National PFM Support

In 2013, the Government of Lebanon opened its public education system to cater for the enormous numbers of refugee students. In 2017/2018, non-Lebanese students outnumbered Lebanese students in the public education system. The responsibility for educating all these students resides with the Lebanese Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MEHE) who, alongside a range of donors, launched the Reaching All Children with Education II (RACE II) programme in 2016.

The World Bank (WB) and Government of Lebanon (GoL), especially the Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MEHE), designed Support to RACE II (S2R2) to deliver on significant parts of RACE2 as the strategy relates to the formal education sector. S2R2 is designed to complement other work developed to support RACE II, such as activities planned and implemented with UNICEF, UNHCR and UNESCO.

In March 2018, a three-year technical assistance project was awarded to Oxford Policy Management, which will expand the TA facility to serve additional MEHE priority areas to achieve the objectives of RACE II through MEHE’s Support to RACE II (S2R2) programme. The TA team will support the Government of Lebanon to deliver the immediate objectives of the S2R2 programme while building the capacity, systems and processes which will underpin a medium-term sector development strategy.

During the next period, MEHE will be focused on preparing the 2020 reference budget so will be seeking to PFM support to the OPM Technical Assistance Core Team focused on regional education needs.

Scope and description of the Task

The successful candidate’s work will be to support MEHE to place good public financial management at the heart of its ongoing planning, budgeting and implementation processes. This will take the form of on-the-job support, mentoring and the provision of some small group training on specific components of good PFM practices across the planning, budgeting and reporting cycle.

This role will require close working with the relevant departments at MEHE as well as with the OPMTA PFM expert and support him on all budget preparation and execution tasks. The role will extend to training civil servants on completing the new budget forms, when needed.

Objectives and deliverables

Objectives:

The role objectives include:

• Assist the Accounting unit and the Senior PFM expert in Budget implementation including delivering trainings for MEHE relevant departments and REOs.
• Develop and instigate insights through statistical studies as per the request of the Team Lead to assist various MEHE projects. 
• Develop and update asset pricing for the use in procurement processes and in support of the budget filling process. 

Approach and Deliverables: The following is an indicative scope of the tasks expected which focuses on the below key areas:

The successful candidate must be detailed oriented, Microsoft Office proficient with a strong working knowledge of Excel, possess excellent verbal and written communication skills, and be proficient in handling high-level complex workloads in a deadline-oriented role. Must be capable to work independently, demonstrating superior problem-solving skills and be familiar with researching daily interface files while resolving discrepancies independently.

The specific deliverables include:

• Supporting the data collection process for the budget from MEHE and regional offices
• Supporting in consolidation of the budget forms into master budget
• Providing support in the development of training materials
• Providing support in linking the budget to MEHE strategy
• Developing and maintaining models for analysing key financial information
• Support in ensuring data integrity including verifying arithmetical computations
• Support in the Budget execution activities
• Fill and correct the Budget Forms

Candidate profile

Successful candidates will have:

• University degree qualification in either economics, accounting, public finance, development studies or an equivalent degree.
• At least three years of directly relevant experience in the field of public finance, accounting, budgeting, finance, statistics or equivalent fields.
• Ability to link the government fiscal policies to the budget process
• Ability to communicate effectively with the team members
• Ability to write financial reports
• Passion, motivation and ability to deliver high quality work to achieve impact
• Professional user of Microsoft Office products, specifically expert on excel and powerpoint.
• Fluency in English and Arabic is necessary, French is a plus

Approach and skills transfer plan

The consultant will become part of the OPMTA team, and work side by side with the Public Finance expert and the appropriate MEHE counterpart/s.