verification exercise on findings of the Global Progress Survey (2012) on Education Response to HIV/AIDS in Zambia and Developing a New Management Model

To conduct a verification exercise on findings of the Global Progress Survey (2012) on Education Response to HIV/AIDS in Zambia and Developing a New Management Model.

Reference: PHCWG 0503
Location: Zambia and conultant's normal country of residence, if applicable
Duration: 13 person weeks / 60 person days over the period April to 30 June 2013
Closing Date: 22 Mar 2013

Education Sector HIV and AIDS Management Model - A Case Study of Zambia

Project Background

Education is the foundation for the success of all HIV programming. Individuals need the requisite knowledge, attitudes and skills to adopt healthy behaviours and to act against discrimination. Personal efficacy skills and health literacy are essential for making informed choices and accessing and using prevention and treatment methods and services across one’s lifespan. In addition, general education that fosters literacy, numeracy, and critical thinking skills, among many others, supports the HIV response by building self-esteem, assertiveness and economic independence, thus reducing vulnerability, especially for girls. Better educated learners have the skills to be healthy, and teachers who have the skills and support to live healthy will have the opportunity to teach better.

Gender inequality and harmful gender norms remain key drivers of the HIV epidemic in many regions, and schools have a key role to play in promoting both gender equality and positive gender norms. Schools can thus have a further impact on HIV by demonstrating gender equality in staffing and in practices, as well as providing a safe environment that promotes positive gender norms and by delivering education in which the content also promotes understanding of gender and equality.

The education sector therefore has a key role to play within a national HIV and AIDS response, and has a number of advantages that position it to fulfil this role effectively, including its high degree of geographic coverage, access to a large proportion of the youth of a country, and a large skilled workforce. These represent opportunities for the national response to be translated into actions.

A number of systemic challenges will continue to put pressure on the education sector and affect its ability to respond. Increasing demand, limited internal resources, declining external funding, inadequate infrastructure, limited human resources and retention of these, and the pace of socio-economic change are a potent mix, requiring determined and sustained reform efforts beyond the HIV and AIDS response.

One of the key questions is how does one effectively manage an education sector HIV and AIDS responses in a post-2015 era characterised by a decline in funding, AIDS fatigue and differing priorities. 

In the early 2000s, the concept of an HIV and AIDS management units (HAMU) was promoted for countries in Africa badly affected by the epidemic. The Mobile Task Team on the Impact of HIV and AIDS on Education (MTT), trained HAMU personnel from 19 MoEs across Africa in 2004, followed by further mentoring to support policy/strategy development and implementation. HAMUs from Kenya, Namibia, Uganda and Zambia in particular stood out as models of good practice and developed an interactive network to support one another.

This formula of policy/strategy development and implementation planning, coordinated by trained, well-resourced personnel, commended itself as a model for replication. However, attrition and promotion thinned the ranks of these units and replacement personnel were not adequately orientated or trained. More importantly, it became clear that these “parallel” units, policies, strategies and plans were increasingly marginalized in the wider MoE environment – and were not seen as an integral part of the education system architecture. Complicating this further, the ILO recommended that these units be moved to HR divisional management, as they saw HIV and AIDS as an HR issue. The net effect of these challenges was a steady decline in HAMU profiles and importance, and an apparently diminishing role for them within the education sector. 

The 2011-2012 Global Progress Survey (GPS) on education sector responses to HIV and AIDS was commissioned by the IATT and funded by UNESCO and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). The primary purpose of the 2011-2012 GPS was to provide some objective insight into what has happened to country-level education sector responses to HIV and AIDS around the world in the 7-years since the 2004 Global Readiness Survey (GRS) baseline study. Data was collected in 39 countries, including 17 Commonwealth countries.1

The 2011-2012 Global Progress Survey identified a decline in education sector HIV and AIDS management structures and structural shortcomings. By 2011-2012, models of good HAMU practice were difficult to identify, with growing confusion around the future role of these units in the context of mainstreaming. The question now being posed is whether HAMUs should continue to have a role in the coordination, monitoring and reporting of a mainstreamed education sector response, or whether an entirely new management model for the education sector should be conceived and developed, including systems for coordinating with national management structures such as National AIDS Commissions, and systems such as a national monitoring and evaluation system.

The changing dynamics of the response, the migration of the response towards a mainstreamed approach and the lack of agreement and understanding of what constitutes mainstreaming require an analysis of options for the future and identification of the best way forward. This is especially important given the changing global development agenda. 

Within this changing development agenda, it is unlikely that HIV will have its own goal/indicator Post 2015. It is more likely to be subsumed within a health goal/indicator or left out altogether. Changes, such as decreases in global HIV funding as well as the current global financial crisis, will affect resource availability and thus education sector responses. These data reveal a need to move towards a more systemic response as a multitude of developmental challenges interrelate with one another and dealing with one in isolation from the others is counter-productive and wastes resources. Issues like HIV, gender inequality, unsafe learning environment, poverty, adolescent reproductive health and rights, general health, employee rights, and so on, if unaddressed or inappropriately attended to, have the potential to severely impact on the MoE’s core mandate of teaching and learning.

The Commonwealth Secretariat in collaboration with the Secretariat of the IATT on Education at UNESCO will undertake a verification and validation study of the Global Progress Survey data in Zambia and use this data as a springboard to identify ways in which the national education sector response to HIV and AIDS could be strengthened and be made more effective.

Project Objectives

• To verify the GPS findings in Zambia and identify means to improve the efficiency of the national education sector HIV and AIDS response
• Identify the best management model for the response within the target country, and at all levels; national, district/provincial, and local.

Expected outcomes

These include:

• Conduct field research using a country situational analysis
• Recommendations to the Zambia MoE on how to manage the education sector HIV and AIDS response at the different levels -national, district/provincial, and local
• * Policy and resource implications of any change to the current system

Process and methodology

Situational Analysis
Using the GPS data as a basis, the consultant will be responsible for “process mapping” the situation within the MoE at all levels (national, district/provincial, and local) and the relationship with other HIV and AIDS and health stakeholders. This will include purposive sampling at the district/provincial, and local levels to enable the development of a complete picture of the current situation. It is expected that information will be captured for different country contexts, which might include, illustratively, and urban/capital setting, mining, rural/agricultural or tourism setting. The situational analysis will also review/take into account the national funding and stakeholder environment, and will highlight any lessons learned. 

Stakeholder Consultations
The consultant will be responsible for organising 3 stakeholder consultations which will take place at national, district/provincial, and local level to review and agree recommendations on the way forward.

Tasks

The Commonwealth Secretariat is commissioning a consultant for a period of 60 days to review the management systems currently in place in Zambia for managing the education sector’s HIV and AIDS response and develop recommendations to improve its efficiency given the changing global and national situations and the post-2015 development agenda. 

The consultant will undertake this assignment in phases:

• Conduct stakeholder interviews and desk-based research
• Synthesize available evidence and materials in a document to be presented at stakeholder consultations
• Organise and conduct stakeholder consultations, including developing the meeting agenda and participant list, managing the logistics and facilitating the meetings
• Based on the research and consultations, produce recommendations for the new education sector HIV and AIDS management model and lay out, inter alia, the policy, management and resource implications of said recommendations

Deliverables

The consultant is expected to produce:

• Situational analysis report (to be used as a background document for the 3 stakeholder consultations).
• Proposed management model for the education sector in managing HIV/AIDS at the different levels including its policy and financial implications.

Activity Table

	Activity	Timeframe
1.	Signing of contract	End of March/Mid April
2.	Conduct stakeholder interviews and desk-based research	April 2013
3.	Synthesize available evidence and materials in a document to be presented at stakeholder consultations	April-May 2013
4.	Organise and conduct stakeholder consultations, including developing the meeting agenda and participant list, managing the logistics and facilitating the meetings	May 2013
5.	Based on the research and consultations, produce recommendations and lay out, inter alia, the policy management and resource implications of said recommendations (final draft).	15 June 2013

Qualifications and Experience

The consultant should have knowledge of the Zambian education sector, and school health in particular; analytic and facilitation skills; and, experience in public administration/management. 

The Consultant should possess:

• Advanced academic degree in an appropriate field (preferably education, development, public health education).
• Extensive professional knowledge of, and at least 5-10 years’ experience in, the field of education and/or development.
• Demonstrated experience in management systems analysis and design.
• Experience in Education and HIV/AIDS strategy and policy analysis and design.
• Previous experience with the Global Progress Surveys of 2004/2012.
• Extensive experience of the Zambia educational system.
• Excellent analytical skills.
• Excellent facilitation and organisational skills.
• Excellent writing and communication skills.

Further Information

How to apply

Terms of Reference - verification exercise on findings of the Global Progress Survey (2012)