Assignment Title: DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF M&E MECHANISM FOR RIS3 AND INDUSTRIAL POLICY IMPLEMENTATION
Reference No. (as per Procurement Plan): 3A.3.3.
Serbia has received a loan from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (Bank) in the amount of EUR 89,500,000 to improve the competitiveness and employment toward the cost of the Competitiveness and Jobs Project (Project) and intends to apply part of the proceeds to for consulting services.
The scope of the assignment for consulting services includes:
Background:
Objective: In view of the Project’s main goal to improve Serbia’s competitiveness (including through strengthening investment and enterprise development/export promotion services, developing sector specific action plans, supporting innovative entrepreneurship, and improving labor market), it is noted that more broadly this goal is highly relevant in Serbia’s accession to EU process – in particular in the context of the Chapter 20 (Enterprise and Industrial Policy) negotiations. The sectoral industrial analyses produced under the previous Component 2 (Investment and Export Promotion) of the Project have tackled the four sectors, laying the foundation for development of more concrete measures and addressing another four intensively. The reports indicate that the precondition for developing specialist knowledge and advancing the design and implementation of sectoral policies is a significant improvement in the quality of economic statistics and analytics available to the public.
To continue working on industrial policies, the Project envisions several lines of expert interventions, such as working on the smart specialization strategy (S3[1]), with a continuous public-private dialogue between the four spheres of a modern, innovative society (the so-called quadruple helix) – academia, government, private sector and civil society; strengthening the M&E functions, research and analytics contributing to and following-up on the horizontal effects of the Project; and strengthening the original expertise on the Project with adequate legal support, to be able to efficiently respond to a need for improved policy and changes in legislation.
The objective of this process is therefore to develop and improve the stakeholder consultation mechanism in order to extract more comprehensive, grass-roots-inspired policy inputs for evidence-based policy development and implementation. This mechanism is designed as a Smart Specialization Strategy preparation process that works via partnerships and bottom-up approach, bringing together local authorities, academia, business spheres and the civil society to identify and exploit a country’s own specific competitive advantages. It will further be used for the development of industrial policy, but also as a monitoring and evaluation tool in RIS3 implementation.
The Development Objective of the Project demands higher quality of the policy in removing obstacles to increased competitiveness and jobs. To that end, the implementation structure of the Project is grounded in horizontal analytics in all of the components, serving the continuous monitoring and evaluation of measures, with an aim of feeding back the evidence into the implementation process and producing a horizontal effect onto policy making. To this end, after the Restructuring of the Project, M&E and analytical expertise on the Project was substantially strengthened by establishment of strong analytical support in service of monitoring and evaluation on the Project components, feeding back the evidence into implementation and facilitating horizontal effects to policy measures. This mechanism is designed to work across all of the remaining three components in a form of an analytical team evenly distributed throughout the components, as well as M&E impact evaluation specialists, who are providing additional support in evaluation of the outcomes and impact, by making sure the results of monitoring of the activities are built back into the process of policy development and implementation.
As it is already recognized by the Government and the Prime Minister’s Office, an M&E system should be regarded as a long-term, as opposed to sporadic effort for a short period or for the duration of a specific project, program, or policy. Sustaining such systems within the Government recognizes the long-term process involved in ensuring utility. The objectives of this assignment are to develop the methodology with the instruments and the appropriate work plan for M&E of the public policies beyond the Project, but highly relevant to its Development Objective, assess the potential for evaluation of each of the processes (subjects of evaluation, target groups, stakeholders, resources needed), design the evaluation mechanism, implementation and reporting. Currently, the central Government does not posses strong capacities in the subject matter, it is necessary to engage services of the local Consulting firm (herein after: the Consultant) for this assignment.
Activities: The scope of work and deliverables for the Consultant includes the following tasks and deliverables:
Deliverable 1 (to be delivered 2 weeks after the contract signing) – Methodology
Develop the methodology with the instruments and the appropriate work plan for M&E of the public policies relevant to the Project
Deliverable 2 (to be delivered 4 weeks after the contract signing) – Evaluation potential
Assess the potential for evaluation of each of the processes:
- subjects of evaluation,
- target groups,
- stakeholders,
- resources needed.
Deliverable 3 (to be delivered 8 weeks after the contract signing) – Design
Design the evaluation mechanism
- Draft of the evaluation mechanism
- Round of consultations with the stakeholders
- Final version of the evaluation mechanism
Deliverable 4 (to be delivered 12 weeks after the contract signing) – Implementation: Readiness Assessment
Conducting Readiness Assessment: assess organizational capacity and political willingness to monitor and evaluate its goals, and develop a performance-based framework. Incentives and demands for designing and building a results-based M&E system. Roles and responsibilities and existing structures for assessing performance. How will the M&E system link project, sector and national goals.
Deliverable 5 (to be delivered 16 weeks after the contract signing) – Implementation: Outcomes to monitor and evaluate
Issues to consider in choosing outcomes to monitor and evaluate. Building a participatory consultative
process involving main stakeholders: identify specific stakeholder representatives; identify major concerns of stakeholders; translate problems into statements of possible outcome improvements.
Deliverable 6 (to be delivered 20 weeks after the contract signing) – Implementation: Selecting Key Performance Indicators to monitor outcomes
Translating outcomes into outcome indicators. Identifying proxy indicators. Setting indicators to track progress toward their development goals.
Deliverable 7 (to be delivered 24 weeks after the contract signing) – Implementation: Setting baselines and gathering data on indicators
Establishing baseline data on indicators. Building baseline information. Identifying data sources for indicators. Designing and comparing data collection methods. Data collection.
Deliverable 8 (to be delivered 28 weeks after the contract signing) – Implementation: Planning for improvement – selecting results targets
Definition of targets. The overall performance-based framework (completed matrix of outcomes, indicators, baselines, and targets).
Deliverable 9 (to be delivered 32 weeks after the contract signing) – Implementation: Monitoring for results
Key principles in building the monitoring system. Implementation monitoring and results monitoring (both important in tracking results). Links between implementation monitoring and results monitoring (ownership, management, maintenance). Data quality: reliability, validity and timeliness. Analyzing performance data. Pretesting data collection instruments and procedures.
Deliverable 10 (to be delivered 36 weeks after the contract signing) – Implementation: Using evaluation information to support a results-based management system
Strategy: are the right things being done? Rationale or justification; Clear theory of change.
Operations: are things being done right? Effectiveness in achieving expected outcomes; Efficiency in optimizing resources; Client satisfaction.
Learning: are there better ways? Alternatives; Best practices; Lessons learned.
Deliverable 11 (to be delivered 44 weeks after the contract signing) – Implementation: Reporting the findings
Uses of monitoring and evaluation findings; knowing the audiences and targeting the appropriate information to those audiences; presentation of performance data in clear and understandable form.
Deliverable 12 (to be delivered 52 weeks after the contract signing) – Implementation: Using the findings
Performance findings. Strategies for sharing information.
Deliverable 13 (to be delivered 60 weeks after the contract signing) – Implementation: Sustaining the M&E system
Critical components of sustaining results-based M&E. Possible problems in sustaining results-based M&E. Validating and evaluating M&E systems and information.
Deliverable 14 (to be delivered 65 weeks after the contract signing) – Reporting
Reporting on the M&E mechanism. Reporting on implementation.
Duration: The Consultant is expected to be engaged for a period of 65 weeks with approximately time effort of 325 man days.
The Terms of Reference for this assignment can be found at the following link: https://bit.ly/2lEasSl
The PIU of the PPS now invites eligible Consultants to indicate their interest in providing the services. Interested Consultants should provide information demonstrating that they have the required qualifications and relevant experience to perform the services.
The shortlisting criteria are:
The Consultant must possess following qualifications:
- Be a legal entity
- At least five (5) years of general experience in project management and implementation.
- At least five (5) years of specific experience in providing similar services in Western Balkan countries.
- The Consultant should have capacity to assign a qualified and experienced team that will work on this assignment including at least one Lead Expert, one Senior M&E Expert and two M&E Specialists.