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Ref. no. 10  from 04.11.2021

1. Background

Promo-LEX Association is implementing during July 2016 – March 2025, with the financial support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the “Democracy, Transparency and Accountability” Program. Through this Program, Promo-LEX aims to ensure fair and representative elections and political competition throughout the entire electoral cycle, and not only during election campaigns. Thus, since 2013 the association is conducting various monitoring and advocacy activities, seeking to contribute to the improvement of the political parties & campaign finance regulations and civic oversight.

The legal framework pertinent to financing of political parties and election campaigns includes the Constitution of the Republic of Moldova[1], Law no. 294 on Political Parties[2], the Electoral Code[3] and CEC Regulation no. 4401 on the financing of the activity of political parties[4]. The Central Election Commission is responsible for the oversight and control over the political parties and election campaign funding.

Promo-LEX has a vast experience in monitoring political parties and election campaign financing. During last 8 years Promo-LEX has constantly developed and implemented a complex methodology for monitoring political parties’ and election candidates’ finances.[5]

As result, a series of analyses and reports on monitoring and assessing political parties’ revenue and expenses were produced by Promo-LEX, covering also the electoral campaigns[6]. Some of the challenges Promo-LEX faced during this process are related to external factors, such as limited access to information on political parties’ and electoral campaign revenue and expenses, frequent changes to pertinent legal framework, political parties’ lack of cooperation, or internal as insufficient tools and methods for monitoring expenditures, use of social media for monitoring political finances, processing of large volume of data, etc.

Given the vast and long-lasting character of the monitoring activity envisaged by the Program, and the above-presented challenges, Promo-LEX Association intends to continue monitoring the quality of party financial reporting, transparency and compliance with the legal norms, as well as the work of the body mandated to supervise and control them. In this regard, Promo-LEX intends to update/upgrade its monitoring methodology in a manner that would allow for further civic monitoring of the political parties and campaign financing.

2. Description of the international or national expert’s tasks & expected services

Promo-LEX is looking to select an international or national expert[7] who would assist us in updating/upgrading, the existing methodology for civic monitoring of political financing in Moldova.

The updated/upgraded methodology will consider the following aspects:

1. The adjusted methodology shall offer tools and methods for the monitoring of political parties and election candidates’ finances, with focus on both their income and expenditures; also, the methodology shall consider such elements as field (at the central and local/regional level) monitoring of political finances, online/social media monitoring and indirect monitoring tools & methods.
2. The updated methodology shall allow for the involvement of a core team of experts, a team of 5 regional coordinators (located in all the regions of the country) as well as of a network of about 40 monitors, thus ensuring a close and comprehensive monitoring of political financing, both at the central and regional level.

Taking into account the above mentioned aspects, the international/national expert will work towards accomplishment of the following specific tasks:

1. analyze the national legal framework and practices on political parties and campaign financing from the perspective of the international obligations and best practices, and develop an analysis on the existing legal (and other external) limitations/gaps and propose solutions to overcome them;
2. review the existing monitoring methodology and develop a report on its strong aspects and weaknesses;
3. assess Promo-LEX reports and develop recommendations based on strong aspects and weaknesses in order to improve their quality;
4. propose a series of solutions, methods and tools for the improvement of the existing methodology, with focus on consolidating the component dedicated to the monitoring of parties and candidates income/revenues (donations, membership fees, etc.);
5. assist Promo-LEX experts in development of an updated/upgraded monitoring methodology, including of the guidebook that will specifically describe all the methods and tools planned to be used for monitoring of political parties and electoral campaigns financing.

3. Timeframe and deliverables

The international expert is expected to carry out its work during December 2021 – February 2022, at distance (via e-mail, Skype, etc.), in light of the current COVID-19 pandemic.

The expert will provide to Promo-LEX the following deliverables:

• an analysis on the existing external (legal) limitations/gaps and recommended solutions for the improvement of Promo-LEX monitoring methodology and of the legal framework on political financing;
• a report about strong aspects and weaknesses of Promo-LEX methodology on political finances monitoring;
• an adjusted/upgraded monitoring methodology, including the data collection tools and relevant guidance on how to apply it, designed together with the project team.

4. Criteria for selecting the expert

The international / national expert must meet the following criteria:

Education: university degree in law, finances, accounting and audit, management, political science, public administration, international relations, public policy, or other relevant fields.

Experience:

• Minimum 5 years of relevant professional experience on the topic of political parties/campaign financing, including at least 2 years of consultancy experience; previous experience at the international level in consultancy/assistance for a donor organization, governmental institutions or NGO/think-tank, especially in the Eastern Europe and/or European Union’s Eastern Partnership area and/or Central Asia shall constitute a strong advantage;
• Relevant experience of elaborating and implementing activities of political finance oversight/control and/or development & application of civic monitoring methodologies on this issue (please offer detailed information on this type of activity in your application package);
• Good knowledge of the regional and international (best) practices on monitoring political parties and campaign finances, as well as of the international standards and obligations in this area.

Working languages and IT skills: project deliverables and consultancy services will be offered in English. Knowledge of Romanian or Russian languages will be considered a strong asset. Experienced user of computers and office software packages (MS Word, Excel, etc.);

Availability to deliver the required services and products during December 2021 – February 2022;

Other required skills:  analytical skills, excellent self-organizing and good communication skills.

The evaluation of the applications will be done in two steps: (1) at the first stage, the applications will be analyzed in terms of compliance of the candidates and their technical and financial offers with the requirements stated above and (2) the second phase will consist of a discussion/interview with the pre-selected candidates. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted for the second step.

The contract will be awarded to the most experienced expert that will present the best proposal, both from the perspective of the technical and financial offer, taking into account also the interview stage. The following criteria for assessing the quality of the proposals will be applied:

• Experience of the expert (max. 30 points);
• Technical offer – short presentation of the planned tools and methods for the improvement of the existing methodology (max. 30 points);
• Financial offer (maximum 40 points).

5. Method of application

Interested experts should send below listed documents to [email protected] by November 25, 2021 (6 PM Chisinau time), with the subject line entitled “Application_Political Finance Expert_Full name”:

• CV (max. 2 pages) and Letters of Recommendation from other organizations for whom the expert delivered similar services in the past 7 years, including the name and contact data of a responsible person from these organizations;
• Technical offer – outline (short presentation) of the proposed tools and methods for the monitoring of political finances, with focus on the aspects underlined in the Chapter 2 presented above (max. 3 pages, please refer to the indicate the structure/nature of tools and methods to be applied within the methodology and the stakeholders to be involved/monitored, the data collection approach);
• Financial offer – the number of working days to complete the above mentioned tasks and the expected honorarium (gross rate per day, in USD);
• The availability statement – please confirm the availability to provide the services during November 2021 – February 2022.

For any additional questions please contact Mrs. Mariana Novac, Program Coordinator at Promo-LEX Association via e-mail [email protected]. Deadline for questions is November 22, 2021 (6 PM Chisinau time). In order to ensure equal treatment and equal chances for all potential experts, Promo-LEX will answer all questions by November 23, 2021.

6. Short description of Promo-LEX Association

Promo-LEX Association is a non-government organization established in 2002 by a group of young lawyers with the aim at developing democracy in the Republic of Moldova, including in the Transnistrian region. Promo-LEX Association operates on the basis of two programs:

• Human Rights Program – the overall goal of the Program is to promote and implement international human rights standards in the Republic of Moldova;
• Monitoring Democratic Processes Program – the overall aim of the Program is to improve the quality and to increase citizen’s trust in democratic processes in the Republic of Moldova (monitoring of electoral processes, sectorial reforms and decision-making processes in Association’s priority areas).

Promo-LEX Association is member of several national and international networks and platforms, such as: Civic Coalition for Free and Fair Elections, Eastern Partnership Civil Society Platform, Platform for Gender Equality, European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations, European Platform for Democratic Elections, ECOSOC and others. More information on Promo-LEX Association can be found on www.promolex.md.
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[1] https://www.legis.md/cautare/getResults?doc_id=128016&lang=ro

[2] https://www.legis.md/cautare/getResults?doc_id=122635&lang=ro

[3] https://www.legis.md/cautare/getResults?doc_id=121234&lang=ro

[4] https://a.cec.md/storage/ckfinder/files/Regulamentul%20_finan%C8%9Barea_partidelor%20politice%20 (2).pdf

[5] A short presentation of the currently applied methodology can be accessed here: https://promolex.md/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Raport_finantare_eng_2020-FINAL-1.pdf, page 7

[6] Pomo-LEX reports for 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020.

[7] The national expert should have relevant international experience