Economic Development Expert for the National Impact Assessment

Background

In the past decade, Tajikistan has experienced several economic downturns, including the banking sector crisis and negative implications of the COVID-19 pandemic. The country has recorded one of the highest economic growth rates among countries in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and Eastern Europe during 2010-2021, but the economy and its labor market continue to be exposed to external risks, particularly through trade and remittances channels. The country struggles to maintain the gains from past efforts aimed at reducing poverty and vulnerability. The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated that the private sector and livelihoods were significantly and negatively affected, but the economy seems to have bounced back in 2021-2022.

Having withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tajikistan faces new and potentially more damaging changes in regional and global economic environment. There is a high degree of uncertainty, caused by the following factors: (1) Russia-Ukraine conflict and its implications on the Tajik economy via disrupted supply chains, migrant labor, and the threat of primary and secondary sanctions, (2) Taliban-led takeover of leadership in the neighboring Afghanistan, causing renewed security concerns and reducing cross-border trade, and (3) recent territorial conflict along the Kyrgyz-Tajik border, severely disrupting trade flows between the two countries. The threat of the COVID-19 pandemic appears to have subsided, but could again become a factor of economic vulnerability if not carefully managed and addressed.

The World Bank indicated that Belarus, Moldova, Tajikistan and Ukraine are the region’s only economies in which the shocks, displacement and high global food and energy prices are expected to affect poverty rates by the end of 2022. Fears about large declines in trade, migrant flows and remittances, and incomes have thus far not materialized. The unexpected inflow of Russian citizens to Tajikistan is contributing to a largely unpredictable socio-economic environment, in which economic fundamentals are expected to worsen and at-risk population groups could fall back into poverty and vulnerability.

To assess ongoing situation and its likely outcomes, capture impact and formulate policy recommendations for the medium- and longer-term perspectives, UNDP intends to commission analysis of the consolidated impact of the compounding crisis to support the government in its formulation of Tajikistan’s adjusted economic development model and remedial policy measures.

Duties and Responsibilities

The Economic Development Expert will work closely with UNDP Sustainable Economic Development cluster team, the group of other national experts (who will support data collection), and with the national survey team that will be ultimately responsible for conducting fieldwork and preparing clean data sets for analysis. The Expert will provide substantive technical support to the formulation of methodology of the assessment, development of the situational analysis as rationale and background for the assessment scope, provision of technical guidance to UNDP team in design of the study and its implementation, and preparation of the assessment report in multiple languages. The Expert will also ensure technical quality assurance (TQA) of the survey team, including overall verification of assessment findings, data sets, and lessons learned, and will support UNDP in formulating policy recommendations for the government’s strategic planning and response/mitigation actions.

Specific duties of the Expert will comprise the following:

Prepare a situational analysis (not exceeding 3 pages) on the current socio-economic environment in Tajikistan, challenges, and the unfolding/emerging risks at the national and regional levels.
Undertake desk review of past reports and studies, as well as administrative data sets as required.
Provide technical inputs and guidance in the development and finalization of the assessment methodology, including sampling design and the choice and content of survey instruments.
Ensure technical quality assurance throughout fieldwork and the duration of the national survey.
Analyze primary data sets collected from the survey and link to findings from the desk review.
Develop and finalize the assessment report (in English and Russian) in consultation with UNDP.
Prepare the presentation (in English and Russian) and present main findings and recommendations from the report to a multi-stakeholder audience at a national event to be held in Dushanbe.

In line with above objective, the Expert will work under the overall supervision of the UNDP Deputy Resident Representative and in close collaboration with the Team Leader of Socio-Economic Development Cluster, to deliver on the following key tasks/responsibilities:

Establish effective working relationships with all members of the survey/assessment team, including any further external parties contracted by UNDP. Act as a policy lead and advisor for other experts recruited by UNDP, ensuring closely coordinated workflow and timely delivery of outputs;

Conduct desk review of available information and reports produced by the government and development partners and other sources, on the socio-economic context of Tajikistan, and develop comparative analysis with other countries with similar development context (preferably focusing on Central Asia and the CIS region), with special emphasis on migrants, women, youth, and MSMEs.

Help review and strengthen the initial methodology, sampling design, and preferred survey instruments, and provide recommendations for improvement and quality assurance of the survey team’s interim deliverables and all survey-related activities.

Work closely with the survey team for collection of gender-disaggregated data from households and MSMEs and ensure the provision of hands-on methodological guidance and quality assurance for adaptation of questionnaires, collected data, and preliminary findings of the survey team.

Verify the quality of assessment findings, situational analysis, and recommendations elaborated by the survey team. Provide on-time advisory guidance/support to the team as needed.

Jointly with the survey team conduct a thorough analysis and triangulation of collected information and household-level and firm-level data, identify key impacts on MSMEs and households, identify and analyze monetary and non-monetary vulnerabilities, assess special impact on women, youth and migrants, review observed adaptation practices and behavior patterns in response to ongoing economic challenges and emerging risks.

Ensure proper mainstreaming of the corporate and regional guidance for the socio-economic impact assessment (SEIA) and strategic planning, and ensure proper mainstreaming of gender and human rights principles into assessment and other deliverables.

Develop and finalize the assessment report in two languages (English and Russian).

Prepare and deliver the presentation of assessment results/findings and recommendations (in English and Russian languages) to stakeholders for validation of findings and discussion of results.

Provide technical leadership to the final publication of the assessment report. Draft an executive summary for the assessment report and organize the final report design in line with UNDP quality requirements and international standards.

Provide technical inputs to integrate the assessment findings and policy recommendations into the government’s strategic policy planning processes, to strengthen the principle of ‘Leave No One Behind’ whilst also maintaining focus on achieving national SDG goals and targets.

Competencies

Corporate competencies:

Demonstrates integrity by modelling the UN’s values and ethical standards;
Promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UNDP;
Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
Treats all people fairly without favouritism;
Fulfils all obligations to gender sensitivity and zero tolerance for sexual harassment.

Functional competencies:

Professionalism;
Communication;
Excellent analytical and drafting skills;
Demonstrated facilitation, training, and presentation skills
Teamwork;
Accountability.

Required Skills and Experience

Advance university degree (or its equivalent) in economics, development studies, finance, business administration, development, or other closely related field of study (Criteria A);
Minimum 10 years of experience in development economics, crisis response, private sector development, socio-economic research, community development, needs assessment, crisis response, including sustainable livelihoods in rural and urban settings (Criteria B);
Demonstrated, not less than 3 years’ experience in developing and delivering high quality socio-economic assessments, including gender analyses; (Criteria C);
Experience of work in developing countries is an asset. Knowledge and experience of work in Central Asian countries is an asset;
Demonstrated, in and excellent skills for stakeholder engagement at the national and community levels, including efficient facilitation during meetings between various stakeholders (government, NGOs, CBOs, international community and communal levels) (Criteria D);
Advanced practical knowledge about economic and social context at the national/institutional level and carrying out national and community level socio-economic assessments;
Understanding of the gender-responsive frameworks and ability to integrate gender in policy work;
Previous experience with UNDP projects is an added plus, but not mandatory.

Languages:

Excellent professional knowledge of English is mandatory. Knowledge of Russian or Tajik is an asset.(Criteria E);