Policy Specialist for the Sectoral and Local Investment Planning

Description of the Assignment:  

The EU-PH Partnership for Peace and Development in Mindanao (PPDM): Good Governance in BARMM (EU4BARMM) supports efforts to strengthen accountable governance and public financial management (PFM) in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM). Under this initiative, UNDP works with BARMM institutions to improve planning, budgeting, investment programming, and the management of public resources to ensure that government spending delivers better outcomes for people.

BARMM has introduced important reforms to strengthen governance and public financial management, including the Bangsamoro Budgeting System and Appropriations (BAA No. 84) and the Bangsamoro Budgeting System and Appropriations (BAA No. 84). These reforms provide an opportunity to improve alignment of planning, budgeting, and investment decisions with the priorities of the Bangsamoro Development Plan (BDP).

Despite these efforts, challenges remain. Planning, budgeting, and investment programming processes are not always well coordinated across ministries and local government units (LGUs). Programs, Activities, and Projects (PAPs) are sometimes weakly linked to development priorities, resulting in fragmented investments, inconsistent planning practices, and inefficient use of resources. There are also varying approaches to project identification, prioritization, implementation, monitoring, and reporting across institutions.

At the LGU level, planning and budgeting processes are further complicated by reporting and compliance requirements from both the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) and the Ministry of Finance, Budget and Management (MFBM). These overlapping processes can create inefficiencies and make it difficult to align local investments with regional priorities.

Consultations with stakeholders have also highlighted the need to strengthen LGUs’ Annual Investment Programming (AIP), improve planning-budget linkages, and enhance expenditure tracking and performance monitoring. While civil society organizations (CSOs) participate in planning and budgeting processes, their engagement is often limited to consultations and not sustained throughout the investment cycle.

In addition, BARMM manages significant development resources through mechanisms such as the Bangsamoro Block Grant and the Special Development Fund (SDF). To maximize the impact of these resources, stronger integration is needed between financing, planning, budgeting, and investment programming processes at both regional and local levels.

Given BARMMs unique governance and peacebuilding context, there is also a need to ensure that planning, budgeting, and investment programming processes are gender-responsive, conflict-sensitive, and climate-responsive so that investments promote inclusion, resilience, social cohesion, and sustainable development.

To address these challenges, UNDP seeks to engage an Individual Consultant (IC) to review and assess existing planning, budgeting, investment programming, and monitoring systems and recommend improvements that will strengthen planning-budget linkages, enhance Annual Investment Programming, improve coordination between regional institutions and LGUs, and support the institutionalization of participatory, evidence-based, gender-responsive, conflict-sensitive, and climate-responsive planning and budgeting practices across BARMM.

Qualifications:

• University degree in public financial management, public administration, economics, development planning, finance, organizational development, public policy, governance, or a closely related field. A relevant bachelors degree with substantial additional experience may be considered in lieu of an advanced degree, subject to UNDP requirements.

• Relevant certifications or specialized training in development planning, public financial management, budgeting, public investment management, governance, policy development, results-based management, organizational development, or related areas.

• Demonstrated experience in public financial management, including planning, budgeting, investment programming, expenditure management, accountability, and performance-management systems.

• Demonstrated experience in institutional assessment, organizational development, or public-sector governance, including capacity assessments involving multiple government institutions.

• Demonstrated experience in facilitation, report writing, analytical work, and stakeholder engagement.

• Demonstrated experience applying gender-responsive, inclusive, and conflict-sensitive approaches in development or governance initiatives.

• Demonstrated knowledge of BARMM governance arrangements, public financial management reforms, and relevant national planning, budgeting, and PFM frameworks.

• The consultant shall be proficient in writing as evidenced by submitted bid and sample works written in English.

Period of assignment/services: Fifty person days spread over five months 

Proposal should be submitted directly in the portal no later than indicated deadline.

Any request for clarification must be sent in writing via messaging functionality in the portal. UNDP will respond in writing including an explanation of the query without identifying the source of inquiry.

http://supplier.quantum.partneragencies.org  using the profile you may have in the portal. In case you have never registered before, you can register a profile using the registration link shared via the procurement notice and following the instructions in guides available in UNDP website: https://www.undp.org/procurement/business/resources-for-bidders.  Do not create a new profile if you already have one. Use the forgotten password feature in case you do not remember the password or the username from previous registration.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion are core principles at UNDP:  we value diversity as an expression of the multiplicity of nations and cultures where we operate, we foster inclusion as a way of ensuring all personnel are empowered to contribute to our mission, and we ensure equity and fairness in all our actions. Taking a ‘leave no one behind’ approach to our diversity efforts means increasing representation of underserved populations. People who identify as belonging to marginalized or excluded populations are strongly encouraged to apply. 

UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Women, individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence.

UNDP does not tolerate sexual exploitation and abuse, any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment, and discrimination. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks.