International Consultancy for Budget Cycle Mapping and Social Sectors Financing Analysis, Bissau, 60 Days

Contract

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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.

And we never give up.

Purpose of Activity/Assignment: UNICEF Guinea-Bissau supports the Government of Guinea-Bissau to ensure all children in Guinea-Bissau have equitable access to quality and affordable services to survive, learn, develop, and live in a supportive and protective environment. Inadequate, and sometimes ineffective, inefficient, and inequitable public spending on sectors and programmes supporting children is one of the reasons for multiple and overlapping deprivations amongst children in Guinea-Bissau. For this reason, UNICEF Guinea-Bissau started its work in Public Finance for Children (PF4C) aiming to strengthen evidence building and analysis of trends to identify challenges and opportunities for increasing and improving the quality of public spending on social sectors in a transparent and accountable manner. UNICEF Guinea-Bissau’s PF4C work will link to the SDG Joint Project through “Resilience Building in Guinea-Bissau for the Creation of a Shock-Responsive Social Protection System”. Herein, UNICEF will reinforce broader efforts on shock-responsive social protection by (i) leading diagnostic studies and generate evidence for how a national social protection framework should evolve, including prototyping and testing of possible solutions, (ii) fostering the dialogue with IFIs and partners by creating coordination mechanisms, and (iii) ensuring transparent and effective use of public resources by strengthening PFM, public participation, and fiscal space analyses. The purpose of this assignment will be to conduct a detailed mapping of the PFM process in Guinea Bissau to include mapping the entire budget cycle (including legislation, practices, procedures) and identifying PFM bottlenecks in Guinea-Bissau. Furthermore, the consultant will delve into the specific PFM bottlenecks that disproportionally effect Health, Education, Child Protection, WASH and Social Affairs along with brief synopsis of public expenditure.

Scope of Work: - Mapping out of the PFM process including the national budget cycle (planning and budgeting, approval, execution, audit, and evaluation) taking into consideration legislation, practices, and procedures. - Mapping of the quality of the engagement of sectoral entities and their development partners in the national PFM and budget analysis and investment planning for SDG impact Health, Education, Child Protection, WASH and Social Affairs. - Identify PFM bottlenecks throughout the budget cycle at the national and sectoral level. The consultant will pay particular attention to PFM sub-systems (domestic resource mobilization, procurement, implementation of Programme-Based Budgeting, cash management, procurement, etc.) `that are critical for ensuring service delivery. - Develop a budget cycle calendar to identify key points during the decision-making process potentially open to that citizens, Civil Society Organizations, and other stakeholders throughout the budget process.

Based on the overall PFM mapping, the consultant will delve into the social sectors PFM process line ministries to identify social sector specific PFM bottlenecks Conduct social sector budget analysis covering the last three (3) budget cycles comparing budget allocations and execution to support the identified PFM bottlenecks. Conduct social sector financing and budget allocations analysis covering the last three (3) budget cycles in terms of allocations and budget executions. If possible, to identify fiscal space for the social sectors.

Methodology: - Consultant will conduct the initial inception mission to meet the Ministry of Finance General Directorate of Budget and Fiscal Affairs, other sections and meet with key social sectors line ministries such as Health, Education, Social Affairs, Natural Resources, Ministry of Justice, and other key stakeholders to discuss budget processes and gather relevant documents. - After the initial inception mission, the focus will shift to drafting of the mapping of the PFM process in Guinea Bissau and social sector PFM mapping including budget analysis which then will be submitted for inputs from UNICEF country office sections and key partners. After inputs incorporated the final version will be submitted to UNICEF management for clearance. - Consultant is expected to work remotely after the completion of the initial inception mission.

Financial Proposal: - The financial proposal will include all costs related to this consultancy (travel, consultancy fees, insurance, and Daily Subsistence Allowance - DSA) in USD to complete the assigned ToRs tasks as captured in the scope of work. - Payment of professional fees will be based on the submission of agreed satisfactory deliverables. UNICEF reserves the right to request withholding of payment in case the deliverables submitted are not up to the required standard or in case of delays in submitting the deliverables on the part of the consultant.

Work Assignments Overview: 1. Conduct detailed mapping of the PFM process and social sectors mapping including budget analysis priorities programmes in Health, Education, Child Protection, WASH and Social Affairs.

Deliverables/Outputs: 1. Submit the inception report outlining methodology of the report and key findings of the initial mission to shape the report. Timeline: 16 June 2023

2. Submission of the final document of the PFM budget cycle mapping and social sectors financing analysis. Timeline: 31 July 2023

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…

• An advanced University Degree in Economics, Finance, Business Administration, Public Administration/Policy (with a focus/specialization in economics, and/or finance), Economic governance, or other directly relevant fields with a solid knowledge of PFM instruments and proven experience (at least 5 years) with government social sector budget analysis, at national and decentralized levels *A first University Degree in a relevant field combined with 2 additional years of professional experience may be accepted in lieu of an Advanced University Degree.
• Good analytical and writing skills, and the ability to present the results in a simple language, making use of visual aids; (maps, graphs and other visual tools);
• Experience in conducting budget mapping and analysis of social sectors in Sub-Saharan Africa;
• Excellent command of Portuguese and English, both oral and written;
• Strong communication (oral and written) skills;
• Previous work experience with Governmental Institutions or UN Agencies will be considered a strong asset.

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF's values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, Accountability, and Sustainability (CRITAS).

To view our competency framework, please visit here.

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.

UNICEF GB PFM Consultant ToR TMS.docx