Social Protection Consultant (Public Expenditure Review)

Contract

This is a Consultancy contract. More about Consultancy contracts.

UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages all candidates, irrespective of nationality, religious and ethnic backgrounds, gender identity and sexual orientation, as well as persons living with disabilities, to apply to become a part of the organization. UNICEF’s office is accessible to a certain extent, and employees are entitled to reasonable accommodations that are needed for ensuring equitable working conditions.

The World Bank (WB) and UNICEF are conducting a Public Expenditure Review (PER) in the Human Development Sectors: education, health and social assistance. The objective of this PER is to identify opportunities for enhancing the efficiency, quality and equity of spending in health, education and social protection over the medium term. In this regard, a series of thematic notes will be produced, and a joint summary note will be published. To some extent, this work will be a continuation of previous reports done by the UNICEF and the World Bank (WB).

The Social Protection Thematic Notes will, among other areas, focus on:

• Value-for-money analysis of social services (focusing on deinstitutionalization), with the objective of comparing the overall costs of residential institutions, foster care and programs of additional support to families with existing evidence and projections on their outcomes;
• Social welfare system expenditure analysis (focusing on Centres for Social Welfare).

Work Assignment Overview:

The Social Protection Consultant will be responsible for drafting the Social Protection Thematic Notes (each approximately 10-15 pages length) through desk review, microsimulations, etc., based on data that will be provided to the consultant from administrative and survey sources, focusing on the following areas:

• Thematic Note on Value-for-Money Analysis of Social Services (with a focus on deinstitutionalization);
• Thematic Note on public expenditure analysis of centres for social welfare.

Duration of the assignment: March – April 2021 (up to 20 workdays)

Detailed task description:

Thematic Note on Value-for-Money Analysis of Social Services (with a focus on deinstitutionalization):

• Summarize the current normative framework related to alternative care arrangements;
• Summarize the current state of affairs related to provision of alternative care arrangements (describing the number of institutions, beneficiaries, etc., with a particular focus on children) along with the main recent historic trends;
• Analyse and summarize the complete costs of several alternative programs related to family separation (residential care, fostering, additional support to families) based on administrative data;
• Address any comments that may arise by the Ministry of Labour, Employment, Veteran and Social Affairs (MoLEVSA), UNICEF and the WB team.

Thematic Note on public expenditure analysis of centres for social welfare:

• Summarise the current normative framework and analyse trends related to the functioning and organization of the social welfare system provided through the network of Centres for Social Welfare, based on administrative data;
• Analyse and summarize public expenditure (both national and local) incurred through the functioning of Centres for Social Welfare from the viewpoint of overall efficiency, as well as through support services provided by other local institutions (national data and local self-government final accounts from 30 municipalities will be provided to the consultant, while the consultant will be expected to collect specific budget expenditures of Centres for Social Welfare, where available, in the same 30 municipalities, or to accompany the analysis with budget expenditures of Centres for Social Welfare in additional municipalities, for which data are available); depending on the availability of the data, the analysis should include a longitudinal perspective as well;
• Provide recommendations and the cost implications of ensuring the adequacy of the social welfare system against the number of beneficiaries, the number and types of services provided, along with identified unmet needs or development scenarios;
• Address any comments that may arise by the MoLEVSA, UNICEF and the WB team.

Knowledge/Expertise/Skills required:

• University degree in Economics or Social Sciences;
• At least 3 years of relevant professional experience in the area of budget analysis, including assessments of social and poverty trends;
• Excellent knowledge of the Serbian budget system and familiarity with the social welfare system, including social assistance benefits, social services and the social welfare workforce;
• Familiarity with statistical analysis, microsimulations, etc.
• Demonstrated experience in producing technical and/or policy documents;
• Excellent written and oral communications skills in English and Serbian;
• Proven teamwork abilities;
• Proven ability to produce results within tight deadlines.

How to apply:

The application must include a financial proposal in RSD as a separate document, providing the following information:

1. Daily rate (all costs included e.g. health insurance, pension, usage of mobile phone).

Important notes:

Incomplete applications will not be taken into consideration.

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

For every child, you must demonstrate UNICEF's core values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust and Accountability.

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, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks, and will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles.