Individual National Consultant on Developing Four Budget Briefs on Social Sector Allocation and Spending on Children in Four Provinces of Dien Bien, Da Nang, Gia Lai and Soc Trang, Viet Nam

Consultant Programme & Policy

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UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential.

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone.

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For every child, Social Policy

Background:

UNICEF Viet Nam supported Dien Bien, Gia Lai and Kon Tum in rolling out the Integrated Early Childhood Development (IECD) Programme (2017-2021). This programme aimed at greater integration and synergy across sectors to support integrated programming for children during their very early years and guarantee that every child has access to the full-service package at the time they need. The programme was implemented in 27 selected communes of nine districts of these three provinces. The end-line evaluation of the IECD programme[1] indicated its scalability and actors’ commitments to mapping out detailed plans for the model upscaling in the next phase. In the new country programme between UNICEF and the Government of Viet Nam (2022-2026), UNICEF continues to work in Dien Bien and Gia Lai and extend its partnership to Soc Trang to implement the Child-friendly Programme across difference areas of child rights including nutrition, water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), health, education, child protection and social protection and with Da Nang City for the implementation of the Child Friendly Cities Initiative.

Importantly, the Government has commenced its medium-term planning cycle for 2023-2025 through planning and implementation of the socio-economic development and sectoral plans at both national and sub-national levels. Notably, the government has kickstarted three nationally-targeted programmes (NTPs) with targeted transfers to continue to pursue its pro-poor objectives, namely the NTP on Sustainable Poverty Reduction (SPR), NTP on New-styled Rural Development (NRD) and NTP on Socio-economic Development for Ethnic Minority Areas (SEDEMA). NTPs are the important funding windows for provinces and cities to improve investments in children.

Given the context, now it is a critical moment for UNICEF’s convergence provinces and city to prioritize investments in human capital development in general and comprehensive development of children in particular by developing a budget brief presenting how much four provinces have invested in children and eventually proposing effective ways to prioritize and increase budget allocation for social sectors to address multi-dimensional child poverty and vulnerability. Such budget briefs will help to inform annual and medium-term planning and budgeting processes at sub-national levels (starting with UNICEF’s convergency provinces).

Purpose and objective:

The overall objective of this consultancy is to support UNICEF Viet Nam Country Office (VCO) to develop budget briefs for four selected provinces and city namely Dien Bien, Gia Lai, Soc Trang and Da Nang, focusing on social sectors including health (maternal and child health and nutrition), education, child protection, water and sanitation and social protection. It is aimed to provide an overall picture of public allocation and spending trends on child-focused social sectors to inform the planning and budgeting processes to ensure no child is left behind.

Following are the specific objectives of the budget briefs :

- Analyze the public allocation and spending trend of the above-mentioned social sectors focusing on children in three years (2019, 2020 and2021);

- Assess adequacy and equity of past allocation and spending (2019, 2020 and 2021);

- Propose recommendations for more adequate and equitable budget allocation and spending on for children in four convergence provinces.

The key audience of this exercise are (i) policy makers at sub-national level including provincial/city people’s committee and its relevant departments and people’s council and (ii) UNICEF.

Scope and methodology:

Scope: This assignment is to explore the extent to which the provincial budget addresses children’s needs. Concretely, the briefs will:

- analyze the size (in absolute terms and in relative terms - % of the total budget), the trend, composition, and sources of provincial budget allocations to sectors that matter most for children (e.g. education, health, social protection, child protection, water and sanitation); any major variances due to COVID should be noted. Offer a forecast for the medium term;

- offer insights into the adequacy (compared with the government’s plan and targets and to some extend the demand/needs of people in the selected locations) and equity of budget allocation and execution in the past three years (2019, 2020 and 2021); and

- present complex budget information in a format that is easily understood by different stakeholders and putting forth key messages and recommendations to influence public financial decision-making processes and leverage domestic resources for children for the medium-term.

This assignment is planned to be undertaken during October 2022 – February 2023 with a focus on the four provinces/city mentioned above.

Key research questions:

- What are the key trends of allocation and spending of the key social sectors on children? What is the composition of the budget for each social sector? How much space and what were the policies of the local government that affect allocation and spending of the social sectors on children?

- Any major changes due to COVID?

- What are the key sources of funding? What are the funding gaps (compared with provincial governments’ plans, targets and local demands/needs)? How would gaps be addressed?

- Are the budgets equitable allocated and executed to meet the needs of children in the 4 provinces? How pro-poor is the budget? What factors affected the equity of the budget allocation process and budget execution?

- What are the key messages of this study? What should be changed to ensure that the budget addresses the needs of children?

Methodology:

This exercise will employ both qualitative and quantitative methods. Specifically, it will involve data collection and desk reviews and analysis to understand how and how much state budgets were spent on children in social sectors (maternal and child health, nutrition, child protection, social protection, education and water and sanitation) over the past years (2020-21). The desk review is suggested to make the most use of the recent studies and analyses with sub-national case studies supported by UNICEF and other development partners, i.e. i) Nutrition Costing for 2022-2025 Plan of Action on Nutrition; ii) Fiscal Space Analysis on Child-sensitive Social Assistance; iii) Financing Assessment for Water and Sanitation in Viet Nam; iv) Social and Environmental Public Spending Trends in Viet Nam etc. A template for data collection is suggested in the annex 1.

In addition, the selected consultant is also expected to conduct interviews with key informants with relevant stakeholders in four selected provinces, especially to capture the perspectives of key sectors including health, education, social affairs, child protection, social protection, water and sanitation, etc. to fill data gaps. Key stakeholders include but not limited to the following agencies in four proposed provinces:

- Provincial and city people’s committee

- Department of Education and Training

- Department of Health

- Department of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs

- Department of Agriculture and Rural Development

- Department of Planning and Investment

- Department of Finance

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[1] UNICEF Viet Nam (2021). End Line Survey and Evaluation for the Integrated Early Childhood Development Programmme of UNICEFI Viet Nam (2017-2021)

Detailed Tasks and Deliverables as attached TOR Consultancy Notice Consultant development of budget briefs in 4 provinces.pdf

Management and reporting:

- The consultant will work under the supervision of the Social Policy Specialist and in close collaboration with the Programme Sections and Government counterparts at sub-national level especially DOH, DOET, DOLISA, DPI, and DOF.

- The assignment is a combination of home-based and field-mission, with an estimation of 4 official travels, including a maximum of 5 day travel in each selected province. The consultant is expected to work independently. The consultant will need to organize own travel and will be reimbursed on actual expenditures based on the most direct and economical route in economy class. UNICEF will pay the daily subsistence allowance as per UN-approved rate. The consultant must be fit to travel, be in a possession of the valid UN DSS Basic and Advanced Security certificates, obligatory inoculation(s) and have a valid own travel/medical insurance with hospitalisation and repatriation coverage. The dates for the travel will be determined in consultation with the Social Policy Specialist.

- UNICEF will provide support to secure meetings with relevant stakeholders and provide administrative support for the organization of any national and local level. The consultant(s) will provide their own computer and communications equipment (laptop, telephones, etc).

- All remuneration must be within the contract agreement.

- No work or travel may commence unless the contract is signed by both UNICEF and the consultant.

Payment Schedule:

Payment for the assignment will be made upon the delivery of key deliverables in three instalments as follows:

- The 1st payment upon the delivery of activity 1 (30%)

- The 2nd payment upon the delivery of activity 2 (40%)

- The last payment upon the delivery of activity 3 (30%)

Performance indicators for evaluation:

Indicators for completion and satisfaction measurement are based on UNICEF Viet Nam evaluation and judgement, and not that of the Consultant. This means that deliverables will be deemed satisfactory only if said so by the Supervisors of the Consultancy. The Supervisors are required to provide timely and written feedback to the Consultant in order to avoid miscommunication.

Qualification/Specialized Knowledge and Experience:

- Have a postgraduate degree in public finance, economics or equivalent majors and at least 15 years of experience in the field of public financial management, preferably with experience in financial analysis in social sectors.

- Knowledge and experience in socio-economic and political environment in Vietnam and public financial management as well as decentralisation in Vietnam.

- Experience in analyzing budget allocation and implementation for social sectors in Vietnam;

- Experience in building budget briefs in social sectors is an advantage

- Good analytical and communication skills

- Language: speak and write fluently in both English and Vietnamese.

To view our competency framework, please click here.

Assessment criteria:

For evaluation and selection method, the Cumulative Analysis Method (weight combined score method) shall be used for this recruitment:

a) Technical Qualification (max. 100 points) weight 70 %

- Degree Education in public finance, economics or equivalent majors and at least 15 years of experience in the field of public financial management, preferably with experience in financial analysis in social sectors (20 points);

- Knowledge and research skills in socio-economic and political environment in Vietnam and public financial management as well as decentralisation in Viet Nam (30 points);

- Experience in analyzing budget allocation and implementation for social sectors in Vietnam and developing budget briefs in social sectors (40 points).

- Communication in both English and Vietnamese (10 points).

b) Financial Proposal (max. 100 points) weight 30 %:

The maximum number of points shall be allotted to the lowest Financial Proposal that is opened /evaluated and compared among those technical qualified candidates who have attained a minimum 70 points score in the technical evaluation. Other Financial Proposals will receive points in inverse proportion to the lowest price.

The Contract shall be awarded to candidate obtaining the highest combined technical and financial scores, subject to the satisfactory result of the verification interview if needed.

Submission of applications:

Interested candidates are kindly requested to apply and upload the following documents to the assigned requisition in UNICEF Vacancies: http://www.unicef.org/about/employ/

1. CV/A brief introduction of the consultant with relevant experience;
2. A technical proposal describing how the assignment will be carried out;
3. Performance evaluation reports or references of similar consultancy assignments (if available)
4. Financial proposal: All-inclusive lump-sum cost including consultancy fee, travel and accommodation cost for this assignment as per work assignment.

UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most disadvantaged children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, or any other personal characteristic.

UNICEF offers reasonable accommodation for consultants/individual contractors with disabilities. This may include, for example, accessible software, travel assistance for missions or personal attendants. We encourage you to disclose your disability during your application in case you need reasonable accommodation during the selection process and afterwards in your assignment.

UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.

Remarks:

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.

Individuals engaged under a consultancy or individual contract will not be considered “staff members” under the Staff Regulations and Rules of the United Nations and UNICEF’s policies and procedures, and will not be entitled to benefits provided therein (such as leave entitlements and medical insurance coverage). Their conditions of service will be governed by their contract and the General Conditions of Contracts for the Services of Consultants and Individual Contractors. Consultants and individual contractors are responsible for determining their tax liabilities and for the payment of any taxes and/or duties, in accordance with local or other applicable laws.

The selected candidate is solely responsible to ensure that the visa (applicable) and health insurance required to perform the duties of the contract are valid for the entire period of the contract. Selected candidates are subject to confirmation of fully-vaccinated status against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) with a World Health Organization (WHO)-endorsed vaccine, which must be met prior to taking up the assignment. It does not apply to consultants who will work remotely and are not expected to work on or visit UNICEF premises, programme delivery locations or directly interact with communities UNICEF works with, nor to travel to perform functions for UNICEF for the duration of their consultancy contracts.

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Added 1 year ago - Updated 1 year ago - Source: unicef.org