Operations Research on Combined Simplified Approaches for the Management of Child Wasting in Maguindanao Province

UNICEF Philippine Country Office is inviting you to submit a proposal for LRPS-2023-9182678: Operations Research on Combined Simplified Approaches for the Management of Child Wasting in Maguindanao Province.

Summarized Terms of Reference:

The overall goal of the operations research project is to improve child survival by improving the management of wasting among children aged between 6 to 59 months.

Overall Objectives of consultancy:

1. To complement the UNICEF research team by seconding several researchers to the research project including a senior researcher who will serve as Co-Investigator
2. To support study implementation by organizing the data collection in all the targeted Rural Health Units (RHUs)/Barangay Health Stations (BHS)catchments’ areas including recruitment and training of enumerators, developing data collection plan and deploying the data collection team, organizing the distribution of data collection materials and forms, and establishing the system allowing a daily transmission of gathered data from the field to the cloud-based server.  
3. To support in co-supervision by undertaking internal quality control and conducting regular supervision of data collection activities to ensure that all the data collection forms are comprehensive, consistent and accurate.
4. To collaborate in data analysis, findings interpretation and findings dissemination.

General Research objective 

To assess the performance of a contextualized protocol for the management of wasting among the 6 to 59 months old in terms of treatment effectiveness, cost and coverage.

Specific Research objectives 

1. To determine the performance of a contextualized PIMAM treatment protocol combining the simplifications Community-Health Worker (CHW)-led treatment, combined SAM and MAM protocol, modified daily therapeutic food dosage and single product use in terms of nutrition outcomes
2. To determine the performance from the contextualized PIMAM treatment protocol combining the simplifications CHW-led treatment nutrition outcomes (cure, death, default, non-responder) of 6 to 59 months old children admitted in a PIMAM that uses CHW-led treatment, combined SAM and MAM protocol, modified daily therapeutic food dosage and single product use in terms of treatment cost
3. To determine the performance of a contextualized PIMAM treatment protocol combining the simplifications CHW-led treatment nutrition outcomes of 6 to 59 months old children admitted in a PIMAM that uses CHW-led treatment, combined SAM and MAM protocol, modified daily therapeutic food dosage and single product use in terms of treatment coverage.
4. To determine post-discharge rate of relapse to wasting after being discharge as recovered

Key study features

The study will be a single-arm intervention (proof-of-concept) trial (no comparison group hence no randomization) that will assess the performances of a PIMAM model using a slightly modified CHW-led treatment of wasting. The model combines delivery of all OTC services by CHW, combined SAM and MAM treatment protocol, single product use for treatment of both SAM and MAM (RUTF) and modified therapeutic food (RUTF) daily dosage. Additional deviation from the standard CHW-led treatment protocol is the use of all the three indicators of acute malnutrition namely MUAC, Weight-for-Height/Length Z-score (WHZ) and bilateral pitting edema for Outpatient Therapeutic Care (OTC) admission, treatment monitoring and ending treatment. The study will use the conventional WHO case-definitions to admit in OTC. The study will target children aged between 6 and 59 months living in purposively selected OTC catchments’ areas (based on known wasting potential caseload, epidemiological and security profile, availability of PIMAM program activities and presence of a good network of Community Health Workers (CHWs) in the Maguindanao province and prospectively admitted in participating OTCs during the data collection period. Enrolled children will be followed up at the nearest OTCs site of their area during their OTCs attendance period (treatment phase) and at their respective homes during the 3 months post-discharge period (post-discharge phase). The calculated minimum sample size is 620 SAM or MAM children, and the duration of the data collection will be 12 months. Data will be collected by specially trained enumerators on electronic tablets. The principal outcomes of interest for this study will be the recovery rate as defined in the national PIMAM guidelines, cost per child treated and per child recovered, treatment coverage and 3-month post-discharge relapse rate.  The minimum SPHERE standards indicators of performance for recovery rate (≥ 75%) and treatment coverage (≥50%) will be used to judge the performance of the model. Standard quantitative statistical methods will be used to analyze the data and present the results. Participation to the study will be absolutely voluntary and all primary caregivers of eligible children will be asked to sign a consent form prior to the enrollment of their children.

Deadline for submission of proposals

2 June 2023, 3:00 PM (Philippine Time)

A Pre-Bid Conference will be scheduled for this requirement, please ensure that you are registered in UNGM to get updates on the conference.

Please be informed that the Philippine Country Office has shifted its bidding process to an online platform (UNGM and inTend) – expressions of interest, clarifications and submissions of bids must be submitted through the online platform. It is important to note that vendors will be required to have a UNGM registration to advance the bidding process. Please follow-up the guidance provided in the website on how to express interest and submit proposals. The full terms of reference and bid documents can only be accessed once you are a registered vendor in UNGM.

Proposals submitted through UNICEF’s inTend will be considered as valid. Submissions outside the portal will not be honoured.

This tender will be run through the UNICEF e-submissions system. By clicking on the blue ‘Express Interest’ button in the UNGM tender notice, the full UNICEF e-submission system instructions to bidders document (including instructions on how to access the tender documents and submit an Offer) will be automatically emailed to the ‘contact persons’ included in your UNGM registration. Alternatively, the full UNICEF e-submission system instructions to bidders document is publicly available on the UNICEF supply internet pages here: https://www.unicef.org/supply/index_procurement_policies.html . In the tender management site, if you navigate to the documents tab and opt in to confirm your intention to submit a Bid – you will then see the mandatory placeholders for documents that must be attached prior to submitting your Offer (you will also see if there are any mandatory questionnaires to complete). As such, you are recommended to `opt in` well before the submission deadline so you are clear exactly what documents are required to be uploaded prior to completing your submission. Please note that in order to access the tender documentation through UNICEF’s e-submissions system, vendors must: (i) be registered with UNICEF in UNGM as a company/NGO; (ii) have successfully completed all mandatory information currently required by UNGM when registering. Please ensure that any files submitted as part of your Bid are not corrupt or damaged in any way. Please exercise particular caution when using compressed files. Any corrupt or damaged files may lead to your Bid being invalidated. All vendors are strongly recommended to regularly log in to the UNICEF e-submissions system to check for any deadline extensions, new clarifications, new correspondence or updated tender documents relating to this tender.