Long Term Agreement

**Job no**: 570095

**Contract type**: Consultant

**Duty Station**: Panama City

**Level**: Consultancy

**Location**: Panama

**Categories**: Social Policy

UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential.

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone.

And we never give up.

**For every child, **_protection_**

**How can you make a difference?**

1. BACKGROUND / RATIONALE UNICEF promotes the rights and welfare of all children and adolescents in everything we do. Together with our allies, we work in 190 countries and territories to transform this commitment into practical actions that benefit all children, especially focusing our efforts on reaching the most vulnerable and excluded, worldwide.

In Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), UNICEF is present in 36 countries and territories through 24 national offices spread throughout the region and a regional office based in Panama City. Efforts are aimed at UNICEF putting the rights and well-being of the most disadvantaged children at the heart of the social, political, and economic agenda, in line with our equity focus, working across our organization and with our partners in government, civil society and the private sector to support shifts in public policy, fuel social engagement, and increase investment for children.

Public Finance for Children is a key area for the promotion of children's rights and for the overcome of children poverty in the region. Through our social policy network, composed by Social Policy Specialists and focal points based in the country offices, UNICEF works in the provision of technical assistance, quality assurance, evidence generation and policy advocacy to eradicate child poverty, expand social protection for families with children and increase the quantity and quality of public investments aimed at children.

In order to support the work of UNICEF in LAC at both Regional and Country Offices, UNICEF LACRO seeks to engage the services of regional experts in Public Finance for Children, in three different areas: (1) Data, evidence and advocacy; (2) Financial System strengthening; (3) Expanding public resources.

For information of the work of our organization in the LAC Region, please visit our website: UNICEF LAC Region

2. PURPOSE OF ASSIGNMENT

The purpose of the current Long-Term Agreements (LTA) for individual contracts is to facilitate the contracting by UNICEF offices in LAC, both at regional and country levels, of qualified consultants at pre-agreed broad terms to assist in the implementation of recurrent Public Finance for Children activities.

3. PROGRAMME CATEGORIES The focus is on Public Finance for Children (PF4C) key service areas:
Service Area

i. Data, evidence, and evidence-based advocacy

1

Public Finance
- data, evidence and evidence-based advocacy
- PFM (Public Financial Management) data and evidence generation at national and subnational level to identify public financial challenges impacting on the achievement of child rights and generate evidence to guide responses and reforms. This includes the use of any of the PFM tools, diagnostics and analyses 1, such as the 14 diagnostics: Public Expenditure Review (which may also include Public Expenditure and Institutional Reviews (PEIRs) and Climate PEIRs), Public Expenditure Tracking Surveys, Child-focused Public Expenditure Measurement, Fiscal Incidence Analysis, National Accounts, Costing, Cost-Effectiveness Analysis and Cost-Benefit Analysis, Fiscal Space Analysis, Political Economy Analysis of the Budget Process, Citizens’ Budget, and Community Score Card. Or, any other PFM diagnostics, PFM research, or related PFM analysis related to budget, expenditure and revenue tracking & analysis, as well tracking public and private debt.
- Evidence based advocacy and policy dialogue at global, regional, national and local level to promote better PF for children. Policy advocacy and dialogue with key financial decision makers at all levels of government, Parliament, and decision makers, raise awareness around child rights and the cases for investing in children; and support development partners to use evidence in sector reforms and budget support decisions.
- UNICEF specific analysis on public finance to inform country programme design, including drafting analysis for situational analysis and any related reporting. Support UNICEF evidence-based advocacy and communication related to PFM and investments in children

ii. Systems Strengthening

2

Public Finance
- Systems Strengthening
- PFM reforms, including performance/programme-based budgeting, Financial Management Information Systems (FMIS) strengthening, and other reforms that promote service delivery and the realization of child rights; including addressing public and private debt and debt restruct