Engagement of Consultant for Public Finance Analysis/Budget Monitoring Training of Trainers for Staff at Plan International April, 2024

Purpose of the Consultancy Assignment:

Plan International Nigeria in its new strategy, recognises the interplay of different aspects of governance in the ability of the government, the state, and its institutions to attend to issues affecting the citizens, especially children, girls, and women. In the new strategy, Girls Are Empowered to Take Action and Drive Change, it states in part that “The current situation of child rights and gender equality for girls in Nigeria is influenced by the interplay of a range of social, legal, economic, environmental, technological, and political factors. Whilst there have been legal and policy reforms which have influ­enced some small but significant shifts in awareness and prac­tices, there are still significant gaps between policies and imple­mentation”. These gaps as further illustrated by the strategy include “Weak po­litical will, inadequate resources, and capacity required for policy and practice impact”. Taking a prime place among these challenges is the commitment of resources to addressing issues of concern, appropriation for gender-responsive capital projects and services and cash backing at the appropriate moments. This, thus means that intervention agencies such as Plan International Nigeria and others like it must of necessity, pay attention to budgetary processes, i.e. from envelopes development to budget defence, approval, assent, and implementation.

If there are issues with the budgetary process and the proposals contained in the appropriation bills at the federal and states levels, implementation of the budgets and the budget performances are also issues of great concern. Much of the attention in public finance analyses are devoted to the scrutiny of the proposed budgets, with limited or near-zero attention to the implementation of the budgets. It is in the monitoring of the implementation perhaps that the relevance of the budget to the people, the purposefulness of the budget, and its intention could be gleaned.

The relevance of a budget to national development and the aspirations of citizens across the different states is significant and the defence of the rights of citizens or the viability of a rights-based approach to social interventions is also tied to the existence of a budget conscious of the developmental needs of the citizens. This is so, as the budget serves as a crucial tool for governments to allocate resources, prioritise spending, and achieve broader economic and social goals. For any meaningful intervention by any NGO or other intervention agencies, there is need to have capacity for budget engagement, familiarity with the budgetary process, and support of the citizens and their agencies to do same.

It is in line with this that a Training of Trainers is planned for selected staff of Plan International Nigeria at the field offices and the country office.

To ensure that the training is fit for purpose and deliver on its intention of capacity building of staff to step down the training to other staff, partners and youth platforms, the services of a lead trainers and other support will be accessed.

Specific Scope:

• Plan International Nigeria is seeking consultant to support capacity building of selected staff picked from the field offices and the country office in a Training of Trainers in Public Finance Analysis and Budget Tracking. The staff so trained, are expected after the training to have the capacity to train other staff, partner organizations, and representatives of young people organizations we work with.

Roles and Responsibilities of Consultants

• Design, draft, and implement a comprehensive three-day training scheme that would provide trainees insight into budgetary processes and procedures, institutions and structures involved in budgetary processes and their roles.
• Ensure the training manual is disseminated to the appropriate team members at Plan International Nigeria prior to the training session.
• Build capacity of participants on basics elements of budgets and of budget analysis, structures and understanding the variances in budget expenses and revenue.
• Participate in and lead relevant sessions on Public Finance Analyses and Budgetary Advocacy.

Expose participants to basic elements and characters of citizen-centred and gender-responsive budgetary process and budget.

• Support participants to create actionable plans to promote Public Finance Analysis and Budget Advocacy

Deliverables, Time Frame and Level of Effort

The period of the contract will be expected to cover a maximum of four days as per agreed upon timeline. The consultants are expected to carry out all the preparations required to facilitate the training as per the suggested time frame below: