Bangladesh: Social Franchise Consultant, Bangladesh

1. Background and context for assignment

The five-year, $86 million, USAID/DFID-funded NGO Health Service Delivery Project (NHSDP) provides technical assistance and capacity building to the “Smiling Sun” (“Surjer Hashi” in Bangla) network of 25 local NGOs that manage nearly 400 static clinics, around 10,000 satellite clinics and nearly 8,000 community health workers throughout Bangladesh. These provide an essential service package (ESP) of primary health care services specifically aimed at ensuring access for poor and underserved populations. This includes services for family planning and reproductive health; maternal, newborn and child health; primary communicable disease control and curative care; and behavior change communications and community mobilization.

USAID/Bangladesh is committed to further strengthening the Surjer Hashi health care network, moving it towards greater financial sustainability and empowerment in the context of Bangladesh’s progress towards Universal Health Coverage. NHSDP, under the leadership of USAID, has initiated a process to register and establish an independent company to oversee the Surjer Hashi (SH) network, initially through a franchise approach. This will be the platform for more effectively responding to a changing health sector environment including factors such as reduced grant funding from donors to support NGOs; the need for government to outsource some aspects of health service delivery; and the growth of alternative health financing mechanisms such as social health insurance, etc.

USAID provided specific guidance to NHSDP for establishing the SH network body in an email from the COR dated 15 October 2016 stating that *“USAID…technically concurs with the proposal to register as a company limited by guarantee. USAID also concurs with the recommendation to begin the process as a franchise model, with the target of moving toward the management model in the post-NHSDP period.”*

NHSDP has hired a local consultant to manage the company registration process and to “develop a transition plan to operationalize the new SH organization as the independent owner and operator of the SH brand and the health services thereunder”. The company may be registered early in 2017.

In order for the Surjer Hashi company to effectively begin operating as the franchisor within the life of NHSDP, technical assistance is needed to design and initiate implementation of a franchise mechanism.

*Definition of Franchising: A long-term cooperative relationship between two entities—a franchisor and one or more franchisees—that is based on an agreement in which the franchisor provides a licensed privilege to the franchisee to do business.*

1. Purpose

The purpose of this STTA is to design a simple and feasible franchising approach and tools that will allow for the new SH Company to quickly franchise SH clinics beginning in 2017. This includes establishing priority criteria for clinics to be licensed by the franchisor; formulating a clear, manageable franchising process; and initiating the franchising process.

1. Tasks (including preparation)

2. Develop a franchise approach, strategy and mechanisms for the network

3. Set basic business and clinical readiness criteria for individual clinics to prepare them to be licensed/accreditated as franchisee of the Surjer Hashi Company based on global quality standards. Criteria must be simple enough to be readily verified by an independent third party at scale (nearly 400 clinics all around the country) on a recurring basis, and responsive to local users

4. Design the process and tools required to implement the franchise licensing approach

5. Formulate an implementation plan, including staffing, budget and timeline, to functionalize the franchise

6. Assess the readiness of each SH clinic to join the franchise

7. Initiate the franchising process

8. Deliverables

9. Franchise approach and strategy document, with process and tools required for implementation

10. Set of basic criteria for licensing of clinics as franchisees

11. Implementation plan, including budget, timeline, and staffing plan

12. Clinic readiness assessment and initiation of the franchise

13. In-country counterpart(s)

Bruce Rasmussen, DCOP-SD

1. Other (e.g., unit requirements)

Mohamed Abu Nar, Sr. Program Director

Sarah Lance, Senior Program Officer Minal Rahimtoola, Technical Advisor, Health Systems Strengthening

Applicants should send CV and statement of interest to Sarah Lance, slance@pathfinder.org by January 31, 2016