Country: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Closing date: 21 Apr 2019
Background
The AstraZeneca Young Health Programme (YHP) aims to positively impact the health of adolescents in marginalised communities worldwide through research and evidence generation, advocacy and on-the-ground programmes. It aims to advance the adolescent health agenda through collaboration, utilising its resource to bring together key individuals and organisations to advance the health and rights of young people.
Plan International UK is a founding partner of the YHP. The organisation implements programmes on the ground in countries around the world and from its UK office, it leads the development and implementation of the advocacy and research strategy for the YHP.
Each year, around 1.2 million adolescents die globally, many from preventable or treatable causes, such as injuries, infectious diseases, undernutrition, and maternal complications. Furthermore, a third of adolescents live in countries with a high burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and are at high risk of mental and substance use disorders, and chronic physical illness. Yet, adolescents have the poorest level of universal health coverage of any age group and many legislative, financial and societal barriers hinder their access to health care.
In the post-2015 era, adolescents are acknowledged as key drivers of transformation in health and sustainable development. For the first time, adolescents are prioritized in the UN Secretary General’s Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health (2016-2030),in 2017, the Lancet Commission on Adolescent Health and Wellbeing launched an evidence review with recommendations, and WHO published Global Accelerated Action for the Health of Adolescents (AA-HA!) that provides policy-makers with guidance how to prioritize and to plan, implement and monitor adolescent health programmes.
Despite the growing recognition and evidence base of effective policies and interventions, global development communities and countries have been slow in their response to enhance adolescent health.
This year, the YHP is seeking to use the opportunity presented by the forthcoming High Level Meeting on UHC in September 2019 to galvanise political momentum behind the adolescent health agenda. Specifically, we want to see Governments recognise the importance of adolescent health in the outcome document of the High Level Meeting and commit to action on it. To achieve this we are playing a leading role in developing a ‘Call to Action’ and wish to promote sign-ons and commitment to use to this Call to Action from a critical mass of partner organisations in order to build pressure on decision makers to commit to action. We also want to deliver a package of communications around it. This is part of an influencing plan towards governments.
Objectives and Deliverables
On behalf of the YHP, Plan International UK is seeking a consultant to develop and implement plans for partnership development and communications for the Call to Action campaign as part of a wider influencing strategy.
The deliverables are to be developed in collaboration with Plan International and the AstraZeneca Young Health Programme. The deliverables for this consultancy include:
- Shaping a compelling and influential Call to Action, including seeking input from core partner organisations. This will draw on agreed shared positions set out in other agreed documents. 2. Developing and delivering plans to:
i.Build a broad coalition of support for the Call to Action whereby like-minded organisations sign-up to and commit to promoting it through their work. The consultant will reach out to partners to work collaboratively to develop and consult on the Call to Action, including engaging young people in the consultation; and build sign-ons in the lead-up to the September HLM. This will likely include:
- Facilitating collaboration among leading partners
- Shaping and supporting delivery of a youth consultation
- Creating an online mechanism for sign ups
- Building collaboration among partners to position the call to action in joint events
- Developing communications assets for online distribution
ii. Create opportunities for and deliver communications for the YHP to promote the Call to Action and its objectives, and ensure the AstraZeneca YHP is visible through media and social media channels during the months leading up to the High Level Meeting, and around the High Level Meeting itself.
The plan should also support national level communications activities to be delivered by programme teams in a number of YHP programme countries, to be decided on with the consultant. 3. Contributing ideas and activities as appropriate to the development of plans for insider advocacy to ensure opportunities for the influencing strategy as a whole are maximised.
Producing a short report at the end on activities delivered and results achieved to share internally in AstraZeneca and Plan International.
The consultant will be expected to engage with staff in partner organisations and Plan International/AstraZeneca staff at headquarter and country level as appropriate.
Timetable
Phase I: Develop plans in consultation with Plan International/AZ YHP staff (early May)
Phase II: Implement activities as identified in the plans (May to September 2019)
Budget
We expect the consultant to work an average of two days a week between May and September, totalling no more than 52 days.
The total budget is negotiable depending upon experience.
How to apply:
Submission of proposals should be made by email to: Liam.Sollis@plan-uk.org
The proposals should include the following:
A. A cover note outlining your experience and capacity to deliver high-quality outputs in line with the requirements of the consultancy.
B. An indicative budget for this work.
C. Examples of implementing relevant advocacy partnership and communications plans as part of influencing strategies to significant impact (this should include where relevant hyperlinks to online published work).
The deadline for submission is 5pm on 21st April 2019 and the consultant should be available from 1st May 2019.
The consultant is expected to have skills and experience in global health and/or international development-related global campaigns and communications for policy influencing purposes. Experience of working with both INGOs and private sector companies, and an understanding of corporate responsibility approaches, would be an advantage.
The assignment will be carried out in accordance with Plan International’s ethics standards and child protection policy.