Scope of Work 

TEMPORARY EMPLOYMENT 

JOB TITLE: Strategy & Policy – Short-Term Lead Consultant

JOB LOCATION & DURATION: GHSC-PSM Rwanda, 5 months starting in April 2024.

REPORTS TO: Technical Director. 

General Summary and Background 

The USAID Global Health Supply Chain Program-Procurement and Supply Management (GHSC-PSM) project in Rwanda working in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, would like to facilitate the review and update of key strategic documents that include the 2016 National Pharmacy Policy, the 2019-2024 National Pharmaceutical Sector Strategic Plan to align them with the reforms in the health sector and other national development priorities.

Principal Duties and Responsibilities include:

1. Determine the key challenges across performance, sustainability, and governance of the Rwanda Supply chain, based on findings from the 2022 National Supply Chain assessment, and other assessment including but not limited to the Quality Management Improvement approach.
2. Review the National Pharmaceutical Sector Strategic Plan 2018-2024 to determine gaps in implementation and establish implementation bottlenecks to inform the development of new strategy.
3. Facilitate a government-led, multistakeholder process to develop a new pharmaceutical sector strategic plan aligned with the review of the Health Sector Strategic Plan IV.

To achieve the objectives, the consultant is expected to develop an implementation approach involving a collaboration with MOH Planning, M&E, and Financing Directorate General, and Clinical and Public Health Services Directorate General, RMS Ltd, RBC, Rwanda FDA, USAID and other major stakeholders in the sector. The consultant will be working under the guidance from the GHSC-PSM Technical Director and will ensure a stakeholder participatory process for a smooth validation of the developed strategic documents. 

Key Activities

• Update of the 2016 national pharmacy policy to be in line with the current government vision for the development of the health sector, as defined in Vision 2050 and the national health policy.
• Determination of the key challenges across performance, sustainability, and governance of the Rwanda Supply chain, based on findings from the 2022 National Supply Chain assessment, and other assessment including but not limited to the Quality Management Improvement Approach (QMIA). To carry out this activity, the consultant is expected to:

1. Prioritize supply chain gaps and challenges from the root causes analysis and develop potential solutions for consideration during strategic planning.
2. Develop a perspective on which the gaps and challenges identified by the 2022 NSCA and other supply chain performance assessment are critical bottlenecks for improving supply chain performance.
3. Gather any additional information required to assess root cause of the bottlenecks, should not be clearly identified by the 2022 NSCA and other existing assessments.
4. Conduct a high-level end to end costing of the pharmaceutical sector supply chain, evaluate supply chain with high cost/low efficiency, and identify set of potential options to close funding shortfalls.

• Facilitation of a government led, multistakeholder process to develop a new pharmaceutical sector strategic plan aligned with the review of the Health Sector Strategic Plan IV. The consultant is expected to:
  1. Share the results of diagnostic and costing to align with MOH, RMS Ltd, Rwanda FDA, major donor and implementing partners behind a common understanding of the current state of the supply chain challenges.
  2. Co-create the aspiration and key features of the future state supply chain, including performance targets, financing objectives, M&E frameworks and implementation strategy. The development strategy must include means to ensure:
     • There is an operating model at each level of the supply chain for effective access and availability by the population to quality health commodities and pharmaceutical services.
     • Data visibility, performance management (supply chain performance reporting, troubleshooting, and performance dialogs), and governance.
     • Sustainable financing of the supply chain
     • Clear set of metrics and performance targets for the future state supply chain
     • Selection and prioritization of solution initiative to achieve future state of supply chain.
     • Initiative sequencing and timing, including, for each initiative a high-level implementation roadmap with key milestones.
     • Budget and staffing requirements for the solution initiatives
     • Explicit time, structure and governance of the implementation team
     • Performance management infrastructure to drive accountability and ongoing performance.
     • Define roles and responsibilities of government, technical partners and donors in delivering solutions. 

Overall Expected Outputs

• Revised Pharmacy Sector Policy.
• Costed multiyear Rwanda Pharmaceutical Sector Strategic Plan and M&E Plans with their implementation plans.
• Technical report detailing bottlenecks in developing the strategies, possible opportunities to exploit, possible risks to implementation of the pharmaceutical sector strategic plan, recommended mitigation actions and winning investment plan to make the recommended strategies plausible. 

Required Skills and Qualifications

• A minimum of a master’s degree in pharmacy, public health, supply chain management, or a related field.
• Skills and expertise in organizational development, strategy development, facilitation, stakeholder engagement experience, and strengthening pharmaceutical supply chain systems experience.
• Experience with performing similar assignments in the Rwandan health sector and elsewhere is preferable.
• Excellent interpersonal skills and demonstrated ability to interact professionally with a variety of staff, clients, and consultants.
• Facilitation skills of a diverse group of stakeholders, strong writing, analytical and ability to synthesize and summarize information required.
• Proven computer skills in Microsoft Office Suite applications, including Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint.
• Ability to work as a team member.
• Written and spoken English fluency is required. 

Instructions to apply:

Please submit your application to the Country Director, GHSC-PSM Project in Rwanda through  operationprocurement@ghsc-psm.org  at your earliest convenience or by March 15, 2024, at the latest. Mention as a subject of your email, “Strategy & Policy – Short-Term Lead Consultant”

GHSC-PSM project in Rwanda cannot guarantee that applications submitted after the deadline will be reviewed for further consideration. Complete applications should consist of a resume or curriculum vitae, cover or motivation letter, and the contact information of up to three professional references. We will contact you if we decide that your qualifications are an appropriate fit for this position. 

Done at Kigali on February 28, 2024 

Country Director, GHSC-PSM Project in Rwanda