National consultant to conduct the assessment of the national SDGs indicator framework.Vacancy Number: Pr19/01848
Background
In September 2015, the 2030 Global Agenda for Sustainable Development has been adopted by 193 member states of the United Nations, including the Republic of Moldova, that aim at ending poverty and reducing of inequalities, ensure welfare for everyone and economic development through protection of the planet. Being a successor of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), It is a plan of action for people, planet, peace, partnership and prosperity, is the consists of 17 goals, 169 targets and 244 global indicators, and has a much wider focus beyond poverty, gender, hunger and core health problems, but also breaks new ground by addressing inequalities, economic growth, decent jobs, energy, natural resources and environment, climate change, human settlements, and peace and justice, among others. “Leave No One Behind”, as the core principle shared by the participants to the 2030 Agenda, aimed at equitable sustainable development will be fulfilled when we would be able to know where the poorest and most vulnerable are, and what services and assistance they need. This requires highly granular data, employment of methods that allow for sub-national and multi-dimensionally disaggregation, geospatial visualization, diversification and combination of data sources, exploration of new data sources, data sense-making and re-using. The need for strengthening of statistics and so-called “data revolution”, through exploring of new technologies and innovative approaches with the support of and expertise of academia, private sector and civil society, are among the critical elements of the post-2015 framework. In the described context, the monitoring of the SDGs agenda requires substantive improvements in national statistical capacity. Collecting high frequency, quality data on the varied dimensions of sustainable development requires the modernization of statistical systems. New partnerships are required to support SDG implementation by strengthening government capacity to manage and utilize data. This necessitates stronger and more systematic collection of administrative data to improve service delivery and enable evidence-based decision-making, more systematic integration of new technologies and approaches to data collection and processing. National context The adaptation of the 2030 Global Agenda to the national context in the Republic of Moldova has passed through a few phases. Firstly, in 2016, UNDP Moldova in collaboration with the State Chancellery and the National Bureau of Statistics, have undertaken, as part of a global initiative in 6 pilot countries, the mapping of the national data ecosystem, required for measuring the sustainable development progress. Complex consultations with policy-makers, line-ministries, public institutions, private organizations, civil society and development partners and an online questionnaire, had the main objective to assess the availability of data and institutional modernization capacity needed to implement the 2030 Development Agenda – the national potential for data revolution was assessed. In the context of the 2030 Global Agenda nationalization carried out in 2017, the inventory of the development policy framework revealed that national policy agenda is partly aligned with the SDGs: only 11% of the global targets are fully aligned with national policy documents, while the rest of targets are partially (57% of targets) or not reflected (1/3 of the global targets) in any national policy documents of the Republic of Moldova. Therefore, the relevant national strategies will have to be adjusted to reflect better the spirit of the SDGs targets and human-orientation. Also, the SDGs nationalization concluded with a list of 226 national indicators agreed to be used for monitoring & evaluation of the SDGs in Moldova. The significant gap in availability of about half of SDGs nationalized indicators and required disaggregation (45% of indicators are missing and 5% are partially available) to tackle the needs of vulnerable people is a serious challenge towards the national monitoring and reporting on SDGs implementation. This call for serious investments in M&E system for SDGs, as well as innovations for SDGs monitoring. Moreover, the main challenges in mapping out global indicators and their nationalization were related to the lack of calculation methodologies for about 40% of UN global indicators list (assessment against these indicators was approximative) and, as well as the lack of national metadata associated with the data collection methods which limited the possibility to evaluate the indicator’s level of compliance with the globally agreed definitions. While the data collection doubling and overlapping in different institutions for some of the indicators made difficult to identify a relevant and credible data source, to establish the institutions responsible for monitoring the indicator. The “ownership” over the production or monitoring of the nationalized indicators has been also affected as a consequence of the Public Administration Reform given the revised (extended and multi-segmental) mandates of the new ministries (9 ministries replaced 16), reduced (by 44%) and replenished staff and partially lost institutional memory and technical capacities, in particular in the fields of administrative statistics. Currently, UNDP is implementing the UN Joint Project on Strengthening the National Statistical System of RM is partnership with the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) of the Republic of Moldova and other 4 UN agencies (UN Women, UNFPA, UNICEF, ILO). The Project is aiming at improving data collection, production, dissemination and use of statistical information with particular attention to national needs and official statistics overall conformity with international standards. One of the Statistics Project’s intended results is the improved national capacities to produce and disseminate reliable and disaggregated statistical data for evidence-based monitoring of policies, development strategies, programmes, etc. In the framework of the mentioned Project, in July 2018 NBS has been supported by UNDP to launch the review of the nationalized SDGs indicators against the latest methodological guidance (metadata) of the global list of SDGs indicators. The review was needed because of the challenges described above and it aimed at updating the status of nationalized SDGs indicators and bring clarify on the improvement actions needed and efforts required. It started with the assessment of the SDGs indicators produced by NBS. Then, the evaluation of the indicators produced by other institutions was performed (under finalization) in collaboration with more than 40 central public authorities that produce data for SDGs. To improve the communication on the SDGs M&E framework, the set of national metadata to describe the assessed indicators is currently compiled. Upon completion of the revision, the timeseries for the assessed SDGs indicators will be gathered aimed to provide an update on the current progress on the SDGs targets and represent a valuable input/evidence to the Government’s preparations on the first Voluntary National Review (and its Statistical Annex) on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. During the assessment, gaps related to SDGs indicators produced at the national level are identified and type of resources required to address those gaps are to be included in a National Roadmap aimed to ensure full availability of national statistical data for sustainable development monitoring, reporting and evaluation by the Republic of Moldova. Scope of work
Under this assignment the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Moldova through the UN Joint Project “Strengthening National Statistical System” is seeking a national consultant to develop the report on assessment of the national SDGs indicator framework and a national roadmap to close the identified data gaps. The overall objective of assignment is to support the Government of Moldova, and in particular the National Bureau of Statistics, as the national coordinator of the SDGs monitoring & evaluation, in formulation of the overall conclusion regarding the current status and level of compliance of the nationalized SDGs indicators with the UN global list, as well as the level of availability of disaggregated data for the reviewed indicators. This will cover data the country is already producing to monitor the progress in SDGs implementation, and where it may need support to change direction and make improvements. The main output of the whole assignment will represent the revised set of nationalized SDGs indicators, accompanied by the pertinent time series (tentatively for 2010-2018), and a roadmap for action to further develop a robust SDGs indicator and monitoring framework at the national level. The envisaged task should also enable the inventory of disaggregation dimensions available for internal policy-making and reporting at international level on SDGs and conclude whether they are sufficient to ensure that “no one is left behind.” The expected results should be officially endorsed by the Government and used by the public institutions to advocate for donors’ support on improvement of statistics and data for SDGs. The reviewed SDGs indicators would be further integrated as part of the national M&E frameworks when developing new national and sectorial policy papers. Thus, with the completion of this assignment, UNDP seeks to ensure the nationalized SDGs indicators are adjusted to the current development framework and harmonised with the UN global list, have “institutional home” and will be further improved and used as an integrated monitoring framework for SDGs implementation by all concerned stakeholders. The entire set of expected outputs should help to measure the full spectrum of SDGs and their targets through a compact indicator framework that is technically robust, operationally feasible, and provides the information that government and other stakeholders need. The assignment will be built on the previous and on-going activities undertaken by the Project partners, as well as other resources available, and will be undertaken in compliance with the Law on Official Statistics, Strategy for Development of the National Statistical System for 2016-2020 and other national/ sector policy and regulatory documents and in compliance with international standards in official statistics and relevant practices of other countries. The activity will be implemented in close coordination and under the guidance of the National Bureau of Statistics and participation of the State Chancellery. Under the current assignment, using the results of the review conducted by the NBS and UNDP specialists in collaboration with concerned producers of SDGs indicators, the following expertise is expected on behalf of the hired national consultant:
For detailed information on Tasks and Activities to be performed and expected deliverables, please refer to Terms of Reference. Requirements for experience
Academic Qualifications:
Working Experience:
Competencies and Skills:
Personal Qualities and other requirements:
The United Nations in Moldova is committed to workforce diversity. Women, persons with disabilities, Roma and other ethnic or religious minorities, persons living with HIV, as well as refugees and other non-citizens legally entitled to work in the Republic of Moldova, are particularly encouraged to apply. Documents to be included
Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:
Financial proposal
The financial proposal shall specify a total lump sum amount, and payment terms around specific and measurable (qualitative and quantitative) deliverables (i.e. whether payments fall in installments or upon completion of the entire contract). The payment for services provided by the Contractor under the Statistics Project will be made post factum on a lump-sum deliverables basis, as per contract, after the work has been accepted by the Project Manager. In order to assist the requesting unit in the comparison of offers, the financial proposal will include a breakdown of this lump sum amount (including fee per day, number of anticipated working days, etc.). Travel All envisaged travel costs must be included in the financial proposal. This includes all travel to join duty station/repatriation travel. In general, UNDP should not accept travel costs exceeding those of an economy class ticket. Should the IC wish to travel on a higher class he/she should do so using their own resources. In the case of unforeseeable travel, payment of travel costs including tickets, lodging and terminal expenses should be agreed upon, between the respective business unit and Individual Consultant, prior to travel and will be reimbursed. For the current assignment not travel is required. | |||||||||||||||||
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