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National Consultant to support the „Financial Control” Module implementation (EDMITE).

Vacancy Number: Pr20/02095

Location:	Chisinau, Moldova
Application Deadline:	02 Oct 2020, 16:30 (GMT+2:00)
Starting date:	09 Oct 2020
Reference to the project:	Enhancing Democracy in Moldova through Inclusive and Transparent Elections
Expected Duration of Assignment:	October 2020 – March 2021 (up to 55 working days)
Supporting Documents: Terms of Reference Individual Consultant Procurement Notice OFFEROR’S LETTER TO UNDP CONFIRMING INTEREST AND AVAILABILITY FOR THE INDIVIDUAL CONTRACTOR (IC) ASSIGNMENT UNDP General Conditions of Individual Contract

Ms. Eva Bounegru.

Background

Electoral support and capacity development are part of UNDP’s democratic governance assistance worldwide, through which UNDP helps nations build democratic frameworks to improve representation, accountability and transparency for the benefit of citizens.

UNDP has a long-standing partnership with the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) and the Center for Continuous Electoral Training (CCET) aiming at advancing the democratic electoral processes in Moldova by consolidating the transparency and efficiency of elections’ management, modernization of electoral IT solutions and enhancing the inclusiveness and participation of voters. This partnership, which spans over 10 years, resulted in the establishment of strong professional institutions, development of a modern State Automated Information System “Elections” (SAISE), the enhancement of the State Register of Voters’ accuracy and the design and implementation of effective long-term civic and voter education instruments.

“Enhancing democracy in Moldova through inclusive and transparent elections” (phase II) is a Project that sets the overall goal to achieve an enhanced transparency and inclusiveness of the electoral process in Moldova by ensuring a more independent and credible electoral administration and better informed and pro-active citizens. Building on the sustainable results achieved during its first phase of implementation (2017-2020), the objectives of the current Project phase are to:

• enhance the inclusiveness of the electoral process by increasing the functional and technical capacities of the State Automated Information System “Elections” (SAISE);
• enhance the political participation of citizens by setting up and implementing the voters’ information and civic education programmes;
• strengthen the capacity for effective and coherent oversight and monitoring on political party financing;
• improve the legal and regulatory framework to respond to the recommendations of Election Observation Missions.

According to the Law on Political Parties’ Financing, adopted by the Moldovan Parliament in April 2015, the CEC is the institution responsible for the monitoring and analysis of the political parties’ and electoral campaigns’ financial reporting – a challenging task requiring strong institutional capacities and efficient mechanism to ensure fair and equal opportunities for all electoral competitors. The use of the paper-based reporting resulted in critical amounts of data that needed to be processed by the employees of the CEC’s Finance Department. In this sense, UNDP Moldova supported the CEC in the development an informational system, that aims at automating data collection and analysis, and at ensuring public access to all reports submitted to CEC by electoral candidates – the Political Party Finance Reporting and Disclosure module of the SAISE (“Financial Control”).

Developed with Project support, the “Financial Control” has been finalized in February 2019, becoming an integral part of the CEC’s electoral data management infrastructure.

In June 2019, the Central Electoral Commission adopted a set of amendments to the Regulation on political parties financing, including the major decision on the mandatory status of the online reporting through the “Financial Control” of the SAISE as of January 1st, 2020.

With the software and technical setup in place provided by UNDP, the CEC shall further ensure the functioning and timely adjustment of the module to eventual changes in the legal framework governing political parties’ financial reporting, through an adaptive and corrective maintenance. In this context, the Project will offer specialized support to the CEC for the effective implementation of its financial oversight function, the enhancement of electoral data’s transparency and the management of the ongoing adaptive maintenance of the system.

Scope of work

UNDP intends to contract an experienced National Consultant (hereinafter “the Consultant”) to offer development support and advisory to the Financial and Economic Department of the CEC in the current exploitation, administration and maintenance of the “Financial Control” of the SAISE.

More specifically, the Consultant is expected to assist the CEC in:

1. Assessing and documenting issues and potential deficiencies of the “Financial Control” Module;
2. Discussing the assessment findings with the CEC and the Project;
3. Providing support in fixing eventual issues/deficiencies, configuring, adjusting, and optimizing the “Financial Control” Module using the system’s administration functionalities;
4. Proposing a set of new functionalities of the “Financial Control” Module to be developed, focused on increasing the transparency of the political party financing reporting;
5. Preparing and conducting technical trainings for the CEC staff, political parties’ representatives, and other relevant stakeholders;
6. Ensuring the oversight of the “Financial Control” Module adaptive maintenance stage (provided by the developing company).

For detailed information, please refer to Annex 1 – Terms of Reference.

Requirements for experience

Academic Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree or higher in information technologies, business management, economy, or finance.

Experience and knowledge:

• At least 3 (three) years of professional experience in managing and supervising IT systems implementation or in the IT systems development;
• At least 2 (two) years of professional experience in auditing IT systems;
• Proven experience in working with E-Government Services (MConnect, MPass, MSign);
• Proven experience of developing or managing the development of ICT-based financial reporting systems will be a strong advantage;
• Previous professional experience in working with the Moldovan public institutions will be an advantage;
• Previous professional experience in working with the Central Electoral Commission will be an advantage;
• Previous professional experience in working with international organizations, including UN Agencies, will be an advantage;

Competencies:

• Strong knowledge of electronic financial reporting domain;
• Demonstrated interpersonal and diplomatic skills, as well as the ability to communicate effectively with all stakeholders and to present ideas clearly;
• Excellent analytical and presentation skills;
• Knowledge of Romanian and English (verbal and written) is a must. Knowledge of Russian will be considered as an advantage.

Personal qualities:

• Proven commitment to the core values of the United Nations, in particular, respecting differences of culture, gender, religion, ethnicity, nationality, language, age, HIV status, disability, and sexual orientation, or other status;
• Responsibility, flexibility and punctuality, ability to meet deadlines and prioritize multiple tasks.

The UNDP 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:

• Offeror's Letter confirming interest and availability;
• Technical proposal (incl. brief description of experience, approach and methodology for the completion of the assignment);
• Financial proposal (in USD) specifying a total lump sum requested for the assignment specified in the Terms of Reference;

Duly completed and signed Personal History Form (P11), personal CV and at least 3 references.

Financial proposal

The financial proposal shall include a breakdown of the lump sum amount (daily rate and number of anticipated working days).

Travel

Travel is not envisaged in the framework of the current assignment.