Deadline: 04-Nov-2024
Unitaid is pleased to announce this call for proposals aimed at catalyzing uptake of country-led and context-specific post-discharge malaria chemoprevention strategies.
Scope
- Under this Call, Unitaid is soliciting proposals for the following intervention, aimed at accelerating implementation and generating evidence to catalyse the adoption and scale-up of PDMC to address the burden of childhood anaemia and malaria:
- Multi-country implementation of PDMC with robust evidence generation that responds to key knowledge gaps to inform future guidance and accelerate uptake.
- Projects should include implementation projects, delivered in diverse representative settings, to generate robust, transferable evidence on the impact, operationalization, and cost/cost-effectiveness of PDMC delivery – with a vision to informing national scale-up.
- These strategies should be tailored to specific country contexts, including sub-national approaches and different delivery platforms (such as community health worker or facility-based delivery approaches). Projects will need to assess key barriers to PDMC delivery and implement activities that establish an enabling environment to support PDMC uptake – including supporting supply chains, human resources, national guideline updates, and pathways to scale.
- Evidence generation through the projects should seek to respond to research needs identified by WHO and country implementers, such as, at-scale adherence using different delivery approaches, optimal coordination mechanisms, long-term impact, effectiveness of PDMC in different target groups (such as those presenting to hospital for causes other than severe anaemia) and for different intervention durations in different contexts, and cost of different delivery approaches.
- Strategies should include assessment of PDMC feasibility in settings that are implementing other malaria prevention and strategies. Integration with other childhood health strategies, such as holistic management of severe anaemia of different causes, use of multiple micronutrient or iron supplementation, and nutritional or bacterial infection prevention interventions could also be considered.
- Strong proposals will demonstrate early coordination with multi-disciplinary national programs, regional bodies, civil society, and global partners. Efforts should be made to secure buy-in and funding for transition to scale through the life of the project.
Eligibility Criteria
- Unitaid will prioritize proposals from South-based lead implementers with experience in implementation and expertise in the technical and market intervention areas needed for the project. Additionally, Unitaid supports the meaningful inclusion of South-based sub-implementers, where feasible and relevant, in proposed project implementation consortia. Unitaid’s objective of progressively engaging an increased number of lead implementing partners from the global South does not preclude proposals that are led by or including partners from the global North. In all cases, they encourage coordination and collaboration across implementors and seek proposals with regional impact across key low- and middle-income countries’ markets and a clear path to global impact.
- Unitaid is committed to climate and environmental action in its investments and expects its partners to make similar commitments. Proposals should clearly indicate: (i) Efforts that will be made to minimize carbon emissions from project activities; (ii) Potential opportunities to contribute to broader climate and/or environmental co-benefits, in synergy with core project objectives. More detailed guidance and definitions are provided in the proposal template.
- Proposals should demonstrate value for money and measurable impact. Proposals should also include analysis of pathways to impact, scalability, and sustainability of key interventions.
- Single-country interventions are out of scope for this Call for Proposals.
- Unitaid considers working with communities a critical part of generating demand and strongly encourages adopting inclusive approaches, and the early and continued meaningful engagement of communities towards improving the lives and health of the most vulnerable people. The role of affected communities and planned collaborations with other relevant groups including grassroots community organizations and Civil Society Organizations at all stages of a project/programme including ideation is essential, with this engagement a key determinant for success. Activities should be clearly budgeted in proposal submissions. Community-led approaches are important to consider and adequately fund and resource when designing, planning, implementing, and evaluating activities and programmes.
For more information, visit Unitaid.