National Individual Contractor - Social Policy (Public Finance) at UNICEF

Job Number: 521547
Location: Nigeria
Work Type: Consultancy

Programme Overview

• UNICEF Nigeria under the lead of its Social Policy section has reinforced interventions to support the Government of Nigeria (at federal and State-level) on strategic planning and formulation to deliver concrete and sustainable results in Public Finance. This includes programmes aimed at improving (a) public policies to reduce child poverty; (b) the transparency, adequacy, equity and efficiency of child-focused public investments and fiscal management; and (d) governance and accountability measures to increase public participation and the quality, equity in public finance management.
• To ensure key results for children, there is a need to explore and strengthen ways in which public finance management through quantitative and qualitative improvements in public spending can enhance the wellbeing of the most disadvantaged children. Therefore, this proposal seeks to recruit a National Social Policy Consultant to support the UNICEF Nigeria Social Inclusion section in its implementation of Public Finance, Local Governance and Decentralization programmes.

Major Tasks to be Accomplished
Improving generation of data on budget allocation, expenditure, transparency and accountability for increased use for policy and programme action:

• Supports the collection, analysis and user-friendly presentation of data on budget allocation and spending, including strengthening national capacity to collect routinely, report and use data for policy decision-making.
• Provides timely, regular data-driven analysis to track equity in public expenditure to inform improved budget prioritization, planning, and spending.
• Analyzes the macroeconomic context and its impact on social development, emerging issues and social policy concerns, as well as implications for children, and proposes and promotes appropriate responses in respect of such issues and concerns, including government resource allocation policies and the effects of social welfare policies on the rights of children.

Improving use of public financial resources for children:

• Undertakes budget analysis to inform UNICEF's advocacy and technical assistance to the Budget Office of the Federation, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Budget and National Planning, state planning commissions and social sector ministries to improve equitable allocations for essential services for children. Works with sector colleagues to build capacity to undertake costing and cost effectiveness analysis on priority interventions to help inform policy decisions on child-focused investments.
• Supports the identification of policy options for improved domestic financing of child-sensitive social services interventions.

Strengthening capacity of national and state structures for improved budget processes:

• Collaborates with central and local authorities to improve policies, planning, budgeting, consultation and accountability processes so that decisions and child-focused service delivery more closely respond to the needs of local communities.
• Undertakes and builds capacity of partners for improved monitoring and tracking of public expenditure to support transparency, accountability and effective financial flows for essential service delivery, including through support to district level planning, budgeting and public financial management as well as facilitating community participation.
• Collaborates with the federal, state and local authorities to strengthen their capacity on quality data collection, analysis for policy development, planning, implementation, coordination, monitoring of essential social services, with emphasis on community participation and accountability.

Strengthened Networking and partnerships for child-sensitive budgeting:

• Supports correct and compelling use of data and evidence on the situation of children and coverage and impact of child focused services – in support of the social policy programme and the country programme overall.
• Establishes effective partnerships with the Government, bilateral and multilateral donors, NGOs, civil society and local leaders, the private sector, and other UN agencies to support sustained child sensitive budget that is transparent.
• Promotes awareness and builds capacity of partners, and actively facilitates participation of citizens in budget processes.
• Collaborates and works with civil society to influence budget transparency, accountability and equitable allocation for children.
• Collaborates with UNICEF sectoral colleagues to facilitate participation of citizen especially children to influence implementation of equitable allocation and spending, including accessibility of budget information.

UNICEF Programme Management:

• Manages and coordinates technical support around public finance and governance ensuring it is well planned, monitored, and implemented in a timely fashion to adequately support scale-up and delivery.
• Ensures risk analysis and risk mitigation are embedded into overall management of the support, in close consultation with UNICEF programme sections, Cooperating Partners, and governments.
• Supports and contributes to effective and efficient planning, management, coordination, monitoring and evaluation of the country programme.
• Ensures that the social planning project enhances policy dialogue, planning, supervision, technical advice, management, training, research and support; and that the monitoring and evaluation component strengthens monitoring and evaluation of the social sectors and provides support to sectoral and decentralized information systems.

Qualifications or Specialized Knowledge/Experience Required

• An advanced university degree in one of the following fields is required: Economics, Public Policy, Statistics, Demography, Social Science or another relevant technical field.
• A minimum of five years of relevant professional work experience is required.
• Experience working on public finance is considered as a strong asset.
• Fluency in English is required.
• Consultancy duration is 11.5 months