Agriculture jobs: Consultant for facilitating the analysis of public expenditure related to the Inclusive Agricultural Transformation (IAT) in Bangladesh

Introduction

Public expenditure in the agriculture and allied sectors is of vital importance, more so in the developing economies. It contributes towards enhancing incomes, uplifting people from poverty, and serves as a roadway to drive private investments. On the other hand, the agriculture sector in these countries continue to grapple with varied sets of challenges, including stagnating incomes, frequent price crashes, and unstable market mechanisms. On top of these, climate change-induced weather uncertainties resulting in increased intensities and frequencies of adverse weather conditions impose severe risk to the sustainable and inclusive growth of this sector. In this context, it is important to study the trends of government spending to understand the priorities and focus of the government in the changing global and domestic scenario.

Analyzing public expenditure in developing countries of South Asia such as Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka will help in systematically understand the nature and scope of government funding regarding inclusive agricultural transformation. The analysis of historical trends in expenditure would provide an idea of how the focus has shifted from one sub-sector to another and it will pinpoint whether the focus has shifted in the direct direction and kept pace with the emerging challenges. It will also provide a snapshot of the current distribution to illustrate the under-funding and over-funding of sub-sectors. This provides an opportunity to re-prioritize and re-purpose existing allocations in order to maximize efficiency and bring resource allocations in line with emerging priorities.

The government budget and the expenditure-related numbers are often determined and assessed administratively, i.e., the numbers are confined to a particular department or ministry. In this study, we aim to collate budget and expenditure numbers from all ministries and departments that have allocations related to inclusive agricultural transformation (IAT). In this way, the themes and objectives with respect to a particular sector or sub-sector are given precedence over their administration. Since climate change and its adverse impacts on agriculture are already visible on the sector, it becomes important to analyze agricultural expenditure through the lens of climate change. The analysis will categorize the expenditure that directly or indirectly contributes towards either mitigation of or adaptation to climate change. This will significantly help in assessing the priority that is being accorded to this emerging field.

Agriculture jobs: Description of Activities/Outputs

The analysis will include the following sets of activities and deliverables:

1. Expenditure categorization and baseline: Public expenditures are usually classified in accordance with the administration (by ministries and departments) of expenditure and by the economic objectives of the expenditure, i.e., for agriculture development, nutrition security, etc. Under this activity, it is aimed to outline various existing categorization frameworks and to assess the need to design a new framework that will comprehensively be able to analyze the expenditure trends related to inclusive agriculture transformation. Once the categorization framework is finalized, the same will be used to create a baseline of expenditure for 2020 (the baseline year) for the chosen expenditure categories. Any categorization framework—existing or newly designed—must include expenditure for agriculture, livestock, environment, fertilizers, food processing, food storage, agriculture marketing, and any other relevant sector or subsector.

2. Time-series analysis: once the expenditure categories are finalized and the expenditure baseline is created for 2020, it will be followed by a trend analysis of IAT-relevant public expenditure across all expenditure categories. The time series analysis will provide insights into the shifting trends of expenditure across sectors (e.g., Crop husbandry, animal husbandry, fisheries) and within the sector (e.g., cereal crops, non-cereal crops) for additional details. It will also provide insights into the shifting priorities of governments over the past few years. The trend analysis would involve analysis of the last 15 years.

3. Climate-relevant expenditure: To add an additional layer of detail in the analysis, public expenditure across IAT will also be viewed through a climate lens. Expenditure across all sectors will be assessed for its potential to contribute towards climate change mitigation and/or adaptation. This will help to aggregate government resources towards climate change. It will include expenditure that not only aimed explicitly for climate change mitigation and/or adaptation but also expenditure that implicitly contributes towards these activities. The categorization of this climate-relevant expenditure and its trend for the last 15 years will be useful in analyzing the shift in expenditure that the developing have been taking in the last decade.

Agriculture jobs: Duration

August 2023 to February 2024

Agriculture jobs: Required Skills and Qualifications

· Master’s degree in economics, development studies, or related field.

· Demonstrated experience in conducting economic analyses and proficient in econometrics.

· Proficient in Stata/R/Python or any other statistical package.

· Familiarity with public datasets related to public expenditure in Bangladesh.

· Strong writing skills with an ability to articulate and present complex analyses in a cogent manner.

· Prior experience of working in an international organization is desirable

· Familiarity with MS Office, Google+ related apps and virtual meeting platforms such as Zoom.

Agriculture jobs