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Introduction

Country: Philippines

 

Description of the Assignment: 

With the ongoing and continuing UN Reform, the United Nations System in the Philippines is prepared to comply with the mandate of the UN Sustainable  Development Group to simplify and harmonize the systems and procedures for transferring cash to its programme implementation partners in the country.   The same is demanded by donors consistent with the harmonization principle of the Paris Declaration for Aid Effectiveness. 

 

The key messages behind the harmonization and simplification of cash transfer are, as follows:

 

1.     The need to increase overall effectiveness of interventions by focusing more on programme needs than administrative processes;

2.     Switch emphasis from a “system of controls” to “risk management” approach;

3.     Decreases complexity of procedures; and

4.     Reduces transaction costs for governments.

 

The four modes of “cash transfers” which may apply under various UN programmes in the country are as follows:

 

1.     Direct Cash Transfer for future obligations (‘advances’);

2.     Direct Payment to vendors and other third parties;

3.     Reimbursement to national partners for incurred expenditures; and

4.     Direct Agency Implementation in support of activities agreed in the Annual Work Plan.

 

The first activity under the effort to harmonize the procedure for cash transfer is the conduct of a macro-assessment of the country’s public financial management.  To ensure adequate awareness of the public financial management (PFM) environment in which agencies provide cash transfers to IPs, a desk review of assessments of the PFM system will be conducted.

 

The term ‘PFM’ in the harmonized approach to cash transfers (HACT) framework is broadly defined to include a range of considerations for operating within the country; it is not limited solely to the financial environment but also includes national procurement capacity, exchange rate volatility, presence of informal/black markets, etc.

 

 The two primary outputs of the macro assessment are:

1.     An outline of the risks related to use of the PFM for cash transfers within the country by governmental IPs, as well as other country-specific knowledge for non-governmental IPs; and

2.     A determination on whether the government’s supreme audit institution (SAI) has the capacity to undertake scheduled and special audits of government IPs.

 

 The UN is therefore in need of an expert who will conduct this assessment, with the intention of achieving the following:

 

·       Capacity development objective: The review should help the UN and the Philippine Government identify the strengths and weaknesses in the country’s Public Financial Management (PFM), as well as determine the various areas for capacity development by government and others; and

 

·       Financial management objective: The review (in combination with the assessments of government Implementing Partners) should assist the UN in the establishment of appropriate cash transfer modalities, procedures, and assurance activities to be applied by the UN Agencies. The review establishes the capacity of the Supreme Audit Institution (SAI) or locally known as the Commission on Audit (COA) to undertake audits of cash transfers provided to “low risk” Implementing Partners. For NGO partners, the macro assessment should be able to evaluate the existing NGO certification process, including UN agencies’ internal accreditation processes, on whether or not this can be utilized to assess “risk” related to implementation of UN programmes. The study will also look into existing tools of government or NGO that could provide information for a risk assessment.

 

The assessment does not intend to provide “pass or fail” to implementing partners, nor provide a risk rating to Implementing Partners, but rather to provide a background info for micro-assessments, and to determine whether or not the National SAI can conduct audits of implementing partners.

 

C.    Scope of Work

 

The assessment is based primarily on work on PFM conducted by development partners.  Examples of such reports include Assessment by World Bank and ADB.

 

The review covers areas of the national budget development and execution process, implementation of Single Treasury Account (and its impact to the cash transfer to Government) the functioning of the public sector accounting and internal control mechanisms, audit and oversight, and financial recording systems and staff qualifications. Part of the study would be an evaluation of the capacity of COA, DBM, DOF, and existing NGO certification process to make a credible risk assessment of partners. New tools of government should be evaluated. The assessment will also look at the Treasury Single Account implementation in the cash transfer of UN and Development Agencies to Philippine Government Partners.

 

Methodology

 

The assessment begins with the collection of existing PFM reviews and will also consider the Agencies’ own experience and knowledge of the PFM. The assessment reviews the existing documentation and Agencies’ experience and summarizes the findings on the risks related to the use of PFM systems for cash transfers within the country in the macro assessment checklist.

 

A draft report should be prepared, and then shared and validated with government officials and the institutions who provided the materials used in the review.

 

D.    Expected Outputs and Deliverables

 

Deliverables/ Outputs	Estimated Duration to Complete	Target Due Dates	Review and Approvals Required (Indicate designation of person who will review output and confirm acceptance)
Inception Report	5 working days	1 week after contract signing	UN OMT Finance Task Team, UNRCO and UNCT
1st Draft and Presentation	20 working days	2 weeks after submission of inception report	UN OMT Finance Task Team, UNRCO and UNCT
Final Report	10 working days	2 weeks after presentation to UN Country Team (UNCT)	UN OMT Finance Task Team, UNRCO and UNCT

 

1.     Inception Report – detailed proposal with methodology and timetable

2.     Draft and final reports of about four pages (excluding annexes) and conclude with a completed table of the risk areas.   The report should include:

 

·       Objective of the review and statement of process and participating institutions;

·       Summary of findings—to address each of the issues identified in checklist;

·

Documents :

Negotiation Document(s) (Before Accessing other negotiations Document(s), please click on this link)