National Individual Contractor for providing a Technical Assistance to the National Child Development Agency to support Integrated Planning, Budgeting and Costing, Kigali-Rwanda, 11.5 months

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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.

For every child, a future

How can you make a difference?

Support the National Child Development Agency (NCDA) to strengthen integrated planning and budgeting functions, conduct budget tracking and reporting, and support costing work for Nutrition, Early Childhood Development (ECD) and Child Rights Promotion and Protection.

Scope of Work

1. Background

The Cabinet meeting of 29/07/2020 has approved the establishment of the National Child Development Agency

(NCDA) with the mission of fostering the development of a child, and the promotion and protection of his or her rights. NCDA was formed from a merger of the former National Commission for Children (NCC) and the National Early Childhood Development Programme (NECDP) which were operating under the oversight of the Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion (MIGEPROF). NCDA has among other responsibilities to (i) coordinate all activities that support early childhood development since the conception, (ii) eliminate malnutrition and stunted growth among young children; and (iii) develop a national partnership and coordination framework aimed at promoting and protecting the child’s rights;

To accelerate the reduction of malnutrition and expand access to Early Childhood Development in Rwanda, the Government of Rwanda has recently undertaken a number of reforms aiming at improving coordination of nutrition interventions and increasing public investments for stunting reduction, ensuring household food security and resilience as well as strengthening nutrition sensitive social protection through the Nutrition Sensitive Direct Support (NSDS) scheme. Many other government agencies are engaged in programming of nutrition interventions in Rwanda, including the Ministry of Health (MoH), Rwanda Biomedical Centre (RBC), the Ministry of Agriculture (MINAGRI), the Ministry of Local Government (MINALOC), Local Administrative Entities Development Agency (LODA) and the decentralized entities including the City of Kigali.

In 2020, the World Bank in collaboration with the Government of Rwanda conducted an expenditure and institutional review of nutrition programmes, which identified the gaps in public expenditure due to lack of clear identification of nutrition interventions across key involved institutions. The study further recommends the need to explicitly specify the nutrition interventions during the planning and budgeting process, ensuring proper tracking and reporting of nutrition spending in order to inform effective and evidence-based decisions.

Under the promotion and protection of children’s rights, the NCDA has been working to consolidate the tremendous successes recorded in childcare reform where Rwanda has now achieved over 90% de-institutionalization, with children now placed and integrated within family-based alternative care. NCDA has scaled up efforts to place children with disabilities with families, moving them from institutional care. To ensure that all children are protected from all forms of violence, abuse, exploitation, neglect, and abandonment, NCDA has embarked on an ambitious program to structure the child protection system in Rwanda. This includes institutional strengthening, stronger linkages with the justice sector, strengthening child protection service provision and child protection workforce planning and development.

A child protection system assessment was initiated in 2020 and is set to be completed by the end of 2021. This will further allow targeted investments in areas identified as requiring further strengthening. Underpinning development of the child protection service provision is the development of a national child protection case management system whose operationalization will largely depend on a strong workforce, both at para-professional and professional levels. These efforts have so far not been well budgeted for and financed by the government, with majority of funding currently coming from development partners.

Successful implementation of the NCDA mandate– and making strides in strengthening financing for ECD, nutrition and child rights promotion and protection – requires stronger multisectoral collaboration, increased capacity in planning and budgeting both at central and local level as well as regular follow-up and engagement of key stakeholders.

2. Justification

The government plans to achieve a prevalence of less than 19 per cent of stunting among children under the age of 5 and to double the number of children accessing ECD services in an integrated manner by 2024. This will require strategic and well-coordinated planning and budgeting, and efficient utilization of the allocated budget.

In July 2021, the Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion finalized guidelines for the preparation of nutrition budget tagging and monitoring which aim to mainstream Nutrition programming across institutional budgets. The Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning has also issued instructions to all Chief Budget Managers across relevant government agencies to ensure the Nutrition budget is properly mainstreamed in their plans and that proper budget tags are assigned.

Demand for child protection services and the increasing role of NCDA in provision of these services at all levels from national to community level has revealed a gap in human, financial and material resource that NCDA shall gradually address.

Institutional reforms along with the requirement for nutrition budget tagging, increased demand for reporting and coordination will require adequate capacities at NCDA level and stronger mechanisms for monitoring of these efforts

It is against the above background that UNICEF and the National Child Development Agency (NCDA) are partnering to provide technical assistance through an individual contractor to support the coordination of integrated Planning, Budgeting and Costing activities in collaboration with the Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion and other key stakeholders including development partners. In that respect, UNICEF seeks to hire an individual contractor who will be based at the National Child Development Agency (NCDA) to strengthen the core functions planning, budgeting, and costing for Nutrition, ECD and Child rights promotion and protection.

3. Summary of key functions/accountabilities

Support planning and budgeting including costing of thematic areas (ECD, Nutrition and Child protection)

• In collaboration with the Planning department of the Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion (MIGEPROF) and the Ministry of Financing and Economic Planning (MINECOFIN), provide technical support and quality assurance services to the social sector plans and ensure that Nutrition, ECD and Child rights promotion and protection activities are comprehensively mainstreamed across key social sectors ministries and decentralized entities (Districts and City of Kigali) and that adequate budgets are allocated. This imply but will not be limited to the following tasks:

• Under the guidance of the Chief Budget Manager of NCDA, prepare a complementary guidance note to support social sector cluster agencies and districts to plan and budget for children,

• Facilitate technical consultations with Social Cluster ministries, agencies, and districts to identify ECD, Nutrition and Child Rights promotion and protection priorities.

• Support the preparation of planning and budget consultations between NCDA/Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion and the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning.

• Identify specific capacity gaps in planning and budgeting for Nutrition, ECD and Child Rights promotion and Protection and suggest the optimal strategy to fill the gap and corrective actions.

• Contribute to policy briefs on integrated budgeting for Nutrition, ECD and Child Rights promotion and protection, in collaboration with NCDA, UNICEF and the World Bank team.
• Provide support in developing a costing and budgeting framework for child protection case management that includes key service provision inputs and workforce planning and development components at central level and at district levels.

Strengthen Nutrition budget tagging and budget tracking

• Support the implementation of Nutrition budget tagging guidelines and budget tracking in collaboration with the NCDA technical team, the planning and budgeting team from Social Sector Cluster ministries, the District Committee on eliminating malnutrition, and other key stakeholders involved in Nutrition and ECD budgeting including World Bank and UNICEF,
• Support NCDA to produce consolidated and periodic reports on Nutrition budget allocations and execution information.

Strengthen NCDA’s capacity to support the delivery of capacity building interventions on Nutrition governance through Result Based Management (RBM) and Public Financial Management (PFM)

• Support NCDA to facilitate capacity building sessions of central government officials and district officials in Result-Based Management (RBM) and Public Financial Management (PFM) in collaboration with the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, the Rwanda Management institute (RMI), the Ministry of Local Government (MINALOC) and UNICEF.
• Support the roll-out of revised guidelines for the District Plans for Elimination of Malnutrition and the support the development of a costing model for integrated budgeting.

Participate in coordination and networking opportunities as relevant

• Work closely with all staff of NCDA and key stakeholders including development partners
• Regularly participate in NCDA and social sector meetings as may be delegated by NCDA Management
• Maintain a good flow of communication and information between NCDA and UNICEF technical staff

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

• The contractor should have at least a Masters’ degree in Economics, Finance, Development Finance, Public Administration or other related areas.
• At least 5 years of proven experience in national development planning or budgeting, public sector engagement, financial analysis or development financing,
• Demonstrable ability in developing strategic plans in the public sector, preferably in social sectors including Nutrition, Early Childhood Development (ECD) or Child Rights promotion and protection
• Capacity to research and synthesize information from a diverse range of stakeholders and resources
• Good knowledge of Local Government financing, fiscal transfers and system thinking,
• Experience with Rwanda’s financing architecture is considered as an asset,
• Fluency and excellent writing skills in English required
• Ability to work under tight deadlines
• Working experience with the UN or other international organizations will be an added advantage

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF's values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, and Accountability (CRITA) and core competencies: Demonstrates Self Awareness and Ethical Awareness, Works Collaboratively with others, Builds and Maintains Partnerships, Innovates and Embraces Change, Thinks and Acts Strategically, Drive to achieve impactful results, Manages ambiguity and complexity.

How to Apply

Interested candidates should send their Technical Proposal and a cover letter explaining what makes them suitable for this consultancy.

Only successful candidates from the technical evaluation exercise will be contacted and requested to submit their most competitive Financial Proposal.

UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages all candidates, irrespective of gender, nationality, religious and ethnic backgrounds, including persons living with disabilities, to apply to become a part of the organization.

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:

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.