Management Sciences for Health:

Management Sciences for Health (MSH), a global health nonprofit organization, uses proven approaches developed over 40 years to help leaders, health managers, and communities in developing nations build stronger health systems for greater health impact. We work to save lives by closing the gap between knowledge and action in public health. Since its founding in 1971, MSH has worked in over 150 countries with policy makers, health professionals, and health care consumers to improve the quality, availability and affordability of health services.

Project Description:

Funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and led by MSH, the goal of the five-year USAID Medicines, Technologies and Pharmaceutical Services (MTaPS) program is to help low- and middle-income countries strengthen their pharmaceutical systems to ensure sustainable universal access to best treatments and pharmaceutical services. In Ethiopia, MTaPS work focuses on the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) to support containment and prevention of Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) in the country; this will be accomplished by helping to build capacity of in-country stakeholders to implement a National Action Plan on AMR (NAP). MTaPS collaborates with Ministry of Health to support implementation of strategic objective (SO.4) “Optimize the use of antimicrobials in human and animal health through effective stewardship practices” of the NAP.

Ensuring access to and appropriate use of good-quality antimicrobials is a key priority of global strategies to combat antimicrobial resistance (AMR). In an effort to address the emergence of AMR and to guide countries’ implementation of antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) programs, WHO released a set of recommendations to help national policy makers develop guidelines on which antibiotics (ATB) to use and when. Thus, the AWaRe (Access, Watch, Reserve) classification tool is meant to be applied to a country’s essential medicines lists (EMLs) with the ATB placed in one of three primary categories.  The overall goal is to reduce the use of antibiotics in the Watch and Reserve groups (the antibiotics most crucial for human medicine and at higher risk of resistance) and to increase the use of Access antibiotics where availability is low.

Assignment:

USAID MTaPS in collaboration with Ethiopian Food and Drug Authority (EFDA), seek to engage well-qualified individual consultants to revise the National Essential Medicine List (NEML) and Emergency Medicine List for Ethiopia.  The Consultants will be hired by USAID MTaPS, but will closely wok with EFDA and the Technical Working Group established for EML revision. The USAID MTaPS program director or his designee will provide close support to this assignment

The revision process should engage relevant stakeholders from its inception. A particular focus should be given to the incorporation of Access, Watch and Reserve (AWaRe) classification for antibiotics based on WHO recommendations.

Number of consultants required: One physician and one clinical pharmacist

The scope of the consultancy is as follows: 

• Identify and use relevant references necessary for the revision of the EML and Emergency Medicines List
• Review the country’s supply chain to establish availability of different classes of drugs that will potentially be listed in the EML or the ability to procure and adequately distribute them
• Review the current national essential antibiotics list against the WHO AWaRe database
• Utilize latest evidence-based knowledge on the subject matter
• Prepare first draft of essential and emergency medicine lists
• Participate and lead in organizing different consultative and validation workshops
• Participate and provide technical support to the national technical working group

Deliverables:

• Rapid Assessment Report
• Draft EML and Emergency Medicines List for review
• Compiled Reports/proceedings on the revision processes and workshops
• Final, edited and print-ready version of EML and Emergency Medicines List after final review and approval

Duration of Assignment:

The consultants shall submit the final EML and Emergency Medicines List within 3 months from the signing of the agreement

Procedure

Potential applicants make a quotation based in the administrative criteria and core competencies criteria mentioned below. These quotations are assessed using compliance, technical expertise, time of delivery and price as criteria. MTaPS withholds the right to conduct interviews with one or more potential applicants before an award decision is made. Purpose of the interview is to seek further clarification on the submitted quotations and learn more about the background and previous experiences of the potential applicants.

Administrative criteria

Contents of quotation

The following should be included in the application:

• Technical and financial proposal submitted separately, and should contain description of the following
  • Background and relevance of past experience in relation to the current consultancy task
  • Brief synopsis on the subject of consultancy: It should reflect how the consultant has conceptualized and understood the task
  • Methodology
  • Detailed work plan with timelines
  • Budget (with breakdown)
  • References of previous work

Core Competencies & Qualifications:

• MD+ Internal medicine specialization with 5 years’ of clinical work experience. Additional training in infectious diseases is a plus
• Masters or above in Clinical pharmacy or pharmacology with 5 years’ of clinical or teaching experience.
• Participation in medicine list (facility) development, formulary and/or Drug Therapeutic Committee
• Demonstrated experience related to antimicrobial stewardship program or clinical audit activities
• Sound knowledge and experience in pharmaceutical management practices (program design and delivery, materials preparation, administration and implementation of medicine formulary, standard treatment guidelines, SOP, manuals etc.)
• Willing to travel to regions and work in a team