Consultancy: IMF and social spending analysis Consultant - Req.#581244
Apply now
Job no: 581244
Contract type: Consultant
Duty Station: New York
Level: Consultancy
Location: United States
Categories: Programme Management
UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential.
Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone.
And we never give up.
For every child, hope.
Vacancy Announcement: Consultant
Consultancy Title: IMF and social spending analysis Consultant
Section/Division/Duty Station: Director’s Office Programme Group – NYHQ
Duration: June 1, 2025 to December 31, 2025
Home/ Office Based: REMOTE
About UNICEF
If you are a committed, creative professional and are passionate about making a lasting difference for children, the world's leading children's rights organization would like to hear from you. For 70 years, UNICEF has been working on the ground in 190 countries and territories to promote children's survival, protection and development. UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments. UNICEF has over 12,000 staff in more than 145 countries.
BACKGROUND
Purpose of Activity/Assignment:
Debt financing can play a crucial role in effective public finance and for children it can accelerate crucial investments with high and long-term returns. However, when debt obligations grow too large without sufficient or timely economic returns, the negative consequences—such as constrained national budgets—intensify. The effects on children can be particularly severe, while least responsible, they can suffer the greatest consequences as their development is impacted with long term implications for children themselves and economies more broadly. Accordingly, UNICEF is increasingly concerned about the rising burden of national debt and debt service obligations, particularly in lower- and lower-middle-income countries, where shrinking fiscal space threatens social spending and, ultimately, children's rights.
The number of developing countries with public debt exceeding 60% of GDP has risen sharply, from 31 in 2013 to 59 in 2023, and according to the World Bank and IMF Debt Sustainability Analysis (DSA) finds of the 67 low and lower-middle income countries assessed, 10 are in debt distress, 17 at a high risk of distress, with a further 25 considered at moderate risk.
The increasing diversity of creditors in developing countries has made debt restructuring negotiations more complex and contentious. Private creditors now account for 61 per cent of total debt, with bilateral creditors contributing 26 per cent and multilateral institutions 14 per cent. While this diversification has expanded access to financing, it has also complicated restructuring efforts, as it requires aligning the interests of creditors with varying priorities, legal frameworks, and debt management approaches. Notably, bilateral lending is also evolving, with around two-thirds of debt now owed to non-Paris Club lenders, who operate under different principles and conditions for debt relief. At the same time, aid flows are under threat and the increasing use of loans rather than grants are exacerbating challenges in development finance making effective debt management more critical than ever to protect fiscal space for social spending and sustainable development.
The international community has taken steps to improve mechanisms and structures for managing the growing challenges of debt restructuring in this complex landscape. The Common Framework for Debt Treatments is designed to provide timely and comprehensive solutions for countries facing unsustainable debt levels, including the creation of a bilateral creditor committee, including non-Paris Club creditors, as well as mechanisms for integrating private sector creditors into the process. A key step in implementing the Common Framework, with critical implications for children, is the establishment of an IMF program and its spending conditions, which sets economic parameters that shape fiscal policies during debt restructuring. Notably, in a positive shift social safeguards are now explicitly included in IMF programs ensuring some consideration of social implications.
Despite international efforts to improve debt restructuring mechanisms, the situation remains extremely challenging, with children’s outcomes increasingly compromised. Many countries struggling with heavy debt burdens have yet to undergo restructuring, while those that do face lengthy and complex processes. Even after completion, persistent fiscal constraints continue to limit public investment in essential services such as education, health, and social protection, further exacerbating the risks to children’s well-being.
Purpose of Activity/Assignment:
Debt financing can play a crucial role in effective public finance and for children it can accelerate crucial investments with high and long-term returns. However, when debt obligations grow too large without sufficient or timely economic returns, the negative consequences—such as constrained national budgets—intensify. The effects on children can be particularly severe, while least responsible, they can suffer the greatest consequences as their development is impacted with long term implications for children themselves and economies more broadly. Accordingly, UNICEF is increasingly concerned about the rising burden of national debt and debt service obligations, particularly in lower- and lower-middle-income countries, where shrinking fiscal space threatens social spending and, ultimately, children's rights.
The number of developing countries with public debt exceeding 60% of GDP has risen sharply, from 31 in 2013 to 59 in 2023, and according to the World Bank and IMF Debt Sustainability Analysis (DSA) finds of the 67 low and lower-middle income countries assessed, 10 are in debt distress, 17 at a high risk of distress, with a further 25 considered at moderate risk.
The increasing diversity of creditors in developing countries has made debt restructuring negotiations more complex and contentious. Private creditors now account for 61 per cent of total debt, with bilateral creditors contributing 26 per cent and multilateral institutions 14 per cent. While this diversification has expanded access to financing, it has also complicated restructuring efforts, as it requires aligning the interests of creditors with varying priorities, legal frameworks, and debt management approaches. Notably, bilateral lending is also evolving, with around two-thirds of debt now owed to non-Paris Club lenders, who operate under different principles and conditions for debt relief. At the same time, aid flows are under threat and the increasing use of loans rather than grants are exacerbating challenges in development finance making effective debt management more critical than ever to protect fiscal space for social spending and sustainable development.
The international community has taken steps to improve mechanisms and structures for managing the growing challenges of debt restructuring in this complex landscape. The Common Framework for Debt Treatments is designed to provide timely and comprehensive solutions for countries facing unsustainable debt levels, including the creation of a bilateral creditor committee, including non-Paris Club creditors, as well as mechanisms for integrating private sector creditors into the process. A key step in implementing the Common Framework, with critical implications for children, is the establishment of an IMF program and its spending conditions, which sets economic parameters that shape fiscal policies during debt restructuring. Notably, in a positive shift social safeguards are now explicitly included in IMF programs ensuring some consideration of social implications.
Despite international efforts to improve debt restructuring mechanisms, the situation remains extremely challenging, with children’s outcomes increasingly compromised. Many countries struggling with heavy debt burdens have yet to undergo restructuring, while those that do face lengthy and complex processes. Even after completion, persistent fiscal constraints continue to limit public investment in essential services such as education, health, and social protection, further exacerbating the risks to children’s well-being.
In response to these challenges, UNICEF is undertaking a research program aimed at contributing to policy discussions and the development of actionable responses to better protect children’s rights in the context of the debt crisis in lower and lower-middle income countries. This research seeks to (i) assess and articulate the impacts of the current debt situation on children and (ii) explore policy approaches to debt management and restructuring that prioritize child outcomes and the long-term benefits of investing in human capital.
To support this work UNICEF is seeking a subject matter expert to develop a background paper as a foundation of a chapter for a final book to investigate the role of IMF social safeguarding approaches in protecting and promoting child development.
A crucial moment in debt restructuring is the agreement of the IMF programme which outlines foundational spending conditions, which may become particularly important in countries where social sector budgets are further impacted by cuts to aid. In significant progress form the crisis of the 80s, social safeguarding – often in the form of social spending floors – is part of the IMF approach. The analysis will assess if these approaches are sufficient for robust child outcomes and the development of human capital and whether more ambitious approaches, such as a child guarantee or routine child impact assessments are needed.
Scope of Work:
Initial anticipated areas of exploration for the paper would be the following, but these would be adjusted and improved on by the external expert and reflected in the initial outline. The paper would bring together overall comparative data with more in-depth country analysis of country level loan agreements. Areas could include:
• Outline of IMF social spending approaches in terms of guidance and how this has evolved, noting improvements over time.
• Review of practice of IMF social spending safeguards based on data collected from IMF program documentation, which could include:
Are the ambitions of IMF social spending safeguards adequate? How comprehensive are social safeguarding approaches in terms of social spending considered, and how does this vary across lower and lower-middle income countries. This may include:
- A list of the social sectors and/or social assistance programs encompassed in the IMF’s social spending floors in each country
- Consideration across levels of indebtedness and composition of debt (e.g., domestic vs external, types of external).
- Consideration of children’s issues vs broader social safeguards.
Are social spending safeguards effectively implemented? The extent to which recommendations are effectively implemented and overall patterns of social spending over programme timeframes. This could include:
- Analysis by levels of indebtedness.
- Analysis by pre-existing trends in child outcomes
- Analysis by additional factors (to be explored once data is collated).
- Consideration of children’s issues vs broader social safeguards.
Are some tools and approaches more commonly used and/or effective? Include consideration of the tools and approaches to track social spending in terms of both their commonality and effectiveness (e.g. the use of social spending floors and structural benchmarks; the use of quantitative performance criteria and indicative targets as means of monitoring and verification).
Does the IMF involve relevant actors in its social safeguarding approaches? Comparing guidance on utilization of non-IMF expertise to realities. E.g. the extent to which spending protections rely on and reinforce World Bank programming rather than consideration of other actors. (Here we could potentially engage UNICEF offices in a sub-set of countries to ask about their involvement or lack of it).
• Review the foundations of IMF spending conditionalities. For example, do the models that the IMF (and possibly the World Bank) use to determine future economic prospects and debt sustainability adequately consider the long-term benefits of investing in children.
• Recommendations for action. While an expected conclusion of the overall research may point to the need to debt relief which can ease spending constraints on the social sectors, to the extent possible this paper would look at the actions that should be taken on social spending safeguarding regardless of addressing debt burdens directly. Areas of recommendation may mirror the overall analysis, or draw more cross cutting conclusions. As such they may include areas such as:
- The need for greater ambition in social spending. This would include automatic stabilizers for government spending on health, education, and social protection, accompanied by conditions that are narrower in scope which target greater public investment in child and household protection schemes
- A child guarantee (in addition to above) to ensuring that all children in need have access to essential services, such as education, healthcare, and decent housing.
- Improved implementation and monitoring, including choices of tools and approaches. For example, the IMF could integrate child poverty as a core indicator by developing models/economic simulations of the proposed package of conditions as well as monitoring child outcomes before, during, and after IMF programs.
- Role for other experts on social outcomes to be integral in social safeguarding
• Reviewing approaches to modelling or complementing modelling with longer term considerations that are hard to model.
Terms of Reference / Specific Deliverables
- Outline
• Delivery of one full annotated paper outline
By 31 May 2025
- First draft
• Deliver a full first draft of the paper including references. Approximately 20 pages.
• This draft may still have significant gaps and should allow for significant feedback towards a final draft. Consider 2-3 rounds of feedback.
By 30 July 2025
- Final draft
• Deliver a complete final draft of approximately 20-25 pages that integrate comments.
By 31 October 2025
- Translation to book chapter
• Support integration of the draft into a book chapter, including limited updates and responses to editorial requests. Provide final chapters
By 31 December 2025
Qualifications
(1) Education
- PhD in Economics or related discipline.
An advanced university degree in economics, development economics, statistics or a related field.
Fluency in English (verbal and written) is required. Working proficiency in another official UN language is highly desirable.
(2) Knowledge/Expertise/Skills required:
• PhD in Economics, Statistics, Development Economics, or a related field.
• At least 8 years of experience.
• Proven academic expertise in the areas of debt analysis and the role of IMF spending approaches.
• Familiarity with debt sustainability frameworks, social spending, and child-focused development economics.
• Strong analytical writing and research visualization skills, with experience producing clear policy research and analytical papers.
Requirements:
Completed profile in UNICEF's e-Recruitment system and
- Upload copy of academic credentials
- Financial proposal that will include/ reflect :
o the costs per each deliverable and the total lump-sum for the whole assignment (in US$) to undertake the terms of reference.
o travel costs and daily subsistence allowance, if internationally recruited or travel is required as per TOR.
o Any other estimated costs: visa, health insurance, and living costs as applicable.
o Indicate your availability
- Any emergent / unforeseen duty travel and related expenses will be covered by UNICEF.
- At the time the contract is awarded, the selected candidate must have in place current health insurance coverage.
- Payment of professional fees will be based on submission of agreed satisfactory deliverables. UNICEF reserves the right to withhold payment in case the deliverables submitted are not up to the required standard or in case of delays in submitting the deliverables on the part of the consultant.
U.S. Visa information:
With the exception of the US Citizens, G4 Visa and Green Card holders, should the selected candidate and his/her household members reside in the United States under a different visa, the consultant and his/her household members are required to change their visa status to G4, and the consultant’s household members (spouse) will require an Employment Authorization Card (EAD) to be able to work, even if he/she was authorized to work under the visa held prior to switching to G4.
Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process
For every Child, you demonstrate…
UNICEF’s core values of Commitment, Diversity and Integrity and core competencies in Communication, Working with People and Drive for Results. View our competency framework at: Here
UNICEF offers reasonable accommodation for consultants/individual contractors with disabilities. This may include, for example, accessible software, travel assistance for missions or personal attendants. We encourage you to disclose your disability during your application in case you need reasonable accommodation during the selection process and afterwards in your assignment.
UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.
Remarks:
Individuals engaged under a consultancy will not be considered “staff members” under the Staff Regulations and Rules of the United Nations and UNICEF’s policies and procedures and will not be entitled to benefits provided therein (such as leave entitlements and medical insurance coverage). Their conditions of service will be governed by their contract and the General Conditions of Contracts for the Services of Consultants. Consultants are responsible for determining their tax liabilities and for the payment of any taxes and/or duties, in accordance with local or other applicable laws.
The selected candidate is solely responsible to ensure that the visa (applicable) and health insurance required to perform the duties of the contract are valid for the entire period of the contract. Selected candidates are subject to confirmation of fully-vaccinated status against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) with a World Health Organization (WHO)-endorsed vaccine, which must be met prior to taking up the assignment. It does not apply to consultants who will work remotely and are not expected to work on or visit UNICEF premises, programme delivery locations or directly interact with communities UNICEF works with, nor to travel to perform functions for UNICEF for the duration of their consultancy contracts.
Advertised: Eastern Daylight Time
Deadline: Eastern Daylight Time