Local Consultancy-Development of the 2nd statistical bulletin of the social protection sector in Jordan

1. General background

“Towards an inclusive national social protection system and accelerating decent job opportunities for Syrians and vulnerable Jordanians”, is a joint program between the ILO and UNICEF that is funded by the EU programme MADAD.

This ILO-UNICEF Joint Programme serves to support the implementation of the Jordanian National Social Protection Strategy (2019-2025). In addition, the project aims to support the GoJ in achieving a sustainable social protection system by supporting government institutions in building evidence towards enhanced evidence-based policymaking.

The project serves to achieve three outcomes:

• Outcome 1: Enhanced coordination, integrated planning, and monitoring for government-wide efforts in the social protection and employment sector
• Outcome 2: Strengthened national systems/mechanisms to enhance access to the labour market, decent work, and employment-based social protection schemes
• Outcome 3: Vulnerable Jordanians and Syrians transition from cash assistance to sustainable jobs

2. Background of the assignment: Why is a statistical bulletin needed

Policymakers in the Social Protection Sector in Jordan have a critical role in monitoring coverage, adequacy, and impact of the whole social protection system in Jordan. However, they lack adequate tools to a) understand the envelope of resources that the country is investing in Social Protection, b) assess coverage, comprehensiveness, and adequacy gaps from a system-wide perspective; c) understand the overall impact of the Social Protection system on poverty, inequality and vulnerability reduction.

The purpose of the Statistical Bulletin is to assist decision-makers in the SP sector in Jordan to be able to assess the whole Social Protection as one system and provide an overview of the coverage, adequacy, and expenditure over time.

This assignment aims to strengthen the capacity of national institutions to monitor social protection indicators and lay the foundations for the creation of comprehensive and integrated social protection statistical systems in Jordan.

The Bulletin will enable easy access to the most relevant data, promoting the use of data to guide national strategies and policies, and make Social Protection data accessible for a wide range of key stakeholders, both at the national and international level. The Statistical Bulletin covers indicators from across the country’s entire social protection system, covering both contributory and non-contributory schemes (as well as labour market interventions).

Further, Statistical Bulleting will facilitate informed social protection decision-making, based on concrete and comprehensive data, to improve the coverage of the system, its efficiency, and the impact of programmes for the benefit of the Jordanian population. The aim is to align with international statistical frameworks for social protection measurement and classification (e.g. IMF, OECD, ILO). Attention will be also devoted to developing statistical indicators, which are aligned with ILO Social Security standards and the Social protection floor framework.

The overall objective of the assignment is to improve the usage, accuracy, and robustness of national statistical data on social protection in Jordan by supporting national institutions in producing a statistical review of the social protection system. The production of a statistical bulletin aims also to improve transparency, support reproducibility, and lead to a harmonised and standardised reporting that will provide decision-makers with an overview of the Social Protection Sector in Jordan, this overview will include indicators in the field of coverage, adequacy and expenditure.

By providing an overview of all the National SP systems of Jordan, the Statistical Bulleting will assist in the coordination and informed decision making by responsible ministries and other stakeholders in the implementation of interventions and programs in the SP sector. The Bulletin will also contribute to the transparency of public management and provides visibility to ministries and other stakeholders and contributes to strengthening the weight of social protection in the national political agenda as well as provides data for national debates around SP. To ensure sustainability and strengthen the national reporting system there is a need to draw the data from national resources.

3. Objective and Scope of the assignment

The overall objective of the assignment is to support the Department of Statistics, MoPIC, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Social Development, National Aid Fund and Social Security Corporation, and the Statistical-working group on Social Protection to:

• Together with the Department of Statistics and Statistical working group to determine the scope, content, and frequency of the bulletin as well as to map the sources of information.
• To support the preparation and publishing of a statistical bulletin/ publication that presents consolidated statistics concerning the coverage of Jordan’s social protection system.
• Together with the Department of Statistics (DoS) and Statistical working group
  • Identify the gaps in SP data and how this data could be collected in the future
  • Identify whether there are areas where the quality of the data needs to be improved
  • Identify the areas where data harmonization is needed as well as how the concrete steps towards data harmonization of the data will be implemented
  • Identify the areas where capacity development is needed as well as providing capacity development and technical assistance on social protection statistics to agencies participating in the working group
• Together with the Statistical working group enhance and improve institutionalization of data sharing mechanisms. This work package may include drafting of general framework/ work plan for the Statistical Working group to regularly meet, share updates, and discuss the needs for improved data collection and reporting mechanisms and challenges.

4. Scope of work and methodology

• Develop an inception report with a detailed action plan and a clear timeline for the assignment. The report should highlight the methodology of the work, key assumptions, and sources of information. The inception report should include a desk review and be based on initial consultation with the Department of Statistics, MoPIC, and relevant stakeholder in the SP sector, including members of the Statistical working group, ILO, UNICEF, and others
• Together with the Department of Statistics and the technical working group agree on the data and indicators that will be used as well as support the process of gathering, compiling, and validating the data.
• Support the revision of protocols for data sharing, validation, and analyses through the Department of Statistics and members of the technical working group, to facilitate regular production of the bulletin.
• Provide training activities, and support experience exchanges, as well as on-site technical assistance for participating institutions.
• The consultant together with the Department of Statistics and the technical working group on statistics may hold face-to-face meetings as well as a more intense work “retreat” for the design and analysis of data, virtual meetings and emails for validation steps, and a WhatsApp/Signal group to solve urgent issues.
• It is envisaged that data and analysis at least in the following areas should be included in the Bulletin, drawing on a combination of administrative and expenditure information, as well as survey data when relevant:
  • Description of key social protection benefits
  • Characteristics of the population including elements such as poverty and vulnerability levels
  • The overall expenditure data of SP (disaggregated by the different SP pillars) as well as discussion on the developments and trends in expenditure
  • Overall coverage of the Social Protection systems and analysis of adequacy and comprehensiveness of benefits provided by the contributory and non-contributory schemes
  • Key indicators for specific populations such as children, old-age, disability
  • Wherever relevant the information should be disaggregated by sex, Governorates, age groups, disability status, employment status, and nationality
• Prepare presentations of key products designed for stakeholders’ engagement and feedback
• This work will be done together with the Statistical Working Group (SWG) and an international consultant. The SWG will provide much of the content, all the data as well as much of the data analysis. The role of the international consultant will be quality assurance, guidance and finalization of the deliverable. The role of the local consultant is to document the discussions during the workshops, ensure that SWG members are delivering the data that has been jointly agreed, and prepare the first drafts of the different reports together with the Statistical Working Group in Arabic and English.

5. Deliverables and Deadlines

Time frame: 7 months

Number of working days: 50 days

Below are the proposed deadlines distributed by deliverables:

Deliverables

Deliverable 1: Inception report –outlining conceptual framework, the proposed scope of the bulleting and key indicators, timeline, and plan for implementation, and finalizing it with the international consultant

Deadline: One month from signing the contract.

Planned number of days required is 5 days.

Deliverable 2: Review and update protocols and tools to facilitate own production of the bulletin by DOS and the TWG in the future and finalizing it with the international consultant. This work includes facilitating workshops needed with the TWG to update and reflect on the protocols, assuring all scope of work is covered.

Deadline: Five months from signing the contract

Planned number of days required is 20 days.

Deliverable 3: Statistical Bulletin for the Social Protection Sector in Jordan (developed for and in collaboration with the Dept. of Statistics and the Statistical Working Group ) in both Arabic and English, including graphic design and printing and organising the launch of the report, and finalizing it with the international consultant.

Deadline: Seven months from signing the contract

Planned number of days required is 25 days.

The development of the Statistical Bulletin will be built around the following workshop structure and the topics mentioned below:

Workshop 1: kick off workshop and planning meeting:

• Inter-institutional statistical working group established + identification of the focal points
• Main definitions and statistical concepts, and possible links to SDGs
• Reflection on the status of statistics in various ministries and identification of challenges and how to tackle the challenges in the near future.
• Agreeing on the structure of the Bulleting: Inventory of programs and benefits as well as identifying the gaps

In-between the workshops:

• Data compilation from agencies
• Fill in the gaps in the inventory
• Discuss challenges and feedback from group members

Workshop 2 (Possible content)

• Presentation of the filled-in inventory and validation of the info (presented by the consultant)
• Presentation of the possible indicators
• Development of the key national indicators

In-between the workshops:

• Processing and analysis of the data
• Producing estimates

Workshop 3

• Presenting the preliminary results, discussion, and validation
• Decision on the dissemination and communication channels and further use of data (report, bulletin, dashboard, internal database)

After the workshop

• Production of the communication/dissemination materials
• Launch of the report.

ILO and the consultant will jointly deliver the role of the workshops.

The role of the local consultant is to facilitate workshops, technical discussions, gather input from everybody, develop a template, and get feedback on the template and assist in the production of the report. However, it is important that the process is not supply-driven, but is led by the technical working group.

The consultant will be in charge of producing the deliverables in both English and Arabic.

6. Supervision:

The consultant will report to the social protection team at ILO.

7. Payment schedule:

The duration of the assignment will be eight months. Payment schedule is provided below which is according to the deliverables mentioned in the previous section. The consultant should follow the needed timeline to submit the deliverables considering necessary and adequate time (at least two weeks) to be allocated for review and quality assurance processes of the deliverables by Government counterparts, UNICEF and ILO teams. Payment is contingent on approval by the contract manager and will be made in four instalments.

• The consultant will only be paid upon satisfactory completion and approval of deliverables and upon receipt of signed invoices.
• No Advance payment to be made. Payments will be made against each milestone/ deliverable and only upon ILO’s acceptance of the work performed. The terms of payment are Net 30 days, after receipt of invoice and acceptance of work. Payment will be effected by bank transfer in the currency of billing.
• Deliverable/s

Deliverable 1: One Month from signing the contract, 20% of the total contract

Deliverable 2: Five Months from signing the contract, 20 % of the total contract

Deliverable 3: Eight Months from signing the contract, 60 % of the total contract

8. Confidentiality:

The consultant will sign a contract with International Labor Organization that contains clauses on confidentiality and non-disclosure.

9. Profile of the consultant and desired qualifications:

The Statistical Bulletin is planned to be compiled by an international expert who has experience in social protection, statistical work, and policy analysis.

The local consultant will work closely together with the international consultant.

The Jordanian expert should have at least a master’s degree in social protection, social studies, public policy, development studies, economics, or a related field, and at least ten years of experience in managing research projects and similar assignments with experiences related to monitoring and evaluation systems, and social protection indicators.

The Jordanian expert should have a good understanding of the statistics, data, and reports generated by the department of statistics, a good understanding on how different ministries work and interact in the field of social protection as well as good understanding of Jordanian social protection polices and understand the social protection responses during COVID-19 crisis as well as experience on poverty reduction and employment policies. The Jordanian expert should also have the capacity to analyze the social protection data and show demonstrated experience in the field of work and coordination with different ministries and government institutions working in the field, with a focus on high level of coordination between local organizations and international organizations to synergies all different point of views.

Further, the following qualifications are required from the Jordanian consultant:

• Excellent analytical, report writing, and communication skills in English and Arabic for some key members of the study team.
• Excellent interpersonal communication skills.
• Proven ability to work within limited time constraints in the preparation of high-quality documents.
• Fluency in English language (reading / speaking / writing).

10. Contract Management and Performance Reviews

Ongoing performance review, strategic direction, key deliverables, and progress discussions will take place with ILO on monthly basis (or based on need). The expert will work closely with both the ILO Social Protection team, MoPIC and DoS representatives, and key stakeholders in the social protection sector in Jordan. The local consultant will also work in close co-operation with the focal points of the ministries to lead a process of consultations with the members of the Statistical working group, the international community as well as involving non-government stakeholders like implementers of SP programs and social partners as relevant to reflect on challenges and opportunities with social protection developments in Jordan. The final report is to be presented to the chair of the statistical working group with technical oversight provided by ILO and DoS.