Republic of Moldova

National Consultant on Financial Decentralization

Vacancy Number: Pr14/00528

Location:	Chisinau, Moldova
Application Deadline:	15 May 2014, 23:59 (GMT+2:00)
Application Extended deadline:	20 May 2014, 23:59 (GMT+2:00)
Type of Contract:	Individual Contract
Starting date:	01 Jun 2014
Reference to the project:	Joint Integrated Local Development Programme
Expected Duration of Assignment:	Estimated workload up to 90 days during 10 months.
Submission Instructions: Proposals should be submitted on-line by pressing “Apply on-line” link, no later than 15 May  2014. Requests for clarification only must be sent by standard electronic communication to the following e-mail: olesea.cazacu@undp.org. UNDP will respond by standard electronic mail and will send written copies of the response, including an explanation of the query without identifying the source of inquiry, to all applicants. Important notice The applicant who has the statute of Government Official / Public Servant, prior to appointment will be asked to submit the following documentation:  a no-objection letter in respect of the applicant received from the government, and; the applicant is certified in writing by the government to be on official leave without pay for the duration of the Individual Contract.  A retired government official is not considered in this case a government official, and as such, may be contracted. The above requirements are also applicable to Government-owned and controlled enterprises, other semi/partially or fully owned Government entities (including but not limited to research institutions, state-owned colleges/universities, etc.).
Supporting Documents: Terms of Reference Individual Consultant Procurement Notice Personal History Form (P11) UNDP General Conditions of Individual Contract

Background

The Government of Moldova explicitly acknowledges that decentralization represents an essential item on the reform agenda of the country. The goal is to provide quality services to women and men equitably - including the rights of persons from vulnerable groups - through building autonomous and democratic local governments, able to manage efficiently their responsibilities. Thus, on April 5, 2012 the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova adopted the National Decentralization Strategy that represents the main policy document in the field of local public administration and establishes the national mechanisms to ensure genuine local autonomy.

Prior to Strategy’s approval, the Government has benefited from the support provided by the Joint Integrated Local Development Programme/JILDP implemented by UNDP and UN Women and funded by the Government of Sweden and UNDP. Given the stringent need to further advance with the implementation of the Decentralization Strategy, and building on the successful cooperation with the Joint Integrated Local Development Programme, the State Chancellery together with United Nations have designed a new Programme phase to support the implementation of the Decentralization Strategy at policy and local levels.

The Overall Objective of the Programme is to support better and equitable service provision and sustainable local development, facilitated by the improved legal and institutional framework resulting from the implementation of the National Decentralization Strategy. The Immediate Objectives of the Programme are:

-  To support the Government in improving the policy and legal framework as mandated by the National Decentralization Strategy to ensure local autonomy, availability of resources, and more effective local management for better and equitable service provision.

-  To improve the capacity of Local Public Authorities/LPAs to deliver efficient, equitable and accessible local public services, to facilitate sustainable development and foster social inclusion.

The interventions at the local level (20 target communities) will aim at developing models of operational local governments - ‘champions of change’ - by providing support to implement changes in the operation and structure of local governments in line with the changes brought by the Decentralization strategy.

Based on JILDP supported analysis and simulations, a new system of local government finances will be introduced nationally from 2015, while three raions and theCapitalCitywill pilot test the system during 2014. During August-October 2013 more than 1200 local officials were informed and trained about how to determine their revenues and plan their budgets under the provisions of the revised law.

JILDP intends to extend its support to the local governments in the four pilot raions defined by the amended Law on Local Public Finance: Chisinau, Ocnita, Riscani, Basarabeasca. JILDP will assist LPAs in improving their capacity and operations, will support target communities and their local authorities to provide quality public services to achieve sustainable economic and social development, in the main areas affected by the Decentralization strategy.

The objective of the programme is to strengthen LPAs through training and consultancy to implement successfully the provisions of the new local public finance law, while improving their local financial management, their core administration and finally the services for their citizens.

Scope of work

The JILDP/UNDP seeks a national consultant on Financial Decentralization (hereinafter national consultant) to  provide substantive expert consultancy and policy feed-back to the process of implementation of the new Local Public Finance Law and to support its successful implementation in 71 pilot local governments.

For detailed information, please refer to Annex 1 – Terms of Reference.

Requirements for experience

 I.  Qualifications:

• Master degree in Finance, Public Policy, Local Public Administration, Economics or other relevant fields;

II.  Experience:

• Professional working experience (at least 5 years), with substantial recent work experience in the field of public finances;
• Proven experience in  local public administration, in developing and delivering training programs for LPAs;
• Proven experience in developing analytical reports on decentralization, local governance, public finances;
• Previous experience in development assistance or related work for a donor organization, consulting company, or NGO. 
• Previous experience in working with UN agencies or international organizations is an asset.

 III. Competencies:

• Demonstrated   capacity   of   team-orientation   work, excellent   planning   and organizational skills;
• Strong, research, communications and writing skills;
• Fluency in Romanian and  Russian, English (will be considered an advantage);
• Ability to achieve results and deadlines in a timely manner, maintaining a high standard throughout.
• Sensitivity and respect for human rights and gender equality;

 

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;

2. Financial proposal;

3. Personal CV including past experience in similar projects and at least 3 references, or dully filled Personal History Form P11

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 (fee per day * days) of this lump sum amount (including fee, taxes, 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 the case of unforeseeable travel, 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.

 

Disclaimer In case of discrepancies between the text published on the website and the contents of the supporting documents, the provisions, instructions and conditions included in the supporting documents (published as Adobe Portable Document Format files) shall prevail. In case of discrepancies between the English version and the Romanian and/or Russian versions of text, documents or other content published on this webpage, the English version shall prevail.

Notice UNDP, as a matter of practice, does not charge any application, processing or training fee at any stage of the recruitment process. If you have any questions as to vacancy announcements you may have received, please refer to this website. UNDP is currently aware of fictitious vacancy announcements that are being circulated through the internet, the purpose of which is to get people to register for a training and send in a fee. If you believe that you have received such a notice, please forward it, and any other related information you have received, to scamalert@undp.org. Since logos, emblems, names and addresses can be easily copied or reproduced, you are advised to take particular care in applying for vacancies, including undertaking all appropriate measures to protect against the unauthorised use of any personal information you may have provided as a result of the scam.