Republic of Moldova

National Consultant on monitoring the institutional and functional review of the State Chancellery and Prime Minister’s Office of the Republic of Moldova

Vacancy Number: Pr16/01309

Location:	Chisinau, Moldova
Application Deadline:	29 May 2016, 23:59 (GMT+2:00)
Type of Contract:	Individual Contract
Starting date:	02 Jun 2016
Reference to the project:	Formulation of the National Human Development Report Project
Expected Duration of Assignment:	up to 18 working days, June - August 2016
Supporting Documents: Terms of Reference Individual Consultant Procurement Notice Personal History Form (P11) UNDP General Conditions of Individual Contract

Contacts:

Mr. Alexandru Oprunenco.

alexandru.oprunenco@undp.org

Background

Success of the implementation of the EU-Moldova Accession Agreement and the country’s development priorities as well as Government’s ability to delivery on international commitments, such as SDGs, hinges upon a modernized, competent and accountable public administration. Therefore, the Public Administration Reform, which aims at a qualitative transformation of the entire administrative system both on central and local levels, is an indispensable part of Moldova’s national development and a pre-requisite for meaningful progress in achievement of many country’s sector priorities.

In this context, the role of the State Chancellery, being the leading coordinator of these reforms, is hard to underestimate. The Chancellery needs a clear and up-to-date structure and revised procedures of coordination/communication, flow of documents and decisions, both on outside and inside, in order to be able to promote and coordinate such complex strategies such as Public Administrative Reform or 2030 development agenda.

Since the State Chancellery is the main institution responsible for PAR, policy and aid coordination, it is crucial to eliminate the issues aforementioned. Currently, the greatest challenge is the absence of a clear strategy for the way forward in the upcoming years. The next stage of public administration reform (PAR) needs to have a more holistic and comprehensive approach which should not focus exclusively on the internal functioning of the bureaucracy, but be more citizen-oriented. The new approach should also take into account and resonate with the developments across sectors.

Furthermore, the EU integration agenda requires from the Government additional efficiency and better coordination in carrying out its functions and responsibilities. Indeed, the 2015 Joint Staff Working Document mentions “Providing better public services by deepening and strategically steering the reform of public administration and implementing the decentralization strategy in an inclusive manner” as one of the priorities for the Government of Moldova along with elaborating clear strategy for public administration reform and professionalizing the central public administration among others.

In addition, many of the State Chancellery’s coordinating roles strongly correlate with the ones of the Prime-Minister Office from the perspective of supporting Prime-Minister as head of the Government in implementation of the key reform priorities. At the same time, the structure of the State Chancellery has significantly evolved and as such now includes various bodies such as Bureau for Diaspora Relation, subordinated entities, such as the E-Government Center, and supporting projects, as MiLab (Moldova Innovation Lab) and others. Therefore, for the review to have a comprehensive impact it would need to look into these aspects so that synergies and economies of scale are achieved through optimum institutional set-up that extends beyond State Chancellery in stricto sensu, and includes Prime-Minister Office and subordinated institutions.

There is particular awareness in both the Prime-Minister Office and the State Chancellery level about the need to reassess the institutional set-up, staff capacity, structure divisions effectively, and, in addition, modernize the support systems in the State Chancellery since the work of the Government greatly depends on it.

To support these efforts, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Moldova, through its project “Policy Analysis/NHDR”, in collaboration with UN Women, has contracted a team of international experts to perform the institutional and functional analysis of the State Chancellery and of the Prime Minister Office of the Republic of Moldova in the context of broader governmental set-up and Public Administration Reform, in line with the best international standards and methodological tools.

In this context, UNDP and UN Women are seeking to contract a national consultant with proven experience in public administration reform to support and complement UNDP and UN Women Country Office capacity in public administration by peer-reviewing and monitoring the overall progress of the study.

Scope of work

The national consultant is expected to support the UNDP and UN Women Country Offices (CO) by providing substantive support, monitoring, and peer-review in the process of carrying out the institutional and functional review of the State Chancellery and the Prime Minister’s Office of the Republic of Moldova.

 In order to achieve the objectives, the Consultant will have the following responsibilities:

 Support the UNDP and UN Women CO in identifying critical issues in the analysis process, and proactively propose solutions;

1. Provide support in monitoring the implementation of the institutional and functional analysis to assure that the process corresponds to the best practices;
2. Peer-review the intermediary and final outputs of the international consultants team, providing suggestions for improvement, if necessary;
3. Carry out a concise evaluation at the end of the institutional and functional analysis, producing a final evaluation report and lessons learnt for the future UNDP and UN Women work in the area.

Requirements for experience

Academic qualifications

• Master degree or equivalent (5 year university degree) in social and / or political sciences, public and / or business administration, law, management, economics, or related discipline.

 Work experience

• At least 5 years of relevant professional experience in the field of public administration and knowledge of public administration reform principles;
• At least 5 years of professional experience in policy development and/or carrying out strategic analysis like institutional needs assessment, functional review, sectoral analysis and capacity development;
• At least 3 years of experience with public performance and change Knowledge and experience on human rights and gender sensitive approach to public performance and change management is considered to be an asset;
• Work on multi-donor projects or on coordination platforms is considered to be an asset;
• Experience in working with UN or other donors is considered to be an asset;

 Competencies

• In-depth knowledge of the national legislation and regulations with regard to public administration;
• In-depth knowledge on public administration reform and SIGMA principles, UN Programming principles;
• Strong analytical skills;
• Ability to communicate effectively and facilitate meetings;
• Fluency in Romanian and English. Knowledge of Russian will be an asset.
• Proven commitment to the core values of the United Nations, in particular, respecting differences in culture, gender, religion, ethnicity, nationality, language, age, HIV status, disability, and sexual orientation, or other status.

Documents to be included

Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:

1. Proposal: explaining why they are the most suitable for the work including past experience in similar projects;
2. Financial proposal (LUMP SUM) in USD, specifying in a total requested amount per day, number of days needed to complete the assignment, including all related costs, travel, phone calls etc. );
3. Personal CV, containing at at least three references.

Financial proposal

The financial proposal shall specify a total lump sum amount, and payment terms around specific and measurable (qualitative and quantitative) deliverables (i.e. whether payments fall in installments or upon completion of the entire contract). Payments are based upon output, i.e. upon delivery of the services specified in the TOR. In order to assist the requesting unit in the comparison of financial proposals, the financial proposal will include a breakdown of this lump sum amount (including travel, per diems, and number of anticipated working days).

Travel

All envisaged travel costs must be included in the financial proposal. This includes all travel to join duty station/repatriation travel. In general, UNDP should not accept travel costs exceeding those of an economy class ticket. Should the IC wish to travel on a higher class he/she should do so using their own resources.

In case of unforeseeable travel for the business purpose, payment of travel costs including tickets, lodging and terminal expenses should be agreed upon, between the respective business unit and Individual Consultant, prior to travel and will be reimbursed.

 

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