The NASA methodology represents a standardized reporting process and set of indicators that are used to monitor progress across countries towards meeting the targets of the Declaration of Commitment adopted by the United Nations General Assembly Special Sessions on HIV (UNGASS). It is designed to describe the financial flows and expenditures using the same categories as the globally estimated resource needs in order to provide necessary information on the financial gap between available resources and what is needed, specifically as it relates to national responses to the HIV epidemic. As such, the resource tracking process follows the financial transactions from their origin down to the final destination (i.e. the beneficiaries receiving goods and services).
The usefulness of the information gathered from NASA is being appreciated by wider reach of stakeholders and as such, findings from previous assessments are increasingly being requested by other IDPs (GF, USAID etc); and some of the international partners have even started to align their financial reporting requirements to be in keeping with NASA definitions and stipulations. Furthermore, closer twinning of financial and technical programmatic monitoring is the way the country will be headed for management of all health funds; not just grants/projects, with the introduction of Health Accounts by WHO so it is in keeping with what will be required for all government health programmes.
Resource tracking in Jamaica
Jamaica has completed AIDS resource tracking utilizing NASA with the technical and financial support of UNAIDS, covering 9 financial years (April 2009 – March 2017). There have been improvements as the country gains experience in conducting this assessment, however, persisting challenges have been noted by both the authors of the reports and persons who provide the data on behalf of their organization.
One major challenge has been the timely completion of resource tracking reports due to low/ slow response rates. The first report produced by Jamaica had a response rate of 65%. Although the response rate greatly improved in subsequent assessments, the time invested to pull it all together was overwhelming and more than doubled the timeline for the completion of the report from 3 months to 7 months despite formal communication through sensitization letters, individual meetings with stakeholders, provision of guiding reference documents, and frequent check-ins to assist with any questions or receive updates on progress. Feedback from stakeholders at various points throughout collection indicated that the process was time consuming as assignment to categories was not straightforward (as interventions often offer mixed services at a single point e.g. condom promotion and HIV testing), and competing priorities made it difficult to be compliant with NASA reporting timelines. Suboptimal storage systems and capacity also make it difficult to easily access the detailed files that have been archived.
Another bottleneck to the process is the incongruity between NASA reporting requirements and routine financial and programme management reporting tools used by the country. This often means that required data are not systematically documented in the way that NASA requires it which leads to a high degree of unavailable expenditure data, particularly as it relates to the disaggregation by beneficiary population and activity.
Objectives of NASA Consultancy
The main objective of resource tracking at the country level is to determine what is actually disbursed or spent in a country. The resource tracking process follows the money from its origin (i.e. source) down to the destination, the beneficiaries receiving goods and services. It offers an improved understanding of the current levels of spending as well as the main barriers to the optimal use of these financial resources.
This consultancy is aimed at facilitating the data collection for NASA methodology for 2 financial year. The overarching objectives that the project is expected to contribute to include:
- Implement methodology for systematic monitoring of HIV/AIDS financial flows at national and regional level using the National AIDS Spending Assessment (NASA) methodology
- Manage the data collection with key partners for 2017/18 and 2018/19 relevant to the process
- Support capacity building of national and sub-national partners for systematic monitoring of HIV/AIDS financing flows
The specific sub-objectives are to:
- Analyze the structure of HIV/AIDS–related services and organizations in the public and private sector, including bi- and multilateral donor organizations active in the country;
- Develop a data collection plan for the national level and all regions and departments – identify stakeholders/entities among financing sources, financing agents, and users/providers in the public and private sectors;
- Validate, enter and analyze financial data for national and regional level data;
- Present and disseminate achieved results including full set of NASA matrixes;
- Complete all indicators relevant to Resource Tracking for the Global AIDS Monitoring Report
NASA Methodology
The NASA methodology responds for a particular year to six different questions:
- Who finances the AIDS response?
- Who manages the funds?
- Who provides the services?
- Which intervention was provided?
- Who benefits from the funds?
- What was bought to realize the intervention?
To answer these questions, the NASA methodology reconstructs all the financial transactions related to the national response to the HIV and AIDS epidemic. A transaction is a transfer of resources between different economic agents and follows the money through the financing sources, buyers and providers and the description of its factors of the production function.
The financial transactions are reconstructed by identifying three dimensions: financing, provision and use. Each dimension incorporates two vectors. Each of the six vectors answers the above questions:
- The financing sources (FS) are entities that make funds available for the financing of HIV and AIDS services (e.g. PEPFAR, the Global Fund, Public sources, out of pocket expenditures).
- The financing agents (FA) are entities that mobilize the resources to finance specific programmes and that take the decision on how they should be spent
- The providers (PS) are entities that engage in the production, provision, and delivery of HIV and AIDS services. They carry out the different interventions.
- The production factors (PF) are the resources bought to produce the interventions (ex. wages, services, consumables, capital).
- The AIDS Spending Categories (ASC) are the activities and services provided as the multi-sectorial response to HIV and AIDS (e.g. prevention, care and treatment, OVC, social mitigation, research).
- The Beneficiary population (BP) are the intended part of the population benefiting from a specific intervention (e.g. PLWH, most at risk populations, general population)
Specific Consultant Responsibilities and Duties – Training, Data Collection, Analysis and Reporting
A cohort of government and civil society representatives from top and middle management, programme delivery and administrative positions will be trained over 4 days of intense resource tracking training and implementation which is intended to assist the data collection process which will be led by the local consultant. Although the trainings will be primarily led by an external consultant, the local consultant will have responsibility for the coordination of the training and subsequent follow up activities and report.
The training will incorporate both theoretical and practical sessions through formal presentations and handouts on the technical information, complemented by facilitated group work sessions. Participants will therefore be asked to come to the training with the data for the financial years April 2017 – March 2019 which will be used as the material in group work sessions. This will ensure that participants are given a chance to apply the theory; and also serve the dual purpose of starting the data entry process for the next financial reports that are due. The training will also include hands on use of the database that will further facilitate the institutionalizing of resource tracking. Finally, shortly after the training, each region will benefit from a site visit in order to continue the practical application and data collection for information that may not have been taken to the workshop (e.g. data in hospital and other health facility settings).
The consultant is expected to manage the data collection component and will need to develop a data collection plan to cover the period 2017 to 2019. Beyond the training and follow-up site visits with the regions, data in this phase will continue to be collected through semi-structured interviews with representatives of all the actors of the national HIV response, including funding sources (e.g. PEPFAR and the GFATM), financial agents and providers as identified by the NASA working group. At a minimum this will include 28 NGOs, 5 government ministries, 4 Regional Health Authorities, National Public Health Laboratory, University Hospital of the West Indies, and International Development Partners.
During the data processing, the resource tracking module of NASA Excel files and RTS software will be used. The next stage of the Project will focus on data analysis and triangulation which allow the assessment to identify: (i) the level and proportion of funding from different sources; (ii) the providers who received funds and from what sources; and (iii) the amount of funding allocated to services and functions related to HIV/AIDS.
During this stage, it is important to conduct a validation meeting with key experts to review and validate the results, estimations and methods, before presenting the results and disseminating the final results/report. This validation improves the quality of the results and is needed to guarantee acceptance of the results at country level. Once the report has been finalized and signed off on by the Ministry of Health and Wellness and UNAIDS, the consultant will organize a stakeholder meeting to present the final results.
Overall Timeframe
This consultancy is expected to span a duration of six calendar months.
Key Deliverables
The following deliverables are expected:
- Detailed work plan for the execution of the consultancy.
- Agenda and registration sheet from 4-day training of stakeholders
- Meeting schedule for additional data collection with partners
- Template for data entry
- Completed data set (before analysis)
- Draft Report
- Final Comprehensive NASA report technically validated by stakeholders including:
- Description of the expenditures according to the 6 NASA vectors (FS, FA, PS, ASC, BP & PF).
- Clear identification/distinction of the hidden cost relating to HIV (eg. Human Resource cost)
- Description of the steps & methods of the assessment.
- Description of how estimates were done, clearly identifying unit costs, quantities, sampling techniques and sources of data used for creating the estimates.
- The list of contacted institutions and contact persons.
- Clear description of assumptions and limitations of the data collection and data process, sampling and extrapolation to the universe.
- Recommendations for further assessments of NASA in the country.
- Annexes including: data collection forms and the minimum sub-set of NASA tables.
- A copy of the RTS software database containing all the NASA related transactions (if the RTS software was used).
- Disaggregated analysis by Region and Organization type
- A minimum sub-set of NASA tables (soft copies), including health and non-health as activities; as well all indicators related to resource tracking required for inclusion in the Global AIDS Monitoring Report.
Supervision
The Consultant will work under the overall guidance of the NASA working group jointly led by the Ministry of Health and Wellness and UNAIDS. Direct supervision will be provided by the Strategic Information Advisor, HIV/STI/Tb (HST) Unit of the Ministry of Health and Wellness and the Country Director, UNAIDS or her designate.
Qualifications and Experience
- A post-graduate degree in financial management or a related technical field;
- A minimum of five (5) years of professional work experience in undertaking similar assignments at the national or international level in Financial Management or Accounting;
- Familiarity with the Jamaican HIV/ AIDS Response as well as training and/or work experience in NASA would be an asset
Required Skills and Specialized Techniques
- Highly developed research and analytical skills
- Demonstrable competence in relevant computer applications (Word, Excel, Internet, Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS)/equivalent, and financial management database systems.
- Strong communication skills, including report writing and confidence in delivering complex presentations to a wide range of audiences
- Good project management, time management and problem solving skills
- Able to respond to deadlines and prioritize accordingly
- Ability to interact well and develop positive relationships with Stakeholders of different backgrounds
|
|
Schedule for Deliverables |
|
|
| Deliverable | Date | Remuneration (J$) | |
| 1 | Detailed proposal including a work plan and data collection plan | One week after contract signing | 10% |
| 2 | · Template for data entry
· Training Agenda, attendance sheet and report |
Three weeks after contract signing | |
| 3 | Meeting schedule for additional data collection with partners | Four weeks after contract signing | 15% |
| 4 | Complete data set (before analysis) | Six weeks after contract signing | |
| 5 | Draft Report | Eight weeks after contract signing | 20% |
| 6 | Validation Meeting Report | Ten weeks after contract signing | 20% |
| 7 | · Final Validated Report and completed data set
· Completed file for resource tracking indicators in the Global AIDS Monitoring Report |
Twelve weeks after contract signing | 35% |
Evaluation Criteria (Minimum score required: 75%)
| Evaluation Criteria | Maximum Score that May be Awarded |
| Post-graduate degree in Financial Management or a related technical field | 10 |
| A minimum of five (5) years of professional work experience in undertaking similar assignments, at the national or international level, in Financial Management or Accounting | 15 |
| Familiarity with the Jamaican HIV/AIDS response as well as training and/or work experience in NASA | 15 |
| Technical approach and methodology | 25 |
| Work Plan | 15 |
| Financial Proposal Calculation | 20 |
Special Terms and Conditions
The Consultant will spend most of his/her time working with the implementing partners, Ministries, Department and Agencies, as well as other private and public partners working in the national HIV response. No office space will be provided. The Consultant works at his/her own pace but MUST meet the established deadlines. All expenses should be stated in the budget as the total in the proposal is the final amount to be paid. All resources and documentation produced from this activity are owned by the Ministry of Health and Wellness and shall not be accessed, shared or published without the permission of the Ministry of Health and Wellness.