UNDP Jobs - 62063- National Consultant – Mainstreaming the SDGs in th

National Consultant – Mainstreaming the SDGs in the Budget Process

Location :

Manila, PHILIPPINES

Type of Contract :

Individual Contract

Starting Date :

Application Deadline :

21-Dec-15 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

National Consultant

Duration of Initial Contract :

1.5 months

Languages Required :

English

Expected Duration of Assignment :

UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence. UNDP does not tolerate sexual exploitation and abuse, any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment, and discrimination. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks.

Background

The Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have been adopted by UN member states in September 2015, and calls to transform our world by 2030 by:

Eradicating extreme poverty and hunger;
Leaving no one behind, and significantly reduce inequalities;
Putting sustainable development at the core of global, national and local policies, and accelerate the shift to low-carbon, climate-resilient development pathways;
Building a renewed global partnership for sustainable development, based on multi-stakeholder partnerships that can leverage needed capacities and resources and achieve impact at scale; and
Accelerating a data revolution and improving capacity to measure sustainable development.

The SDGs build on the momentum of the MDGs and will be applied universally - not just for developing countries. They are a much more comprehensive set of goals (17) and targets (169) with a higher level of ambition than the MDGs. Several issues that were not part of the MDG framework will be taken up by the SDGs, such as urbanization, resilience, inequality, and governance. While the Philippines has made significant progress against the MDGs, gaps still remain. The approach to SDGs implementation should therefore no longer be business as usual.

Following the UN Development Group’s guidance on UN support for SDGs implementation, UNDP will roll out a package of tools and services to support the localization and achievement of the SDG agenda at the national and sub-national levels.

This package of support is the MAPS initiative (mainstreaming, acceleration, and policy support):

Mainstreaming:

Landing the SDG agenda at the national and local levels, such as through integration into national and sub-national plans for development and into budget allocations;

Acceleration:

Focus will be on identifying priority areas in respective countries along with support for accelerating progress. Specific support activities likely to be included are bottlenecks assessment, financing and partnerships, and measurement; and

Policy Support:

Pooling together the skills, knowledge and experience of respective UN agencies to support policy formulation and implementation.

UNDP has significant experience in sustainable development, supporting countries in their implementation of the MDGs, mainstreaming into planning and budgeting processes and in supporting inter-ministerial and multi-stakeholder approaches. By providing services that help to integrate the three strands of sustainable development and recognize their interlinkages; and to identify critical means of implementation, UNDP can help and strengthen the role of the budget in implementing and accounting for progress on the SDGs.

UNDP has been working with relevant Departments and other stakeholders to mainstream sustainable development in the budget process. For example, UNDP has supported Climate Change, Biodiversity and Environment-related Public Expenditure and Institutional Reviews in over 30 countries. UNDP is also supporting specific reforms within the budget process to enable sustainable development to be integrated into budget formulation (through adaptations to investment prioritisation tools such as cost benefits analysis); budget tracking (through systems reform that allows for climate budget marking for example) and performance monitoring (through inclusion of climate change in key performance indicators). In the Philippines, the Government has already implemented a Climate Public Expenditure Review (CPEIR) and established climate budget marking with support of the World Bank and is implementing a biodiversity public expenditure and institutional review with UNDP support.

In recent years, the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) and the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) have jointly and separately conducted reform initiatives to build on previous planning and budgeting initiatives (i.e., MTEF, OPIF, SEER processes) and existing processes (Philippine Development Plan formulation, Public Investment Plan updating, National Budget Circular issuances).

The Medium-Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) introduces a longer time horizon for expenditure management in accordance with the development framework of the PDP and the priority investments in the Public Investment Plan (PIP).

It has two components:

The Organizational Performance Indicators Framework (OPIF), which introduces performance accountability, has the following objectives: i) enhance aggregate fiscal discipline; ii) improve allocative efficiency; and iii) promote technical and operational efficiency at the agency level. There are five strategies by which OPIF is defined, namely: a shift to output results measured by performance indicators; clarification of expected performance and accountability; encouraging government agencies in focusing on the delivery of relevant outputs; creation of an integrated performance management system; and reporting the outputs of government agencies;
The Sector Effectiveness and Efficiency Review (SEER), introduced in 2004 to assess ongoing programs and projects in terms of relevance, performance, and cost–benefit ratio. SEER, a process undertaken jointly by the DBM and NEDA, was intended to be a system for establishing and updating strategic priorities over the medium-term and for facilitating the redirection of resources toward more strategic programs and projects.

Results-based budgeting was initiated by the DBM in 2011, with the review of major final outputs (MFOs), performance indicators (PIs) and programs, activities and projects (PAPs) to ensure that all MFOs are consistent with the agencies' mandates. The initiative to improve the link between the planning and budgeting process were sustained in 2012 with NEDA and DBM ensuring coherence between the national targets/priorities (as reflected in the PDP-Results Matrices) and agency deliverables (MFOs), so that budgeting for the latter is anchored on the PDP-Results Matrices objectives and targets. Towards making the development budget-more comprehensible, transparent, and accountable, the performance-informed budget (PIB) was adopted for the FY 2014 General Appropriations Act (GAA) showcasing both financial and non-financial performance information on each agency. A shift to the outcome-based PIB has been made in the FY 2015 Budget which would entail the development and enhancement of the organizational outcomes of the Agencies, and the crafting of the associated performance indicators and targets. The organizational outcomes (OOs) will link with the sectoral outcomes the societal goals in the PDP-RM, strengthening further the link between planning and budgeting. Recently, the DBM has introduced, in several pilot agencies, a Performance Results and Expenditure Classification System.

Building on the experience of implementing the MDGs, UNDP Philippines will continue to support the Philippine Government in mainstreaming and localizing the SDGs at national and sub-national levels. Lessons from MDGs implementation will be taken into account: ensuring commitment across all stakeholders; the implementation plan should include a financing plan; clear assignment of responsibilities with the governance structure and appropriate data monitoring system to support the accountability mechanism.

UNDP Philippines has a particular role to play in ensuring that the response to sustainable development is an integrated and system-wide response. The Agenda 2030 clearly articulates the need for social, environmental and economic objectives to be pursued in an integrated manner: the planning and budgeting process presents a key instrument for realising this integration. In its statement during the UN World Summit on Sustainable Development, the Philippine Government recognizes that “to move forward and achieve the overarching goal of eradicating poverty, it now has to develop its national plans and budgets for SDGs implementation and monitoring, in collaboration with civil society and all stakeholders in line with the principle of inclusiveness and accountability”.

Timing is very critical. Government will soon start the process of formulating the new Philippine Development Plan, such that a preliminary draft is available when the new President takes office in July 2016. Strategies that build on previous MDG-based tools and offerings, and an appropriate and fresh/innovative mix of mainstreaming, advocacy and policy support tools from UNDP Global Centers, among others, will also be included.

http://bit.ly/1QtmMMn

http://bit.ly/1P0ht5q

Secretary Arsenio M. Balisacan, Lessons learned specific to the MDGS: presentation during the Launch of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network; 03 August 2015.

Duties and Responsibilities

Scope of Work

The scope of work includes, but should not be limited to the following:

Developing an inception report to include the expert’s proposed methodology for assessing the budget process and identifying ‘entry points’ for mainstreaming SDGs. The methodology should provide a clear outline areas of inquiry at national level, as well as a proposed case study to be undertaken focusing on select national programmes and/or a geographical location (region or province). Case study work will be selected in coordination with UNDP, NEDA and DBM, on criteria that include the potential for further support moving forward beyond this initial assessment.

The methodology will focus on identifying on-going budget reforms that might be built upon to integrate the SDGs into the budget process. These reforms include the OPIF, MTEF and SEER processes as articulated above in the background section.

The methodology should draw from the UNDP methodologies for implementing Public Expenditure and Institutional Reviews, for example the Climate Change Public Expenditure and Institutional Review Methodology.

Key areas of inquiry could include:

How key national priorities are determined, costed and articulated as allocations in the budget, including as key performance indicators;
The cross-ministerial institutional arrangements for determining, managing trade-offs and synergies between the different national priorities and their articulation in the budget at national as well as sub-national level;
The linkages between national and sub-national level including coordination and feedback mechanisms;
How the budget is tracked and how the link between expenditures and results is reported upon;
How the budget process enables key institutions to be held to account for their performance and how performance feeds back into the budget prioritization and allocation process in the next cycle; and
How other stakeholders, in particular civil society, are able to contribute to the budget process (formulation, monitoring, etc.).

Conduct of desk review of various relevant documents including: the MAPS Strategy and Guidelines; National and Provincial MDG Reports; Alternative/Shadow MDG Reports, particularly if they provide analysis of the budget; and planning and budget documents as well as relevant development partner and CSO reports pertaining to the quality of the budget process. The review should also consider experience from other countries in the early adoption of SDGs (to the extent available), noting that some countries are already experimenting with policy and institutional shifts and how to put into place the building blocks for mainstreaming and accelerating progress. The Bangkok Regional Hub will provide support to this exchange of experiences and on tools applied elsewhere. The desk review should include work looking at integrating climate change (in Philippines supported by World Bank, as well as regionally supported by UNDP), and biodiversity within the budget[1].

Conduct a mix of informal and structured discussions with relevant government agencies, including at the sub-national level, non-governmental stakeholders and development partners on how the budgeting can integrate the SDGs and what niche there might be for UNDP in this context.

Where possible and in discussion with UNDP and other stakeholders explore linkages between this assessment and broader areas of UNDP engagement on the SDGs:

The use of data (particularly big data) to support monitoring, reporting, policy and programming on the SDGs in the budget process;
The potential for sub-national engagement on the SDGs to support a bottom up budgeting process, building on UNDP’s work in respect to sub-national planning and governance;
The proposed Open Working Group on financing for development;
The facilitation of private sector contributions to the SDGs.

Building on UNDP’s work on climate budget analysis (http://www.climatefinance-developmenteffectiveness.org ) and biodiversity (including the recent draft Biodiversity Public Expenditure and Institutional Review).

Competencies

Corporate Competencies:

Demonstrates commitment to UNDP’s mission, vision and values;
Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
Highest standards of integrity, discretion and loyalty.
Strong analytical, reporting and writing abilities skills;
Strong interpersonal, organizational and communication skills;
Openness to change and ability to receive/integrate feedback;
Ability to plan, organize, implement and produce high quality report;
Ability to work under pressure and tight deadlines;
Proficiency in the use of office IT applications and internet in conducting research;
Excellent presentation and facilitation skills.
Demonstrates integrity and ethical standards;
Positive, constructive attitude to work

Functional /Technical Competencies:

Strong knowledge of the latest theories and concepts in urban development and sustainable cities in the Philippines and broader region;
Strong analytical and research skills;
Familiarity with current actors working on urban development challenges in the Philippines;
Strong communication skills and ability to communicate with different stakeholders;
Excellent in oral and written communication; have skills to write independent reports, documents, maintain systems and procedures in administering programs.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

Post-graduate degree in development studies, or economics and/or public financial management and a working knowledge of PFM process in the Philippines will be essential.

Experience:

At least 5 years of experience working on Philippine economic and social development issues;
Solid understanding of the planning and budgeting process of the Philippine Government, the MDGs and the localization agenda;
Experience working with state and/or local Government and/or an international development-oriented organization;
Ability to synthesize complex issues drawing synergies and linkages between development issues (governance, inclusive growth, poverty, environment, etc.);
Ability to work with, and analyze data, using relevant tools/computer programs (Excel, online survey tools) to present findings.

Language:

Full proficiency in English.