Background

The United Nations Human Settlements Programme, UN-Habitat, is mandated by the UN General Assembly to promote socially and environmentally sustainable towns and cities with the goal of providing adequate shelter for all. UN-HABITAT helps the urban poor by transforming cities into safer, healthier, greener places with better opportunities where everyone can live with dignity. It works with organizations at every level, including all spheres of government, civil society and the private sector to help build, manage, plan and finance sustainable urban development.

The Joint Programme on Strengthening Local Governance and Decentralized Service Delivery (Dowladkaab programme) is a five-year initiative by UNDP, UNICEF, and UN-HABITAT funded through the Somalia Joint Fund to further strengthen local governments in effectively responding to the needs and rights of all people as rights-holders as well as amplifying the voices of communities, with a focus on women, youth, and marginalized groups to hold their local leaders accountable. Dowladkaab Programme works with local, state, and federal levels of government to create an enabling environment for inclusive and sustainable governance systems at the district level, advancing responsive basic social service delivery, enhancing state legitimacy and rebuilding trust.

That said, local governments in Somalia play a crucial role in the country's governance and development, serving as important entities in charge of delivering basic social services and driving sustainable development at local level. Pursuant to the Federal and States' Local Government Laws, they are mandated to deliver essential social services at the local level including, but are not limited to primary education, healthcare, water supply, sanitation, housing, land administration, environmental conservation, and infrastructure including roads. The effective and efficient delivery of these services requires local governments to incur considerable expenditures. Conversely, local governments are vested with fiscal authority to raise revenue through an array of streams, including taxes, fees, and charges. In addition, they are considered to benefit from intergovernmental fiscal transfers from both federal and state levels, as well as support from development partners, local communities, and the private sector.

Through JPLG, UN-Habitat, in collaboration with the FMS Ministries of Interior and Local Government, has made commendable progress in laying the foundations of a functioning municipal finance system. Based on the federal and state local government laws, local government finance policy, financial management manual, and guide to local taxation have been developed. Additionally, under the Dowlad-kaab, key instruments such as a harmonised chart of accounts, internal audit charters, local government budgeting guideline, and domestic revenue mobilisation plans have been developed.

The program has supported the development of key municipal finance documents, there is a need to review, refine, and operationalize these documents, transforming them into user-friendly manuals for local governments. With this in mind, the program will recruit an individual consultant with extensive experience in operationalizing municipal finance, particularly in areas such as revenue enhancement, expenditure management, budgeting, planning, auditing, and financial control, to produce a municipal finance booklet containing step-by-step instructions for applying the key municipal finance documents.

In addition, the consultancy will develop uniform, transparent, and efficient systems to improve business licensing across all municipalities, thereby strengthening local governments' own-source revenue, which has often been under-collected or overlooked due to inadequate systems and limited capacity to harness the full potential of district-level revenue sources. It is believed that the booklet will improve local government's day-to-day operations, as it is going to be tailored to local government's current operating environment and overall state financial management procedures. The booklet will further simplify the work of relevant local government department as the previous documents contained large amounts of information and data that may not necessarily be used on a daily basis.

OBJECTIVES OF THE CONSULTANCY

The overall objective of this consultancy is to review the existing local government municipal finance instruments and produce a clear concise and user-friendly booklet to guide the day-to-day operation of the local government staff and enhance municipal finance management of the local governments. The consultancy also intends to design and develop a uniform, transparent, and efficient approach to streamline business licensing processes of Adado, Kismayo, Jawhar and Barawe local governments. This is part of the programme's effort to unlock the potential revenue of businesses within the jurisdiction of the local governments. Furthermore, the consultancy aimed to design on-the-job training tailored to the needs of the local governments.

SCOPE OF WORK

The consultancy is focused primarily on the following outputs:

• Manual for standardized and harmonized business licensing processes: This is a manual that provide a step-by-step procedure for registering and licensing businesses within the jurisdiction of the local government that is based on the State and local government laws, policies and regulatory frameworks.
• Municipal finance booklet: The booklet will comprise of the essence of and key contents of key municipal finance instruments namely (1) Local government finance policy (2) local government budget guideline (3) domestic revenue mobilization plan (4) harmonized chart of accounts and (5) internal audit charter.

Under the overall supervision of the Head of Programmes and the direct supervision of the Dowlaadkaab Project Manager and in close cooperation with the national field staffs the consultant is required to:

• Develop a manual for standardized and harmonized business licensing processes
• Review the business licensing processes and procedures currently used by the local government administrations of Jawhar, Kismayo, Barawe and Adado; and analyse governing state and local government legal, policy and regulatory frameworks
• Identify and examine challenges, inconsistencies, and gaps and where appropriate, propose a way to better adjust them
• Based on the review, develop a comprehensive business licensing manual for local governments to serve as a standard reference guide that ensures consistency, transparency, and efficiency in how business registration is conducted across all local governments or districts
• Ensure that the manual includes standardized business licensing procedures, forms and templates to enable local staff to easily follow and apply the process. It should also provide clear operational step-by-step implementation, approval procedures and guidelines for fee collection and revenue tracking
• Develop transparency and accountability mechanisms for business licensing to improve the management of business registration and revenue collection
• Convene a one-day validation meeting together with the local government and related stakeholders
• Review municipal finance instruments and produce a simple and user-friendly municipal finance booklet
• Review the existing urban planning instruments (1) Local government finance policy (2) local government budget guideline (3) domestic revenue mobilization plan (4) harmonized chart of accounts (5) internal audit charter and (6) manual for standardized and harmonized business licensing processes which shall be produced under this consultancy
• Produce a concise and practical booklet that guides local governments in implementing coherent municipal finance system effectively

• Extensive experience in operationalizing municipal finance
• Expertise in revenue enhancement, expenditure management, budgeting, planning, auditing, and financial control
• Ability to develop user-friendly manuals and booklets
• Experience in developing standardized business licensing processes
• Knowledge of local government finance systems and procedures

• Extensive experience in municipal finance operationalization
• Expertise in revenue enhancement, expenditure management, budgeting, planning, auditing, and financial control
• Experience in developing municipal finance instruments and manuals
• Knowledge of local government operations and financial management