Antecedentes

Initiatives for Constitutional reforms call for a shift in the governance system from the current unitary system to a federal form of government.  This transition implies a significant change in fiscal policy, bureaucracy, and inter-governmental relations.  Along this line, there is a need to assess the fiscal requisites of the transition process.   

A key area of consideration in relation to this is the economic viability of regional governments to be established under the federal system of government. Economic viability of a regional government refers to its ability to establish well-defined mechanisms to safeguard its finances and to generate revenue for administrative services and social service delivery.  However, there is little evidence at this time to support an economic analysis of the proposed regional government set-up.   

Further evaluation of the current and proposed expenditure and revenue assignment/ management as part of intergovernmental relations is needed to identify such requirements under a federal system.  Expenditure assignment/management involves the identification of the powers and responsibilities of the different levels of government i.e. federal, state and local government. These include the sharing of responsibilities in crafting of policies, standards, and oversight as well as administration of the delivery of basic services.  During the transition period, minimum levels of provision of certain services be identified and be in place at the federal government and, more importantly, at the state/regional level.  To financially support the transfer of some responsibilities from the federal to the state government, there should be an assessment of the various national taxes imposed and collected by the national government to identify the taxing and revenue raising powers that could be given to regional/state governments to be augmented by budgetary transfers or block grants..

The objectives of the study are the following:

1. To provide baseline information on the state of fiscal decentralization under the current decentralization policies, structure, and processes, focusing specifically on revenue, intergovernmental transfer, and expenditure data at the regional level;

2. To formulate models that would assess the economic viability, including the minimum and full requirements towards the change to fiscal federalism particularly in the areas of revenue assignment, expenditure management and intergovernmental relations; and

3. To make recommendations on the expenditure and revenue assignment that will be included in the contemplated federal constitution.

   A senior research specialist will be engaged for the research.

Deberes y responsabilidades

Scope of Work

Under the overall guidance of the Country Director and the direct supervision of the RPBU Team Leader, the Senior Research Specialist will carry out the following tasks:

1. Develop a research design that covers the thematic priority areas of the project, identifies specific variables to be studied, states the analytical framework, and specifies the methodologies to be employed in the research. The following indicators will be used to evaluate regional economic viability: a) per capita regional domestic product, b) regional unemployment rate, c) poverty incidence by region, and d) taxable capacity by region.Other regional indicators may be included later on.

2. Theoretical considerations in determining expenditure assignment for national, regional, and local governments as well as intergovernmental relations.

3. Theoretical considerations on revenue assignment that considers the financing of public services, principles of subsidiarity, taxation, revenue generation and accounting

4. National and local taxes

5. Revenue sharing

6. Inter-governmental transfers

7. Write one comprehensive report on the research results that focus on the abovementioned project output: a) Baseline information on the state of fiscal decentralization at the regional level under the current unitary system of government; and b) Models for measuring the economic viability of the proposed regional government under a federal system, focusing specifically on revenue assignment, expenditure management and intergovernmental relations.

D.      Expected Outputs and Deliverables 

E.      Institutional Arrangement

The individual contractor (IC) will be supervised by the RPBU Team Leader. The IC will closely coordinate with the RPBU team to facilitate processing of operational needs.

F.      Duration of the Work

Four and a half months (015 December 2017 – 30 April 2018)

G.         Duty Station:      Manila

Competencias

Competencies

Corporate competencies

• Professionalism

• Client orientation

  Functional and technical competencies

• Ability to plan and organize
• Capacity for teamwork and independence
• Ability to prioritize tasks and multi-task
• Technological awareness

Habilidades y experiencia requeridas

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Master’s Degree or equivalent in Development Management, Peace and Conflict Studies, social sciences or other related fields.

  Experience:             

• At least 10 years of progressive experience at the national or international level in the management and implementation of development, peacebuilding or crisis prevention and recovery programmes;

• Experience in the use of computers and office software and handling of web-based management systems.

Please submit your CV and Financial Proposal (please use the attached template) by email thru procurement.ph@undp.org. Please make sure that the email attachment file size will not exceed 4MB.