Local Consultancy to Develop a Social and Child Protection Budget Brief Tender, Armenia - 26196689

Procurement Summary

Country : Armenia

Summary : Local Consultancy to Develop a Social and Child Protection Budget Brief

Deadline : 10 Sep 2018

Other Information

Notice Type : Tender

TOT Ref.No.: 26196689

Document Ref. No. :

Competition : NCB

Financier : United Nations Secretariat

Purchaser Ownership : -

Tender Value : Refer Document

Purchaser's Detail

Purchaser : UNITED NATIONS CHILDREN'S FUND
UN Building 14, Petros Adamyan Street Yerevan 0010 Tel: +374-52 35 46 / 58 01 74 / 58 05 16 / 56 64 97 Fax: 54 3810
Armenia
Email :yerevan@unicef.org
URL :http://www.unicef.org/

Tender Details

Tenders are invited for Local Consultancy to Develop a Social and Child Protection Budget Brief.

1.Program information:

UNICEF is mandated by the United Nations General Assembly to advocate for the protection of children's rights, to help meet their basic needs and to expand their opportunities to reach their full potential. The UNICEF staff and experts/consultants should act in accordance with the UN Code of Conduct and UNICEF Mission.

2.Background and Context:

Guaranteeing the rights of children is not only a legal and moral responsibility; it also has implications for economic and social policies and, consequently, for the allocation of a country-s financial resources. Prioritizing the rights of all children, for today and for future generations, calls for adequate resources devoted to implementing relevant legislation and for ensuring the functionality and capacity of institutions that work to fulfil these rights. Fulfilling obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) has clear financial implications. While the need to extend care, assistance and protection to children is enshrined in national laws and international agreements, the process of translating these commitments into strong programmes with corresponding budgets so that children may enjoy their rights can be difficult in settings with severe resource constraints. Making the case for children is also important because children usually do not have a voice in policy and budgeting processes. The decisions governments make about how to fund social policies and services are critical to children and to equitable development overall. Many of the obstacles to improving child outcomes, including child poverty reduction, can be directly traced to public financial management (PFM) challenges.

As part of the efforts of Governments to strengthen the accountability toward their commitments to children, there has been an increasing demand for initiatives aiming to assess spending for children, raising the visibility of child-specific issues in public budgeting and improving financial accountability. This commitment has been re-emphasized in the General Comment No. 19 (2016) to CRC on public budgeting for the realization of children-s rights (art. 4).

The Government of the Republic of Armenia has continuously undertaken various public sector reforms including those of decentralization and consolidation/clustering of communities, as well as public finance management, primarily transition into programme-based budgeting as of 2019. Thus, a substantial progress has been made in public finance management in recent years. However, despite these changes, there are insufficient and declining allocations from the state budget for social sectors, primarily education and health, as well as projected decline for social protection - key areas of direct concern to children. There were also key recommendations in this regard in the 2013 CRC Concluding Observations for Armenia, which have not been implemented as per the latest HRDO report and budget analysis.

At the same time, around one third of children in Armenia continue to live in poverty, and recent data from 2017 (34.2% child poverty rate, 2% extreme child poverty rate) are showing that there was no reduction to the level of 2008, when these levels were the lowest. Geographical disparities are high, with every second child (50.9%) in Shirak region living in poverty. Child poverty rates substantially vary depending on the number of children in the household, the age group of the youngest child, as well as on the characteristics of the household head such as gender, educational level and employment status. Poverty is also multi-dimensional. According to a multi-dimensional child poverty analysis conducted in Armenia (N-MODA) in 2016, almost one in three children are both poor and deprived (25.2%). Every second child is multi-dimensionally poor/deprived (57.4%), particularly in utilities, social interactions and leisure. One-third of children in Armenia are deprived but not poor (32.2%).

Social protection plays a vital role in strengthening the resilience of children, families and communities, achieving greater equity, and supporting national human and economic development. The largest program in the field of monetary social assistance to vulnerable and poor families is the family benefit (FB) programme. There are also other social protection schemes, such as pensions, child grants and allowances. While the cash benefit system is viewed as a support mechanism for the most vulnerable and the poorest layer of the population in terms of poverty reduction, it is often regarded as a burden to the state and not viewed as an investment in the development of human capital, due to poor targeting or inadequate size of benefits.

Monetary assistance programmes are not the only interventions needed by the poor, especially those deprived. Social support and care services are an important component of social protection and the sustainable development agenda of “leaving no one behind”, and in particular SDG 1 and related targets. While Armenia is pursuing the reform of integrated social services, challenges remain in systemic capacity development and quality of case management/social work, availability and quality of community-based services, financing of community social projects, as well as professional cooperation among social service providers in addressing the multiple vulnerabilities of families and children. These challenges are often tied to the financing of the social protection sector and how allocations are made.

Poverty is also often a cause for institutionalization of children. Armenia has undertaken a comprehensive child care reform on transformation of state-run institutions into family and child support centres and other alternative care services (expansion of foster care, kinship care, adoption etc.). The process is also coupled with transformation of special schools into psychological-pedagogical support centres. Two Ministries are in charge of the reforms - Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs and Ministry of Education and Science, which creates management issues, coordination, as well as sustainable, efficient and equitable financing.

The transition of the State budget in 2019 to full programme-based budgeting needs an analysis of specific allocations to social and child protection in line with the ongoing reforms, for more informed policy-making and advocacy for greater investment in achieving specific outcomes for children.

The Annual work plan for 2018 between the Government of Armenia and UNICEF for the first time specifically included an activity on strengthening the equity, efficiency and effectiveness of public spending on children, thus showcasing interest in cooperating in this area. The recently conducted Child-focused public expenditure measurement analysis, costing and cost-benefit analysis of preschool education services and alternative care services as a result of the child care reform are some of the products developed by UNICEF in partnership with national counterparts. Such activities are also in line with UNICEF-s Global Framework for Public Finance for Children.

3. Purpose and Objective

The purpose of this assignment is to conduct a budget analysis of the size and composition of budget

allocations for 2018-2019 for social and child protection, in line with ongoing reforms, as well as offer insights into the efficiency, effectiveness, equity and adequacy of past and future spending.

Specific objectives:

1. Analyze and monitor budget allocations to social and child protection, with focus on areas of direct concern to children, in the current and next fiscal year;

2. Assess the efficiency, effectiveness, equity and adequacy of past spending to the extent possible, showing trend data (3-5 years);

3. Inform advocacy, through key messages for policy and financing changes, especially in the context of ongoing social protection and child care reforms and programme budget submissions;

4. Increase knowledge of key stakeholders on budget issues that are linked to social and child protection results.

4. Duty station: Yerevan, Armenia

5.Supervisor:

The contractor/s will be supervised and report to the UNICEF Social Protection Officer with regular de-briefing with UNICEF Deputy Representative and child protection and education Sections.

The contractor/s will work on a daily basis with UNICEF Social Protection team through e-mail correspondence, phone, face-to-face briefings and consultations, as well as provide support whenever needed. The contractor/s will also have regular meetings with the UNICEF team to ensure deliverables' adherence to UNICEF Budget brief development guidelines.

6. Major tasks to be accomplished

· Prepare a rapid budget analysis for 2019, summarizing allocations to key social and child protection reforms;

· Develop an impact strategy for the budget brief together with UNICEF, which includes: (i) partners, (ii) roles, responsibilities and timeline, (iii) expected results, (iv) target audience and (v) actions.

· Review of budget policies and public finance statistics through available tools (e.g. Budget Law(s) and execution reports, MTEF, national statistics, World Bank Boost database etc.)

· Review of respective national and sectoral strategies and policies, with a focus on areas of direct concern to children, in social and child protection;

· Meetings and discussions with relevant line ministry's officials, as well as Ministry of Finance, to identify sector specific financial data,

· Analysis of data and preparation of the Social and Child Protection budget brief as per UNICEF-s guidelines.

· Revision and validation of the draft budget brief with key national and international stakeholders,

· Finalization and presentation of the budget brief, including advocacy in li

Documents

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