A.BACKGROUND

The World Bank (WB) and the EU agreed to implement a new Trust Fund (TF) financed project called Strengthening Governance in Mongolia aimed to support the efforts of the Government of Mongolia (GOM) to improve fiscal discipline, public financial management (PFM), and transparency and accountability processes for strengthened governance in the public sector in Mongolia.   

This new TF, through both Recipient Executed (RE) and Bank Executed (BE) interventions, will serve two main purposes. Firstly, it will complement and expand the ongoing technical assistance the WB is providing through the Strengthening Fiscal and Financial Stability (SFFS) Project. Secondly, this TF will support the GOM in advancing the current efforts toward increasing transparency, participation and accountability in fiscal matters as well as in strengthening its capacity to deal with non-technical drivers of the reform process that prevent state agencies from implementing policies and regulations as intended.  

The Component 2 of the TF will focus primarily on supporting the specific needs of the GOM to establish sound fiscal discipline, to improve expenditure management by strengthening the budget credibility, to establish the foundations for medium-term budgeting, and to re-orient public investment to strategic projects linked to the diversification of the economy. Five priority areas will constitute the core of the component: (i) development and implementation of a public financial management reform plan and inter-agency coordination; (ii) strengthening budget preparation and execution towards results-based medium-term budgeting; (iii) improving budget reporting and transparency by increasing the comprehensiveness of fiscal and financial information and reporting; (iv) improving the management of contingent liabilities, through improving the existing governance framework for recognizing, managing, and disclosing contingent liabilities; and (v) strengthening public investment management, through the development and implementation of mechanisms for prioritizing capital project proposals and cost-benefit analysis.

BOOST is a WB collaborative effort launched in 2010 to provide quality access to budget data to enhance transparency. The initiative aimed to make well-classified and highly disaggregated budget data available for policy makers and practitioners in government, researchers, and civil society to promote their effective use for improved decision making, analysis, transparency, and accountability. Since its launch, the program centered its activities around three work streams: (a) supporting expenditure analysis, (b) advancing fiscal transparency and public dissemination of budget data, and (c) improving public financial management (PFM) processes and systems. The program has designed and delivered more than 60 national and subnational BOOST data sets in standardized formats whose contents are country specific. Each data set typically allows for approved, revised, and executed budgets to be yearly cross-referenced with categories such as, Government levels (central or local); administrative units (ministries, departments, agencies, schools, hospitals, and so forth); subnational government units (regions, districts or municipalities); economic classification categories (staff salaries, procurement of goods, and so forth); sources of funding (budget funds, off-budget funds, external finance, and so forth); and budget programs (if the country uses a program-based budgeting system), among others. 

In the case of Mongolia, the lack of functional and programmatic classifications producing aggregate numbers by budgetary allocations make the review of the country’s public spending a challenging endeavor. So, To enhance the quality of its macro-fiscal data, the GOM wants to pursue the BOOST agenda. 

Furthermore, as mentioned above, to support the BOOST dataset creation and maintenance for Mongolia at least for last 10 years in budget, the Treasury Department of the MOF aims to hire a local consultant.

B.OBJECTIVE OF THE ASSIGNMENT 

The main objective of this assignment is to support development of the BOOST database in Mongolia through gathering, processing and assessing historical data of local budget from 2009-2019 for better quality and consistency of resulting figures in congruency with national reports. 

C.SCOPE OF THE ASSIGNMENT

Key responsibilities under this assignment will include the following tasks and duties:

i. Data recollection, processing and analysis:

- Collect the historical data on Local budget expenditure (initial, modified and executed budget) from the most accurate primary source (GFMIS, E-Report and/or other related systems) for the period of 2009-2019; 

- Process the collected data and identify gaps and inconsistencies on annual basis;

- Generate a database structure based on the processed data and broken down by differentlevels of government  and its relevant administrative units (ministries, departments, agencies, schools, hospitals, and so forth); subnational government units (regions, districts or municipalities); economic classification categories (staff salaries, procurement of goods, payments of services, transfers and so forth); sources of funding (budget funds, off-budget funds, external finance, and so forth); and budget programs (if the country uses a program-based budgeting system), among others (based on availability).

ii. Data cleaning:

- Recode and standardize the data, when needed, to eliminate gaps and differences concerning the economic, functional administrative and programmatic classifications (both the data prior to/post 2015) towards building the BOOST datasets for Mongolia;

- Generate a list of standardized codes and corresponding keys for further processing and creation of BOOST dataset. 

- Draft English translations for the different categories and variables. 

iii. Support planning the inclusion of geographic identifiers in the datasets to explore possibilities for data visualization.

iv. Coordinate with BOOST team the assessment of the resulting datasets to solve any inconsistency or data gap;

v. Any other tasks as reasonably requested by the client related with BOOST agenda.

D. DELIVERABLES

The National Consultant will be required to provide the following deliverables:

i. Report on the analysis of the historical data and on the gaps and inconsistencies identified for the data;

ii. Historical budget data cleaned for any gaps and inconsistencies; 

iii. Report on the review of the draft BOOST datasets; and

iv. Report on possibilities of data visualization using the BOOST datasets with practical examples.

E. CONSULTANT’S QUALIFICATIONS/ SELECTION CRITERIA

Education: A suitable candidate should have a bachelor’s degree in a relevant field:  accounting, statistics, finance or a relevant discipline;

Experience:

- Candidate should have at least 2 years of relevant experience in accounting, central, local budget management and financial management. Knowledge of technical terms of finance and budget is essential. 

- Be proficient in MS Office, specially Microsoft Excel, have excellent and familiarity in IT system, with fiscal management information system is essential; and experiences in dataset management;

Language skills: Basic command of English will be required;

Other skills: 

- Excellent analytical, organizational, communication and interpersonal skills with the ability to function effectively and collaboratively in a team environment; 

- Ability to multi-task and meet tight deadlines;

- Proven ability to work both autonomously and cooperatively as part of a team;

- Ability to work with multidisciplinary teams and institutions;

- Excellent web research and navigation skills.

- Responsible and flexible attitude and capacity to manage a variety of tasks with minimal supervision;

- Be able to work overtime if required.

F. SUPERVISION AND REPORTING

The consultant will report directly to the team leader and Director of Financing and Reporting Division of the Treasury Department of MOF and will work on a day-to-day basis with the support team and work with the staff of the the FRAD, TD, MOF. The Head of the Financing and Reporting Division will communicate regularly with the consultant to review progress of the relevant tasks, respectively, to resolve any outstanding issues.

The consultant will work closely with respective officials of central budget entities.

The consultant will be required to carry out his/her tasks in line with the approved WP which will serve as a basis for measuring progress on desired outcomes and goals for the entire consultancy service.

The consultant will prepare monthly progress reports detailing the achievements and impediments in executing the entire WP effectively. These progress reports will be discussed with  the Head of the Financing and Reporting Division  and the Director General of the TD. 

All information provided to the consultant will be regarded as confidential and information will not be shared with any outside individuals or organizations without prior agreement by the Client. 

G. INSTITUTIONAL ARRANGEMENTS

The client will provide an office space, assign the officials to accept deliverables stated in the contract and provide all necessary materials required for undertaking the assignment. The consultant shall bring his/her own computer/laptop.

H. CONTRACT DURATION

The assignment is expected to commence in June 2020. The total duration of the consultancy service is estimated to be 6 months. 

If you possess the above qualifications, please submit following documents via email to procurement_sgm@sffs.mn:

    1. Cover letter indicating why she/he considers her/himself suitable for the position;

    2. Detailed CV highlighting relevant skills/experience;

    3. Copy of diplomas or certificates; and,

    4. 2 reference letters from previous last two employers no later than 17:00, June 18, 2020.

The submitted documents will not be returned to the applicants. Please note that incomplete applications would not be considered for evaluation. Only selected candidates will be contacted. Candidates can be interviewed. Detailed terms of reference can be requested from procurement_sgm@sffs.mn Contact address: Attn: Ms.Oyunyam, Procurement specialist, Strengthening Governance in Mongolia Project.

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