TOR – Development of Long-term (8-10 year) sustainable financing and resource mobilization plan for community health for Uganda.

Terms of Reference for the Development of a Long-term (8-10 year) sustainable financing plan and resource mobilization plan for community health for Uganda.

Background/Context

Living Goods (LG) through Africa Frontline First (AFF) received funding from the Global Fund (GF) to support the Ministry of Health (MoH) to address key gaps and bottlenecks lay strong foundations, and build the readiness of community health systems towards scale, institutionalization, and sustainability through Project BIRCH (Building Integrated Readiness for Community Health). The proposed technical assistance (TA) approach is designed to provide comprehensive support tailored to meet the specific needs and objectives of the project, including the MoH priority needs to be addressed. Through a collaborative partnership with the Department of Health Promotion, Education and Strategic Communication (HPEC) at Ministry of Health and various key stakeholders (including donors and implementing partners).

After BIRCH support, the goal is for Uganda to have achieved strong policies, strategies, and operational plans to advance the community health agenda within wider primary health care, human resources for health, the health sector, and the country; monitoring and regular assessments of systems that support community health to identify areas of improvement; functional coordination platforms to turn data into evidence-based decisions and performance; increased resource mobilization for community health; integrated financial planning with broader HRH and efficient resource allocation in community health; and long term financing and sustainability plans to ensure lasting impact.

Purpose of the consultancy

The consultant will lead the process developing a Long-term sustainable financing plan and resource mobilization plan for community health. The consultant will work under the leadership of the Ministry of Health (HPEC) and Living Goods in consultation with other key stakeholders through a collaborative process, ensuring MOH and stakeholders, ownership of the plan.

Description of Long-term sustainable financing plan and resource mobilization plan for community health.

This is a plan that lays out a country’s community health investment picture over a long horizon like 8 – 10 years. Typically a long-term financing plan includes detailed information (including tables) covering the (projected) resource requirements over this period that reflect the scope and size of the national community strategy (including CHW workforce) projected into the future, annual financing targets to cover the resource requirements adequately, anticipated mix of financing over the years, any changes to policy or legal frameworks required to operationalize the anticipated funding mix, the resource mobilization strategy to raise the resources required and institutionalization of a means of tracking annual funding commitments against the financing plan.

It also takes into consideration any scale-up plans for CHWs per national plans as well as the timeline, given country context, for the government to progressively absorb CHW costs over time. It also covers broader community health investments linked to national strategies (community health, HRH, health sector), where relevant.

Scope of Work

The long-term sustainable financing plan must encompass essential components, including stakeholder engagement and buy-in achieved through co-development with and with buy-in from key stakeholder groups such as MOH, MOF, funders, implementers, etc. Annual funding targets for investment in community health (including for CHWs) with projections covering an 8-10 year period, Must be aligned to national strategies (community health, HRH, health sector) and projected needs beyond those strategies (where they do not extend for the full 8-10 year period). This includes any scale-up plans for CHWs in the country. Anticipated annual funding mix: including the anticipated annual funding mix (domestic and external) for the 8–10-year period, Detailed annual breakdown for “domestic” and “external” financing sources with “domestic” subcategories including central government financing, local government financing, and domestic private. Resource mobilization plan, including a detailed resource mobilization plan describing how resources will be mobilized for the 8-10 year period, including domestic resource/transition planning for the government to absorb the costs over time and MOH participation in the annual government budgeting process as well as donor budgeting processes. Defined mechanism(s) and processes for domestic financing and practical human resources absorption of community health and Means of tracking funding commitments, including a process to monitor progress against the funding targets and anticipated annual funding mix, among others.

Specific Tasks

The Consultant will among others.

1. Carry out a desk review of documents relevant to an understanding of the mandate.
2. Review existing financing plans/strategies, laws, and policies on the community health worker’s sector.
3. Develop a sound methodology and tools that will ground the development of the long-term financing plan.
4. Conduct a comprehensive desk review, stakeholder consultations, and benchmarking exercises.
5. Hold consultations with key stakeholder groups such as Ministry of health and Ministry of Finance to secure official endorsement, funders, and other key groups.
6. Together, with the advisory committee, lead a program of wider consultations to receive feedback on the draft plan.

Deliverable Outputs/Milestones 

Based on the above, the Consultant shall prepare and complete the long-term (8-10 years) sustainable financing plan and resource mobilization plan. This shall entail, among other things the following:

• An Outline of a sustainable financing plan and presentation of the strategy.
• Present the draft plan to stakeholders through available platforms
• Draft a sustainable financing plan
• Final sustainable financing plan approved by MoH leadership.

Commitment to Quality Work

At every stage of the assignment, the consultant shall use an evidence-based approach to ensure the highest standards of work and timely deliverables. The consultant shall ensure clarity of objectives and process during the consultations, countercheck all facts and figures cited, ensure that the content and format of the draft plan meet the high standard for such documents, and ensure proper editing and clarity.

Approaches

The consultant shall obtain disaggregated data, review relevant literature, conduct interviews, conduct workshops, and undertake field visits if necessary. The consultant may establish a team to accomplish the consultancy’s objectives.

Qualifications/Competencies/ Experience

Living Goods on behalf of MoH is seeking for the services of a professional to develop a long-term (8-10 year) sustainable financing plan and resource mobilization plan for community health for Uganda.

. The individual/firm must possess the following.

1. Relevant work experience in strategic planning and development
2. Excellent and proven analytical skills
3. Possess knowledge of Uganda’s health system, health financing, and experience in the community health landscape.
4. Understanding of participatory approaches to management and operations
5. Excellent organizational and communication skills ability to prioritize and work with minimum supervision

Duration

The consultancy shall be for a period no longer than three (3) months, beginning on January 2nd, 2025. 

Application materials:

• Interested parties should submit a concise proposal for how the work will be carried out.
• Interested applicants are encouraged to submit their bids alongside detailed proposals, indicating their work schedule from the commencement to the end of the consultancy. Included should be:
• Technical approach and suggested timeline (maximum 5 pages)
• Case studies of previous experience in strategic development planning or similar assignments (maximum 2 pages)
• Budget for work to be undertaken (submitted in a single Excel worksheet and broken down into Consultancy fees, travel-related costs including workshops and others)
• Any restrictions on consultant availability to begin work on January 2nd, 2025.

Application timeline

Proposals should be submitted to procurementUG@livinggoods.org with the subject line “MOH-LG Long-term sustainable financing plan Consultancy”

Application deadline: Monday, December 2nd, 2025 

• Short-listed applicants may be invited to attend an in-person or remote interview between 9th and 18th December. Candidates should endeavor to be available on these dates.
• Any questions should be sent to the email address above by 22nd November 2024, with “MOH-LG Long-term sustainable financing plan Consultancy” in the subject line.

Avoidance of Conflict of Interest

The Long-term (8-10 year) sustainable financing plan writer must be able to provide objective, unbiased support. Therefore, each applicant must fully divulge any activities or connections that might lead to potential or perceived conflicts of interest, a self-assessment of whether such conflicts exist, and if so, how the consulting firm proposes to manage these. This applies at both the corporate and individual levels. Failure to disclose such conflicts would constitute grounds for disqualification. 

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