Kenya: Budget Analysis Consultant

Social Protection Actors Forum (SPAF), Kenya.

Background

The Social Protection Actors Forum (SPAF) is a coalition of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and other Non-State Actors (NSAs) committed to support social protection in Kenya, through promotion of citizen’s engagement in the development, implementation and evaluation of social protection interventions in Kenya. SPAF advocates for the establishment of strong formal institutions for social protection in Kenya and is currently implementing an advocacy project whose overall objective is to ensure vulnerable populations realize social protection, and the right to social security as provided by the Constitution of Kenya. The project aims to stimulate demand for establishment of formal institutional frameworks to legally entrench social protection, enhance social services delivery and coverage.

SPAF conducts applied budget work to inform public policy making and investment in Social protection in Kenya and wishes to identify and articulate policy problems and concerns facing social protection in Kenya and will periodically research, analyze and publish information on policy developments and trends. This will ensure reduced ambiguity and enhanced focus on the most pertinent policy issues. The outputs of such analyses will be prepared and packaged to include viable policy alternatives developed with strong evidential support (quantitative and qualitative) to ensure the best chance of success for the advocacy agenda.

Applied budget work is critical to enabling citizen engagement with policy makers on matters relating to resource allocation and expenditure, including: transparency, accountability, participation, adequacy, priority, progress; and equity.

Purpose and Objectives

The purpose is to work with SPAF to raise the level of budget literacy among civil society, and bring in more people into the policy debate, thus enhancing the quality of the national budget with respect to social protection.

Specifically, the consultant will:

a. Lead in Budget Analysis by facilitating forum members, consultants and stakeholders to scrutinize the National Budget, so as to ascertain the extent to which fiscal allocations and expenditure reflect the government commitments to social protection;

b. Lead in the establishment of Public Expenditure Tracking project at the national and county levels, through which forum members, and civil society in general, can monitor public expenditure with a focus on efficiency, adequacy and coverage of social protection benefits;

c. Lead in the establishment of Participatory Budgeting model, through which communities can participate in preparation of budgets based on consultations at the County level.

Approach to the Assignment

Under the supervision of the SPAF National Coordinator and with technical support from Concern Worldwide Advocacy Programme Manager, It is expected that there will be two main areas of work:

a. Economic analysis of social protection in Kenya:
The position will perform or supervise application of advanced quantitative methods to assess the relationships between fiscal expenditure and indicators economic and social rights realization;

b. Advocacy:
Recommend an advocacy agenda to leverage increased public investment in social protection.

Outputs a. An Analysis report of the 2012/13 National Budget, with reference to challenges and opportunities for implementation of the National Social Protection Policy;

b. Expenditure tracking and participatory budgeting at county level.

Timeline The assignment is to be completed within a period of 5 months and is to commence in September 2012.

Consultant Profile 1. Masters degree in economics, public policy, international development policy 2. Strong quantitative skills, and competence in integrating qualitative findings into the analysis 3. 2 years minimum experience in social sector budget analysis 4. Demonstrable experience of working with and contributing to broader policy dialogue in order to identify key bottlenecks for investment in Social Protection 5. Experience of consulting and collaboration with senior government officials and stakeholders 6. Proven experience of conducting public expenditure reviews and translate analytical findings into practical policy suggestions 7. Strong facilitation and interpersonal skills 8. Fluent in English and Kiswahili.

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