PFM Delivery Lead - Support Economic Reform

Expertise to Support Economic Reform in Sierra Leone:
PFM Delivery Lead

Job Title: PFM Delivery Lead

Reports To: Project Leader

Manages: All short-term consultants from ASI’s expert pool engaged under the PFM and Revenue Component

Location: Freetown, Sierra Leone

Level of Effort: Full-time consultancy

Start Date: Now

Background

Adam Smith International (ASI) is implementing the FCDO-funded Expertise to Support Economic Reform in Sierra Leone (ESER) programme. The objectives of the ESER programme are two-fold:

1. Provide high-quality public financial management and tax expertise to the government of Sierra Leone (GoSL) to support the development and implementation of policy, regulatory and organisational reforms, leading to greater integrity, more efficiency, better control of public spending and increased tax revenue. The programme aims to help ensure GoSL needs to borrow less to achieve a given level of development impact, decreasing the fiscal deficit and in turn incentivising further investment and growth through macroeconomic stability.
2. Provide high-quality investment expertise to the GoSL to support policy and regulatory reform processes to reduce barriers to responsible investment and support effective prioritisation and planning of infrastructure investment deals. This aims to improve the investment climate and increase the number of bankable projects developed, thereby attracting higher levels of responsible investment in key areas. Where possible the programme will also support the progress of individual transactions to help them move more quickly towards financial closure.

Together, steps taken intend to contribute to higher and more inclusive growth through more responsible investment and greater macroeconomic stability. As a wider over-arching objective, the programme seeks to promote good governance in Sierra Leone.

The programme is structured under two key components, each of which comprises a portfolio of interventions. The two components are (i) the Public Financial Management (PFM) and Revenue Component; and (ii) the Infrastructure Investment Component.

ASI is recruiting for a PFM Delivery Lead to join the ESER team on a full-time basis in Freetown, Sierra Leone.

Position

The PFM Delivery Lead – working in close partnership with the PFM Team Lead – will be responsible for overseeing the effective design, coordination and delivery of the PFM and Revenue Component of the ESER programme. He/she will be responsible for the following key tasks:

1. Producing high quality terms of reference for technical assistance and complementary input interventions relating to the PFM and Revenue Component. The PFM Delivery Lead will draft terms of reference and work with the PFM Team Lead to ensure consistency within the full intervention portfolio and that this portfolio makes the greatest possible contribution to the programme’s PFM and revenue objectives.[1]
2. Managing the implementation and delivery of all activities under the PFM and Revenue Component interventions, ensuring that interventions are consistently delivered to the required standard. This will include:
   • Working with the ESER Programme Manager to identify and deploy consultants with the required expertise to deliver interventions;
   • Providing oversight of their work on an ongoing basis; and
   • Quality assuring all deliverables and outputs.
3. Working with the PFM Team Lead and the Project Leader, supporting and coordinating the programme’s engagement with key GoSL stakeholders relevant to the PFM and Revenue Component.
4. Leading and coordinating the programme’s engagement and relationships with all other key stakeholders relevant to the PFM and Revenue Component, including development and donor partners, private sector organisations and civil society.
5. Working with the Project Leader, ensuring that FCDO is kept informed on technical and other delivery issues related to the PFM and Revenue Component.
6. Working with the Project Leader, ensuring activities under the PFM and Revenue Component are implemented in line with ASI’s delivery principles and in compliance with the overarching programme contract.

Specific responsibilities include the following:

1. Supporting the PFM Team Lead with all scoping work under the PFM and Revenue Component.
2. Supporting the PFM Team Lead with managing the Intervention Request Tracker, and the formal process for GoSL requesting interventions and ASI/FCDO responding.
3. Working with the PFM Team Lead, leading on the development, implementation and monitoring of (i) the strategy for the programme’s work on PFM and revenue/tax; and (ii) workplans for all interventions under the PFM and Revenue Component.
4. Working with the PFM Team Lead and the MEL Lead, devising appropriate output/outcome/impact indicators for all PFM and Revenue Component interventions (including ensuring the feasibility of timely measurement of performance) and monitoring and reporting against these on an ongoing basis, including via monthly and quarterly progress reports.
5. Working with the PFM Team Lead and the Project Leader, ensuring that all interventions align with relevant GoSL strategies (e.g. the PFM Reform Strategy; the Medium Term Revenue Strategy; GoSL’s Memorandum of Economic & Financial Policies under its new IMF programme) and have been explicitly demanded by GoSL (either proactively on their own initiative or in response to a suggestion from ASI).
6. Ensuring the programme’s work on PFM and revenue/tax retains the flexibility to adapt to evolving needs and the political economy context in Sierra Leone.
7. Leading on the development of terms of reference for each intervention under the PFM and Revenue Component, including:
   • coordination of engagement with/input from the relevant GoSL counterparts, development and donor partners, and all other stakeholders;
   • ensuring intervention terms of reference meet the criteria set out under the programme’s ‘Strategic Intervention Selection’ KPI and ‘DP Coordination’ KPI;
   • obtaining required approvals from FCDO on the terms of reference; and
   • identification and recruitment of any consultants to be engaged on the interventions.
8. Coordinating and managing the implementation of all interventions under the PFM and Revenue Component, ensuring they are delivered in line with FCDO-approved terms of reference and that they perform as intended against the output/outcome/impact trackers in intervention terms of reference.
9. Directly managing all consultants working on the PFM and Revenue Component, ensuring their work is conducted in line with the relevant terms of reference and their contracts. This includes providing quality assurance of all outputs and deliverables and coordinating the review of all outputs and deliverables by GoSL, FCDO and other stakeholders as required.
10. Working closely with the Project Leader and the Programme Manager, developing and monitoring accurate budgets for each intervention under the PFM and Revenue Component.
11. Supporting the Project Leader and the MEL team on all MEL activities related to the PFM and Revenue Component, including programme quarterly and annual reporting to FCDO.
12. Working closely with the PEA Adviser and other team members as required, ensuring the programme’s PEA analysis is kept up to date and that any relevant changes/updates are shared with the wider ESER team.
13. Ensuring that 'bottom-up' PEA is integrated into the design and delivery of all PFM and Revenue Component interventions, working closely with and drawing on the knowledge/understanding of the PFM Team Lead and PEA Adviser, including ensuring this is explicitly integrated into intervention ToR.
14. Ensuring that PFM and Revenue Component interventions support locally appropriate solutions to specific problems, rather than chasing best practices, and making clear this is the case in intervention ToR.
15. Ensuring that PFM and Revenue Component interventions build rather than substitute capacity, both in how they are designed and delivered in practice, and reflecting this in output/outcome/impact indicators.
16. Alongside FCDO’s PFM and Revenue Technical Lead and HMRC’s adviser embedded in the National Revenue Authority, attending meetings of the Development Partner Coordination Group on Macro/PFM/Revenue.