Delivering a short course on Strategic HRH management for the HRH focal points in the Pacific Island countries (PICs)

The World Health Organization (WHO) is seeking offers for a company or an institutional partner for Delivering a short course on Strategic HRH management for the HRH focal points in the Pacific Island countries (PICs).

BACKGROUND

A motivated and competent health workforce in the right number, in the right places, and with the right skill-mix, is central to providing person-centred integrated care in progressing towards achieving the Healthy Island vision and ultimately, universal health coverage (UHC).

PICs continue to face persistent challenges related to availability, accessibility and quality of health workers, especially at the primary care level, and this has been exacerbated by a flood of outmigration by qualified health workers.  The quality of healthcare remains varied, both between and within countries. Challenges arise from constrained training capacity due to inadequate teaching and learning resources, the rapid ageing of the existing workforce, skills mix mismatch, migration, limited absorption capacity for additional workforce by service providers and health worker burnout.

Generally, more health workers are associated with higher UHC service coverage. The updated WHO Health Workforce Support and Safeguards List 2023 include six PICs (Kiribati, Federated States of Micronesia, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu and Vanuatu)[1]. These countries are considered to face the most pressing health workforce challenges and require concerted investment and support.

National level health workforce units play an important role in steering the planning, forecasting needs, developing policies, regulations and administrative norms to guide staff performance.  A Scoping Paper on ‘Health Workforce development in the Pacific’ developed for the Pacific Health Minister Meeting 2017 indicated that in most PICs, the units responsible for Human Resources for Health (HRH) are often critically weak, due to lack of adequate number and capacity of the staff as well as lack of authority to make strategic decisions. As a result, large gaps between policy and local implementation persist. Capacity constraints are even larger at the sub-national level. Accordingly, series of Pacific Health Ministers Meetings since 2017 committed to strengthen health workforce leadership and governance responsible for health workforce planning and policy development.

In order to implement the commitment made by the Pacific Health Ministers, World Health Organization (WHO) Division of Pacific Technical Support (DPS) developed a short course on Strategic HRH Management specifically tailored for human resources for health (HRH) practitioners and policy makers in the PICs. The course is developed based on a training needs analysis undertaken in 2022 and in line with the Human Resources for Health Leadership and Management Prototype Curricula Package developed by WHO in 2022.

The objectives of the training workshop are:

to strengthen HRH stewardship in the health systems by strengthening the capacity of personnel working in the HRH units in the ministries of health; and

to introduce the requirements of planning, management, and development of the health workforce, including linkages with other health system functional areas such as financing and service delivery.

Accordingly, at the end of the training workshop, the participants will be able to:

understand the importance of developing health workforce policy, strategy, management, and implementation.

understand the role of HRH policy and management in health systems functioning and health sector reform; and

translate acquired knowledge, skills and attitudes into professional practice.

The countries included in the WHO health workforce support and safeguards list 2023 have a UHC service coverage index below 55 and health workforce (doctors, nurses and midwives) density below the global median of 49 per 10,000 population.

REQUIREMENTS/WORK TO BE PERFORMED

The APW partner will work closely WHO Division of Pacific Technical Support to deliver the following deliverables:

Develop training materials and resources as per the training program developed in 2022.

Deliver the face-to-face training workshop in Nadi, Fiji from 30 October – 3 November 2023.

Conduct and analyse pre and post training evaluations for the training; and

Draft the training report as per the WHO template.

CHARACTERISTICS OF CONTRACTOR

QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE

EDUCATION

Essential: Advanced university degree/Master’s level university degree in health sciences/related field from a university recognized in the International Association of Universities’ Worldwide Database of Higher Education Institutions, Systems and Credentials (WHED).

Desirable: Postgraduate qualification or training in public health and/or health planning and management training.

EXPERIENCE

Essential:  An institution/company/firm with a minimum of 10 years of experience in preparing and conducting short courses in Health Systems Strengthening / Human Resources for Health.

Desirable: Experience working in similar area in developing countries preferably in the Pacific

TECHNICAL SKILLS & KNOWLEDGE

Expert knowledge on Health Systems Strengthening / Human Resources for Health in developing/resource constraint countries, preferably in the Pacific

LANGUAGES

Essential: Expert knowledge in English (reading, writing, and speaking). Speaking knowledge in French would be an added advantage

SUBMISSIONS

Qualified and interested specialists should submit the following documents to the Supply Officer through WP RO UNGM at < wproungm@who.int > by 30 August 2023

• • Curriculum Vitae {for individual contractors/for team members} or Company Profile {for institutional applications}
• • Cover letter. The cover letter should outline how their experience and qualifications make them a suitable candidate for this bid.
• • Proposal indicating methodology, timelines and cost
• • Sample of previous work related to tender requirements 

Please use Tender Notice No. 210226 as subject to all submission. Only successful candidates will be contacted.

Last day of receiving queries for this tender is on 24 August 2023