Fwd: Consultants for World Faiths Development Dialogue

[Zeeshan Suhail]

Zeeshan Suhail
Mobile phone: +92-333-528-4499
Skype: Zeeshan.Suhail1

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Mohammed Abdul Basit Khan <mab...@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Mar 3, 2011 at 11:41 AM
Subject: [muslimsindev] Consultants for World Faiths Development Dialogue
To: muslim...@googlegroups.com


Consultants to conduct a review of literature and experience of faith
roles in public health
Posted on: March 1, 2011

Posted by: World Faiths Development Dialogue

More / LessDescription
Background:
The World Faiths Development Dialogue, based in Washington DC, is
recruiting one Senior Consultant and two Junior Consultants to conduct
a review of literature and experience on the roles, actual and
potential, of faith communities in responding to priority global
health challenges, notably HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and major
childhood killers that aims to determine what steps are being taken to
evaluate the practical impact of faith and faith-inspired
organizations on public health outcomes and to lay out an agenda for
future research.

The WFDD is a secular, academic, non-profit research organization with
two central objectives. The first is to reinforce, underscore, and
publicize the synergies and common purpose of religions and
development institutions addressing poverty. The second is to explore,
through thoughtful and probing dialogue, issues on which there is
little consensus and where common ground is unclear. This applies
among different faith traditions, even within faiths, and between
faiths and development institutions.

Scope of work:

The central questions of the study are:

(a) What is the state of knowledge about religious institutions’
engagement in global health, its quality, and its reach to the world’s
poorest communities? Where does knowledge reside? What are the notable
gaps and the reasons for them? The controversies? What approaches are
most promising in filling knowledge gaps? What are the priority
questions to pursue?

(b) What, if any, conclusions emerge from this review that highlight
why knowledge gaps matter for policy and coordination?

(c) What are major opportunities for further research, dialogue, and
short term action?

The focus will be on Africa and on issues with links to global health
policies relevant to poverty alleviation. The review will involve a
broad overview, extending to all major world regions, encompassing the
full range of faith traditions, and looking to the wide range of
faith-linked institutions, from fully developed health systems to
small community based interventions.

The review will address the trio of “hot issues” that have drawn
attention in recent discussions: What does the evidence say about the
“market share” of faith provided medical services? What solid
information is there on quality of services and motivations among
providers? And what information exists on where, whether, and how far
faith based health assets reach people who would not otherwise have
access to health care?

The final product will be a report of some 30-40 pages, written for an
informed but broad audience, with a central narrative and illustrative
examples presented in the form of “boxes”. A full annotated
bibliography will be an important review component. Its conclusions
will present an agenda for further research and highlight emerging
policy issues.

Roles will be divided as follows:

Consultant I: Will synthesize information gathered by the team and
craft the final document in addition to writing five country profiles.
Country profiles should consist of at least a sampling of descriptive
narratives of how faith-linked services “work” in-country. This should
include a historical perspective and will aim to highlight the
dynamism of such systems, their complexity, and the significance of
political and attitudinal approaches to the challenge of accurate
“mapping”. Tentative countries of focus: Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania,
Ethiopia, Mozambique, Mali, Liberia, DRC.

Consultant II: Will conduct a review of public health and medical
research publications and basic national health data, to identify
research that touches on faith providers of health care.
The first step will be factual: how far are faith-institutions covered
in the literature? What public health and medical research
documentation (academic caliber) do faith linked institutions produce?

A second question will be whether any literature explores identifiable
and measurable differences in either approach or outcomes, or both,
between secular and religious health care provision in poor community
settings. If so, who is measuring it? What are the most noteworthy
examples of where faith-linked health care is serving poor communities
and what are lessons?

A third area is public health and household survey data (DHS): what
questions are asked about faith-inspired health care provision? Are
there obvious gaps and findings? This will not involve detailed
analysis of all data in this category but a review of “state of
knowledge”.

The review will need to draw conclusions from this literature review,
in terms of its coverage: that is, is the quality of the research good
or less than optimal? What is missing and why? What are the most
relevant questions that can and should be asked and how well are they
being addressed?

Examples: The Ritva Reinekke “Working for God” exploration of Uganda
remains the best known example of an explicit effort to compare faith
and non-faith health care. Assessments of Catholic health care in the
US exist. The HIV/AIDS work of the Community of Sant’Egidio is quite
well documented, at least in Italian academic literature.

Consultant III: Will conduct a review of evaluation literature,
primarily tied to major funders: USAID, PEPFAR, Global Fund, World
Bank, regional banks, DFID, etc. The approach would resemble that
under (i): that is, a first scan to see how far faith institutions are
covered (obviously many will be, like CRS, ADRA, Islamic Relief) and a
deeper dive to explore whether any of them refer in any fashion to the
faith dimension.

• First, it will look at evaluation literature produced by funders to
assess grant or loan impact. Such evaluations are based on reporting
by implementing partners and grant lead agencies.

• Second, the researcher will investigate if and how internal
evaluation departments of faith-inspired organizations measure the
impact of religious affiliation, approach or networks within
public-health programs they design, coordinate or fund: Are there
systems in place to measure if and how these faith-factors impact and
shape outcomes?

• Given the demand for evaluation literature and evidence based
programming, faith-inspired groups often engage external consultants
to organize their evaluation departments and create appropriate
measurement systems. The report will explore the work of evaluation
experts working with faith-inspired groups from businesses like
Dahlberg, Deloitte, Geneva Global, Rockefeller and the Futures Group,
with the same questions in mind.

Competencies and Experience:

- Minimum MPH with 1-2 years experience or MA in a development-related
field and 3-5 years’ experience in public health. PhD preferred.

Please provide a writing sample of 10 pages or list of publications
that displays:

- Excellent English language skills;

- Strong research and analytical skills as well as excellent writing abilities;

- Demonstrated knowledge of available medical, public health, and
development journals and resources;

- Comfort with public health monitoring and evaluation indicators and
methodology;

- Ability to convey technical public health concepts to broad audiences.

- Record of being creative and resourceful in cross disciplinary
research down non-traditional avenues under limited oversight;

- Proven ability to think strategically and demonstrated sensitivity
toward faith-related initiatives;

.More / LessHow to apply
Work is expected to commence in late March and be completed by July 2011.
To apply for this position, please send by March 15th a letter of
interest, resume and list of publications to: in...@wfdd.us. Please
state in the subject of the email the position to which you are
applying (Consultant I, II or III).