Provision of a pool of short-term experts for local development and budget planning in local governments in provinces of Haut Katanga and Lualaba in DR Kongo

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is a resource-rich country, but the state is not able to use this wealth to benefit the population through the public finance system and to implement an effective development and poverty reduction agenda. In an effort to improve this situation and redistribute revenues for the benefit of a broader population, the Congolese government revised the mining law in 2018, granting local authorities affected by mining activities an immediate allocation of 15 % of the revenues generated from production of the mining sector. Therefore, the extractive sector revenues allocated to deconcentrated local governments have increased significantly compared to the overall budgets of the ETDs concerned. From July 2018 to the end of 2019, royalties paid to ETDs amounted to USD 121 million, of which 92% went to ETDs in Haut Katanga and Lualaba. The technical cooperation module "Good Governance of local revenues from the extractive sector in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Projet de bonne gestion des revenus infranationaux du secteur minier de la RDC - ProGerim)" supports selected ETD in the provinces of Lualaba and Haut-Katanga to invest the significant revenues from the extractive sector in sustainable socio-economic development. The project will strengthen capacities of local authorities, deconcentrated government bodies and civil society organisations in the area of participatory, inclusive and development-oriented planning, budgeting and budget execution. The implementation period of the project is set from July 2021 to May 2024. Some envisioned key outputs of the GIZ project are to make long-term planning and budgeting more participatory and gender-sensitive and to improve the financial management of ETDs and enable rule-compliant, transparent and efficient implementation. A key aspect is the development or improvement of local development plans (Plan de Développement Local - PDL). At the same time the project supports civil society and state institutions in their oversight and monitoring role. Further the project aims at establishing long-term knowledge and support formats between relevant actors, such as peer-to-peer learning formats which are an essential prerequisite for the sustainable strengthening of local financial administrations and hence economic development planning. The contract is for the provision of a pool of short-term experts to cover various issues relating to public finance reform in DR Kongo in general and programme objectives in particular. The services to be provided under the contract include measures for human capacity development and organisational and strategy advice in the following thematic areas: - Improvement of strategic planning processes, planning documents oriented towards socio-economic development and the corresponding realistic budget planning - Improving the financial management of the ETDs to enable transparent, efficient and compliant implementation of long-term development plans. - Supporting civil society and government institutions in their oversight and monitoring roles through the implementation of multi-stakeholder dialogue formats - Promoting exchange and learning and knowledge sharing on strategic planning, economic development among ETDs to enable them to improve based on documented and structured learning experiences. - Promote especially women's participation in ETD planning processes. - Inclusive approach to disadvantaged groups in order to combat insecurity risks. Examples for expected modes of delivery through the experts are the conduct of business process reviews, the organisation of workshops / trainings, the conduct of (baseline) studies, the development of action plans and other advisory services.