Progress reports of the CRVS Standard Operating Procedures (SoP) and for the civil events’ registration user guides for all the 9 events.
4. Final CRVS Standard Operating Procedures (SoP) for all the 9 events.
5. Final civil events’ registration user guides for all the 9 events.
6. Recommendations with specific areas that need special attention/focus.

Qualifications, experience, skills, and languages

Education

Essential:

A university degree in either of the following areas: Civil Law, Public health; Statistics (Demography and Social Statistics); Public Administration, Management, Economics, or other related disciplines.

Experience

1. The firm/consultant must have participated in the regional training programme for the development of a pool of experts on CRVS.
2. The firm/consultant must have demonstrable experience in developing Standard Operating Procedures (SoP) and user guides.
3. Well-knowledgeable in the management and operations of civil registration and/or vital statistics systems.
4. Demonstrable experience in customer-centric (multi-sectoral service delivery) related job(s)
5. Proven extensive experience (at least 5 years) with recommendations from similar previous work done

 Languages and levels required

Working proficiency in English is required.

5. How to apply

Interested candidates shall submit their CVs by email in one (1) PDF file to afwcorw@who.int

6. Selection procedures

The selection of a successful proposal will be based on the Quality and Cost Based Selection QCBS methodology. Only qualified candidates shall be contacted by WHO.