Consultancy for rapporteur services for a consultative workshop: Accelerating effective country level programme management and implementation of sex workers programmes.

Background
The international AIDS community has embraced the ambition of ending AIDS as a public health threat by 2030. In June 2016 193 countries endorsed the Political Declaration on HIV and AIDS: “On the Fast-Track to Accelerate the Fight against HIV and to End the AIDS epidemic by 2030”. In the declaration countries commit to seize the new opportunities provided by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and to accelerate and scale up the fight against HIV and end AIDS to reach the targets set in the declaration.
These ambitious goals cannot be achieved without focused efforts to improve implementation and rapidly scale up HIV services. Efforts to reach the 90-90-90 targets need to be sustained and HIV prevention efforts must be reinvigorated if the world is to achieve the global fast-track target of reducing the number of new HIV infections to fewer than 500,000 by 2020. The UNAIDS strategy 2016-2021 asserts that populations that are underserved and at higher risk of HIV will be key to ending the AIDS epidemic. A scaled up response reaching all populations with high HIV incidence with more and better focused and tailored interventions is needed while ensuring that people are not further stigmatized by the approach and modalities through which these focused approaches are implemented.
Sex workers are one of the key populations most affected by HIV since the beginning of the epidemic. In both concentrated and generalized epidemics, HIV prevalence is considerably higher among sex workers than in the general population. HIV prevalence among sex workers in the ESA region exceeds 40 percent in several countries, which makes sex workers in the region one of the populations most affected by HIV world-wide. Sex workers often intersect with other populations such as men who have sex with men (MSM), transgender people and people who inject drugs (PWIDs). Sex workers often find themselves in unsafe working conditions, encounter increased barriers in negotiation for condom use, and challenges in accessing health and HIV services. In addition, sex workers often have little control over these factors because of social marginalization and the criminalization of sex work in countries. Violence, alcohol and drug use in some settings also increase vulnerability and risk. Within countries there are considerable differences in progress and barriers in terms of the delivery of HIV prevention, treatment, care and support services for sex workers. Countries are seeking best practices and technical support in how to strengthen the capacity of national partners to plan, implement, and monitor and evaluate evidence and rights based HIV programmes for sex workers. This includes assessing the most effective HIV responses, and implementing them efficiently and at scale.
UNFPA, UNAIDS, Linkages in partnership with African Sex Worker Alliance (ASWA) will convene a South – South exchange/ capacity building to accelerate effective country level programme management and implementation for sex workers programme in the ESA region on the 14th -18th November 2016 in Nairobi, Kenya. This will bring key participants from selected priority countries to facilitate knowledge and experience sharing while leveraging the region’s efforts to improve its HIV programs for sex workers. This is also an attempt revitalize efforts that scale up evidence and rights based HIV services that empower sex workers within the context of the fast track approach.

GOAL/Purpose
The purpose of this consultancy is to contract a rapporteur to produce a comprehensive report for the consultative workshop for South – South exchange/ capacity building for sex workers programmes in an effort to accelerate effective country level programme management and implementation in the ESA region.

OBJECTIVES:
This consultancy’s main objectives are:
1. Rapporteur services for the South to South consultative meeting to be held on 14th -18th of November 2016 in Nairobi Kenya.
2. Produce a comprehensive report from the South to South consultative meeting that incorporate inputs/comments from all partners.
EXPECTED RESULTS (OUTPUTS)
The expected outputs from this consultancy are:
1. First draft of the report from the South to South consultative workshop
2. Final edited version of the report after incorporating inputs/comments from key partners

PROCESS/TASKS/SCOPE OF SERVICES
The consultant will need to undertake the following tasks in order to achieve the above-mentioned objectives:
1. Rapporteur for the consultative meeting to be held on 14th -18th of November 2016
2. Produce a first draft of the report from the consultative meeting for review to Pact and other relevant partners
3. Incorporate inputs/ comments received from Pact and key partners
4. Produce and submit a final edited version of the report from the consultative meeting
The above tasks are illustrative and the consultant will be expected to build on these as needed in order to ensure the assignment is completed to the expected standards. He/she is encouraged to consult regularly with Pact staff for any clarification or assistance to further inform the products from this assignment.

KEY Deliverables:
The Consultant will submit a final consultative workshop report as a deliverable at the end of the assignment:
SUPERVISION AND QUALITY ASSURANCE
The Consultant will be supervised by the Brian White, Senior Technical Advisor Pact, Linkages.
PERIOD OF CONSULTANCY
This consultancy is expected to take a total of seven days, five days for the actual workshop and two days to finalize the report writing process.
assurance of confidentiality
All deliberations relating to this consultancy, including all information collected from various meetings/documents shall be kept confidential and shall not be divulged to any third party either verbally or in writing or in any other form.

APPLICANT SKILLS AND QUALIFICATIONS
The consultant should have the following educational qualifications, skills and experience:
1. Master’s degree in Health/ Development and doctoral degree will be an advantage;
2. Excellent writing skills in English and analytical skills to condense the meeting discussions into a report without losing its core essence.
3. At least 10 years of international work experience in the field of Health/ Development;
4. Demonstrated technical expertise in HIV and AIDS epidemic and its response in particular on HIV combination prevention;

LOGISTICS AND PROCEDURES
The Consultant will be responsible for covering his/her transport costs for any travel required to meet with Pact staff within Nairobi. If the consultant requires office space from where to work, the same can be arranged with Pact to allocate space at the Pact office. Pact will support with printing and communication (email, telephone, and fax) costs where these arise during the assignment.
Submission requirements

Submit the following documents with their expression of interest for this consultancy:
• Curriculum Vitae
• Signed Bio-data form
• Copy of the most recent consultancy contract
• At least three references (could be included in the CV)
• Propose plan to perform the consultancy’s assignment (This should be included activities; methodologies and time frame)
• Sample Report

HOW TO APPLY:
Submit the EOI to kenyahr@pactworld.org by 28th October 2016 quoting Rapporteur Services on the subject line.