Background
The Albanian statistical system has made significant progress over the last few years and that Albania is approaching compliance with the European acquis communautaire on statistics in some areas. At the same time, INSTAT (and other statistics producers as well) are confronted with an increasing number of new requirements, both from national and international stakeholders, and the system needs systematic and planned development in a number of areas, especially if Albania should become an EU candidate country.
With request of INSTAT, The Adapted Global Assessment (AGA) of the national system of official statistics of Albania was undertaken to evaluate the level of conformity vis-à-vis European standards, incorporating the UN Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics, the European Statistics Code of Practice, as well as the EUROSTAT Statistical Requirements Compendium, in 2010.
This report assessed that the “Law on Official Statistics” is already in its present version a solid legal basis for the production of official statistics in a country on the way to a modern democratic information society and market economy. It is broadly in correspondence with the Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics of the United Nations and the corresponding part of the European Statistics Code of Practice. The law includes provisions for all essentials of a statistical law, and is applicable for the production of all official statistics in Albania. Nevertheless, some amendments and clarifications were suggested to be considered in the already planned of revision of the “Law on Official Statistics”.
The national law on statistics ensures that a multi-annual statistical programme will be drawn up. The role of such a programme is to describe the scope of statistical activities during the next 4 or 5 years, setting clear priorities as to what is to be done. In the context of preparing the forthcoming Programme of Official Statistics 2012 – 2016, INSTAT has planned to review the Law of Official Statistics.
In this regard, UN Women and UNFPA Albania, in partnership with INSTAT will contract an international expert to provide technical support to INSTAT for reviewing the Law of Official Statistics.
Duties and Responsibilities
The purpose of the International Consultancy services is to support INSTAT Reviewing the Law of Official Statistics.
Specific background information for the assignment:
UN Women and UNFPA is seeking the services of the international consultant to accomplish the following tasks:
- Undertake a desk review through thorough analysis of the background and reference materials as follows:
- National and International/global assessment of the national statistics law with particular focus in the report of Adapted Global Assessment of the National Statistical System of Albania;
- Legislation related to the statistics;
- The report on the performance of the multiannual programme (if available).
- Carry out extensive consultation with relevant counterparts and stakeholders to review statistics law with the aim of identifying other problems related to Statistical Law frame in Albania, which are not mentioned in AGA and/or Analytical EU Report;
- Ensuring that the law on statistics provides wide scope of statistical activities with clear priorities on demographic and social statistics, including gender equality ones;
- Provide recommendation hence of all statistical agencies guidelines on professional standards in the production of official Demography and Social statistics (if available).
- Provide recommendations that ensure gender sensitive revision o the law on statistics;
- Structuring the needed draft-amendments in the law on statistics, which will assure the fulfilment of EU recommendations;
- Providing acquis needed to be adopted by statistic’s law amendments, and the level of concordance;
- Providing a list of laws, bylaws or other documents needed to be approved during the next five-year, in order to adapt the acquis.
Presenting the amendments proposed to the Council of Statistics, line ministries and/or other institutions involved.
Objective of the assignment:
Under the guidance of UN Women Policy Specialist, GRB and Statistics and UNFPA Programme Analyst, the international experts should support the INSTAT for the preparation of Draft-amendments of the Law no.9180, dated 5.2.2004 “On official statistics” with the justification report on this proposal and the table of concordance with acquis fulfilled.
B. Scope of Work and Deliverables
Main outputs of the assignment:
- Draft-amendments of the Law no.9180, dated 5.2.2004 “On official statistics” with the justification report on this proposal.
- Table of concordance with acquis fulfilled;
B1: Deliverables
List of deliverables and timeline:
The deliverables for this assignment include, but are not limited to the following:
Deliverable 1: Work plan to be submitted within two days of the contract signature.
Deliverable 2: Draft-amendments of the Law no.9180, dated 5.2.2004 “On official statistics” and table of concordance with acquis fulfilled to be submitted for comments/feedback by April 30th, 2012.
Deliverable 3: The Final Draft-amendments of the Law no.9180, dated 5.2.2004 “On official statistics” with the justification report on this proposal and the table of concordance with acquis fulfilled to be completed by May 10th, 2012.
Deliverable 4: A final report highlighting the consultant’s work, outputs, achievements, and lessons learned including recommendations for future similar interventions to be completed by May 15th, 2012.
B2: Methodological Requirement
The methodology of implementing the activity will be strongly based on an ongoing participatory process and, in so doing, to strengthening local capacities.
The language will be English.
B3. Expected support to the International consultant
The national partner- INSTAT will be supporting the f consultants by:
- Providing the list of available materials, regulatory documents available, results of previous work, which relate to the statistics legislation;
- Offering guidelines on the legal and institutional framework of the partner institutions thus ensuring that the Statistics Law conforms with the national priorities;
- Providing working place for the consultants during their mission at INSTAT if required.
- Provide inputs to the draft documents prepared by the International consultant.
Competencies
- Demonstrated experience in the area of legal procedure and analysis;
- Demonstrated expertise on EU law and policies;
- In-depth knowledge and understanding of the Albanian and European Statistical Systems;
- Demonstrated work experience, including previous substantial involvement (undertaking or participation) in law reviews preferable in the area/s relevant to the present assignment would be an asset;
- Working experience with senior officials within government, development partners and nongovernment organizations;
- Knowledge of the EU SSA processes and approximation of national legislation to acquis communautaire;
- Experience in working with EU organizations & UN agencies will be an asset.
Required Skills and Experience
Academic Qualifications: Years of experience:
- 8 to 10 years of working experience in the field of law and/or other areas of jurisprudence
Documents to be included when submitting the proposals:
1. Proposal explaining why they are the most suitable for the work (to be pasted under Resume and Motivation section of the online application)
3.
Financial proposal – lump sum (please fill in the applicable section of the online application).
Lump sum contracts
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 instalments 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 and per diems are not applicable for this consultancy (home-based).
Evaluation
UN Women applies a fair and transparent selection process. Applicants will be evaluated based on a cumulative analysis method taking into consideration the combination of the applicant’s qualifications/skills and their financial proposals.
The award of the contract will be made to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:
a) responsive/compliant/acceptable, and
b) having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria specific to the solicitation.
* Technical Criteria weight – 70%
* Financial Criteria weight – 30%
Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 49 points in the technical evaluation will be considered for the Financial Evaluation
| Criteria | Weight | Max. Point |
| Technical | 70% | 70 |
| · Education | 10% | 10 |
| · Experience in the area of legal procedure, analysis, and EU law and policies | 20% | 20 |
| · Knowledge and understanding of the Albanian and European Statistical Systems and of the EU SSA processes and approximation of national legislation to acquis communautaire | 20% | 20 |
- Experience in law reviews preferable in the area/s relevant to the present assignment, and experience with senior officials within government, development partners and nongovernment organizations
| 20% | 20 |
| Financial | 30% | 30 |
