Terms of Reference (ToR) for Conducting Budget for Children Analysis at Federal Level

Terms of Reference (ToR) for Conducting Budget for Children Analysis at Federal Level

Date of Publication: 25th May 2023

Background

It has already been three decades since Nepal ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989. During this period, the key rights of children as enshrined in the Convention have been incorporated in the constitution, laws, policies and plans. Accordingly, the efforts made on institutional arrangements, programs, investments, cooperation, etc. are commendable. As a result, significant progress has been made in various indicators related to education, health, nutrition of children, including protection and participation. The contributions of the development partners in this regard is also praiseworthy. Despite these efforts and the results that have been achieved, it is still necessary to work tirelessly to ensure the full rights of children in course of ensuring the rights of children who need special protection, living under difficult circumstances, survivors of VAC. Similarly, Nepal has to achieve SDGs by 2030. Effective implementation of costing plan and financial strategy for SDGs  . Nepal is committed to end child marriage by 2030 and all form of child labour by 2025. It is committed to ensure child friendly governance in all local level by 2030, to ensure complete birth registration by 2023. To achieve these ends, effective, transparent and accountable investment on children is essential which is experienced insignificant in Nepal. There are policy guides for making investment on children for realization of enjoyment their rights at fullest, however it is still to have in Nepal. 

Nepal is a state party to UNCRC and other HR instruments. In order to fulfil children’s fundamental rights as set out in the UNCRC and meet international development goals, children’s rights need to be operationalized and provisions related to these need to be incorporated into national legal and policy frameworks. Just as importantly, these provisions need to be reflected in program and expenditure plans. As such, an analysis of a country’s budget—from formulation to execution—and monitoring of its public expenditure performance is a strong tool to hold the government accountable in terms of keeping its financing plans consistent with declared policy objectives and spending and managing financial resources allocated to priority areas appropriately. 

The Committee on the Rights of the Child consistently urges governments to take special measures and develop special policies and programmes for children. It recommends to increase the proportion of government spending on necessary policy and programme areas for children compared with spending on other areas which are not as high priority. A child-sensitive budget should include clear information on how the money spent on children is distributed. Similarly, it recommends to increase the proportion of the budget allocated to the social sectors, both from national resources and international aid, particularly when resources to these are not sufficient to meet children’s rights and to improve the revenue and the material, human and organizational resources available at central and local levels and assess how these resources can be applied in the best way possible.

Before federalism, there was a practice of allocating at least 10 percentage budget of local bodies for the program and activities directly benefitted to children. Similarly, the budget allocation was one of the key indicators from MCPM of local bodies. Despite the limitations experienced, it was institutionalized in local planning process. In federalism, this is not practiced anymore. Since the federalism in Nepal is based on coordination, cooperation and co-existence among three tiers of governance, it is not principally correct to fix the budget threshold in local level by federal government. It means local level are autonomous to allocate budget for sectoral development based on their socio-economic and geographical features. In reality, it is hardly practiced and the notion of development-that is investment in infrastructure is real meaning of development, overshadowed the social development. There were a number of local levels witnessed for null budget allocations for child related activities. It is hard to track the budget allocations in local levels who have allocated budget. LISA (Local Government Institutional Capacity Self-Assessment) is in practice for assessing the institutional capacity and performance of local level however it doesn’t cover the arenas of child rights and investment as well. The situation even worst in the provincial and federal level. There is no consistency among the annual plan and program and budget from child rights perspectives. Program related to child rights protection and promotion reflected in annual plan and program of federal and provincial government left out in budget and vice versa. 

In this ground, CZOP has continuously been engaged in budget for children analysis work and advocating for ensuring efficient and transparent investment for children in all level of governance. It has developed tools for budget analysis in federal, province and local level and executed accordingly. 

For more details, please click on the link below:

https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=1sE5KY4kvrDLFnUdhWubvl9eeuo5YlR8E

Consultant Specification

• At least Master’s Degree in Economics / Governance / Public Financial Systems with budget planning and experiences in budget planning, analysis especially for children.
• Experienced in generating revenues, reallocation of taxes and mobilization would be good.

Required Documents-

• CV(s) of the proposed consultant (s) with full information.
• For firms: Copies of- Firm registration certificate, VAT registration certificate, and latest tax clearance certificate. For firms that are tax exempted by the government, a copy of tax exemption certificate should be submitted.
• For Individuals: Copies of citizenship certificate and VAT registration certificate;

Last date of proposal submission and email address: 31 May 2023 @ czopp.central@gmail.com