Monitoring Expert - International Position

International Expert

1. Programme Area and Specific Project involved:          

Accountability for child rights monitoring - technical support to the Strategic Planning Office (Office of the Prime Minister) in Kosovo[1].

1. Background

The National Development Strategy (NDS) 2017-20121 is emphasizing importance of the education system on strengthening national capacities and economic development in the country. Despite Government investment in education sector, with 4.7% of GDP, the funding of education system has not been related to any demographic trends and needs assessment for developing teaching capacities and expenditures are committed in a rather non-systematic manner. This makes it difficult to forecast the trends and needs in a timely manner and results in inefficiencies during resource allocation.

In line with NDS, the Education Strategic Plan 2016-2021 (KESP) recognizes the need for improvement of the sector wide-planning to maintain the gains already made in the education sector and to address key areas for improvement. The KESP emphasize the need for improvement of the functional mechanisms for pre-university education funding that will contribute to school development and increase of the transparency on education investments and expenditures. 

On the other hand, Kosovo became an eligible candidate for a Millennium Challenging Cooperation Compact on December 2015, and the initial application of the Kosovo institutions for the Compact has resulted with approval of the Threshold programme for Kosovo in 2016.  Since initiation of this process, UNICEF together with other UN Agencies is supporting Millennium Challenge Office in Kosovo (MCK) for monitoring scorecard indicators linked to data and perception consecutively. Furthermore, UN Agencies are working with government institutions to address constraints which have been identified by the MCC team in 2016, such as strengthening government institutional capacities for data production and reporting.

In this regard, UNICEF following the good partnership with MEST, MeF and KAS for development and production of the education indicators, which are internationally comparable and contributing on the accountability and evidence based policy making is willing to support government institutions to building institutional capacities for forecasting trends in education and improved transparency in public expenditures. The lack of structured and longitudinal data of education expenditure by ISCED levels, is still a challenge for Kosovo, particularly due to the fact that primary education (Grades 1 to 5) is often considered as synonymous to obligatory education (Grades 1 to 9). In order to follow international standards, Kosovo* should harmonize its definition of primary education and provide data specifically for these first five grades.

1. Purpose of Assignment  and outputs

The main focus of this assignment is to increase and to support institutional capacities on Public Review Expenditures in education and to describe thoroughly the methodology for generation and update of the indicators related to education financing, to set institutional responsibilities for data providing, facilitate the capacity building training on the abovementioned methodology; and calculate the set of indicators for 2015 and 2016.

Under the overall supervision of the UNICEF Monitoring and Evaluation Officer, the monitoring expert will be responsible for caring out following activities:

• Description of the methodology for calculation expenditures indicators disaggregated by ISCED levels (pre-primary, primary, lower secondary and upper secondary education) of education system in Kosovo
• Identify and recommend the responsible government institutions / departments for provision of the necessary data for calculation of the set of indicators
• Prepare guiding document to facilitate the PER
• Two day training workshop for central level authorities such as: MEST and MEF officials on methodology and calculation of the set of indicators including hands -on -exercise for calculation of the set of indicators for two consecutive years 2015 and 2016 (mission in Kosovo)

1. Deliverables:

    

1. Guiding documents developed for the regular review of public expenditures in preuniversity education
2. Two days training conducted
3. Updated indictors on expenditures in pre university education for 2015 and 2016

1. Reporting arrangements, timeline and payments

The consultant will work under the supervision of the Monitoring and Evaluation Officer. The consultant will be contracted for a period of 10 days during the period August - September 2017. During this period the consultant will work 7 days from home and 3 days will be in the filed mission in Kosovo.

UNICEF Office will cover daily fee of 400 USD and travel expenses during mission in Kosovo (air ticket and DSA).

1. Qualifications

    

• The consultant is expected to hold at least a Master’s degree in economics, public policy, education, or a related social science field and have at least 10 years of relevant experience;
• Expertise in the areas of education financing;
• Solid work experience in policy development, research and analysis related to education;
• Relevant work experience in costing and fiscal analysis;
• Strong report writing, facilitation, and communication skills;
• Previous experience in working with UNICEF, preferably in Kosovo* or the CEE/CIS region is an advantage

Client interaction: The consultant must be comfortable interacting with government officials.

Report-writing: The consultant must be able to write in high standard English.

Data analysis: The consultant should be comfortable analyzing data and able to estimate costs of implementing education policies in short-term, medium-term and long-term.

Communication: The consultant must be able to facilitate effectively the training and making effective use of prepared materials and visual aids

1. Recourse:           

UNICEF reserves the right to withhold all or a portion of payment if performance is unsatisfactory, if work/outputs is incomplete, not delivered or for failure to meet deadlines.

How to apply

Candidates are requested to submit:

• Resume/CV;
• Motivation letter,