Terms of reference (TOR)

PFM knowledge hub update

Project / PFM knowledge Hub
Objective / Assist CABRI with the regular update of the PFM knowledge hub

Background

CABRI provides support to African budget officials and public financial management (PFM) practitioners in developing and implementing functional approaches to reform initiatives, to strengthen their public financial management systems. CABRI provides a platform for members to exchange experiences and learn from each other in an environment that fosters a common understanding of shared problems in PFM reforms.

The PFM Knowledge Hub is CABRI’s online platform for knowledge on public finance management issues (www.cabri-sbo.org). It allows CABRI to better disseminate its core products, such as reports, blogs, events and documents. A key element of the PFM knowledge Hub is the Budget enquirer, a sophisticated search tool that allows users to navigate through a database/repository of budget information for African countries. This repository of country budget documents allows senior budget officials to use and benefit from the information, compare and contrast budget documentation, providing incentives for greater transparency on the continent. This pool of information also allows CABRI to build an evidence base of African budgets and to undertake analysis on trends, patterns and differences in budget transparency practices and fiscal policy across the continent. The development of the hub is a key priority for CABRI, in order to establish itself as a centre of expertise for PFM knowledge.

Objective of the assignment

CABRI, through a grant agreement with the AfDB, is seeking a service provider to assist in updating and developing the PFM knowledge hub by identifying, collecting, categorising and indexing new budget documentation to be uploaded on the PFM knowledge hub. CABRI has collected budget documentation of 53 African countries since 2010, until October 2016, which is already publicly and freely available in the PFM knowledge hub[1].

Process and tasks of the service provider[2]

The service provider will be responsible for the following tasks, undertaken each quarter and for a maximum period of 3 years, until December 2019.

1.  Quarterly identify and collect government budget documentation information of 53 African countries[3], through Ministry of Finance, Auditor General and other websites as well as internet searches.

1.1.  Time period of the budget documents:

·  Budget documentation of 53 African countries, since October 2016, and subsequently, collection will be done on a quarterly basis. In addition, a review and collection of any outstanding budget documents in the hub since 2010 will be made and consequently collected.

1.2.  Types of budget documents:

Freely and publicly available budget documents, that relate to the budget formulation, approval, execution and oversight phases of the budget cycle, as well as legislature. These documents may be available on the internet. The table below presents a non-exhaustive list of documents to be collected.

Budget cycle / External document / Internal document
Formulation / Pre-budget statement
Executive’s Budget Proposal
Budget speeches
Fiscal/macro policy frameworks
Medium term expenditure frameworks
Estimates of national expenditure / Budget call circulars
Treasury guidelines
Budget calendars
Approval / Enacted Budget
Adjusted and supplementary budgets
Citizen’s Budget
Execution / In-year reports
Mid-year reports
Year-end reports
Oversight / Audit reports (consolidated)
Legislation / Public finance legislation: PFMA, MFMA
Other / Budget data
National plans
Debt strategies / Long-term reports
Risk reports

2.  Quarterly organisation, categorisation and indexing of government budget information, based on an indexing system developed by the CABRI team.

3.  Quarterly update of existing country profiles of 53 African countries, consisting of around 20 key economic indicators and/or country facts. Those include: GDP, inflation, government revenue and expenditure, budget balance, primary balance, general government.

4.  Quarterly update of existing matrixes of information accessibility for 53 African countries. The matrix of information accessibility allows CABRI to develop time series data on country budget information accessibility online over time, and to monitor progress by countries in transparency.

Required skills and experience

The service provider will meet the following requirements:

·  Undergraduate degree in Economics or related field

·  Strong knowledge of public finance management and understanding of a budget process

·  Experience in research and data gathering

·  Strong capacity in data management;

·  Strong knowledge of Microsoft office (i.e. Excel and Word)

·  Strong interpersonal skills.

·  Working knowledge of English and;

·  Working knowledge of French and/or Portuguese preferred

Contract Specifications

1. Place of assignment

The service provider will be required to attend regular meetings, at CABRI’s offices in Centurion, Pretoria for the duration of the assignment.

2. Duration of the assignment

The present project envisages a duration of 140 full working days over a period of 3 years. The contract duration will run from the 2nd of January 2017 until the 31st of December 2019.

3. Terms & conditions

The terms of the contract will follow CABRI’s rules and procedures. Payments will be made after the full completion of each output as described in annexure A.

The service provider shall submit original invoices and payments will be made following prior approval of services to be performed and submission of outputs in line with milestones agreed to in the contract. Depending on the timeliness and quality of the deliverables, the CABRI Secretariat reserves the right to limit the scope of, or terminate the assignment at any stage.

4. Applications

Companies/individuals should indicate their interest by submitting a technical and a financial proposal. On the technical side, it should provide a company profile and include the CV’s of the team assigned to the project, highlighting their relevant and recent experience and qualifications.

On the financial side, the proposal should present the total budget required for the assignment, with a breakdown between fees and expenses and indicating the number of days for each member of the team. Proposals should be submitted to the CABRI secretariat via e-mail to Joana Bento and Moustapha Doukoure ( and ), respectively PFM Specialist and the Programme Manager at the CABRI Secretariat.

The deadline for submitting the proposals is 5pm (GMT+2) on Wednesday the 14th of December 2016.

Shortlisted applications may be invited to attend and interview at our offices in Centurion.

If you do not hear back from us after 2 weeks of close of tender, you may consider your application unsuccessful.

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Annexure A: Roles, responsibilities and deliverables of the service provider

Quarterly roles and responsibilities / Deliverables / Frequency
·  Identify and collect government budget documentation of 53 African countries through Ministry of Finance, Auditor General, and other websites:
·  Organise and index budget documents based on an existing indexing system
·  Update country profile pages of 53 African countries,
·  Update matrix of accessibility of budget documents of 53 African countries / ·  Fortnightly update presentations during the quarterly collection
·  Updated data base of budget documents of 53 African countries
o  Flat database of budget documents
o  Filed database of budget documents
·  Updated excel spreadsheet of 53 African countries
o  Indexing of budget documents
o  Country profiles
·  Matrix of accessibility of budget documents of 53 African countries / Quarterly
Output / Deliverable / Timeline
1 / 1.1 Inception meeting with a project work plan presentation, including methodology
1.2 Quarterly deliverable for 53 African countries / 1.1 6th of January 2017
1.2  1st of February 2017
2 / 2.1  Quarterly deliverable for 53 African countries (see table above) / 2nd of May 2017
3 / 3.1  Quarterly deliverable for 53 African countries (see table above) / 1st of August 2017
4 / 4.1  Quarterly deliverable for 53 African countries (see table above) / 1st of November 2017
5 / 5.1  Quarterly deliverable for 53 African countries (see table above) / 1st of February 2018
6 / 6.1  Quarterly deliverable for 53 African countries (see table above) / 2nd of May 2018
7 / 7.1  Quarterly deliverable for 53 African countries (see table above) / 1st of August 2018
8 / 8.1  Quarterly deliverable for 53 African countries (see table above) / 1st of November 2018
9 / 9.1  Quarterly deliverable for 53 African countries (see table above) / 1st of February 2019
10 / 10.1 Quarterly deliverable for 53 African countries (see table above) / 2nd of May 2019
11 / 11.1 Quarterly deliverable for 53 African countries (see table above) / 1st of August 2019
12 / 12.1 Quarterly deliverable for 53 African countries (see table above) / 1st of November 2019

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Annexure B: Summary of countries in the PFM knowledge hub

Group / Country
Group A
Existing countries in the PFM knowledge hub as of 28th of June 2016 / Morocco, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Rwanda, Seychelles, Tanzania, Uganda, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Liberia, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, The Gambia
Group B
Expected add date: 28th November 2016 / Benin
Tunisia
Egypt
Cape Verde
Swaziland
Cameroon
Algeria
Angola
Gabon
Mauritania
Niger
Sao Tome e Principe
Togo
Djibouti
Sudan
Burundi
Guinea
Chad
Comoros
Democratic Republic of Congo
Equatorial Guinea
Guinea-Bissau
Libya
South Sudan
Eritrea

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[1] Check annexure B for more detail on countries in the PFM knowledge hub

[2] Refer to annexure A for more detail on the roles, responsibilities and outputs of the service provider as well as a timeline for those activities

[3]