The consulting firm will provide experts to support the Ministry of Population Development and Social Protection in Mongolia to update the country's social protection strategy over 27 months. The firm will provide 13 person-months of international expertise and 17 person-months of national expertise. The experts will support working groups to review current strategies, generate new information to address knowledge gaps, and prepare strategic recommendations and an implementation framework to update the draft social protection strategy. The updated strategy will cover social insurance, social welfare, labor markets, and other areas, and be informed by background papers, reports, and a consultative process over the project duration.

1. TA 8544-MON: Supporting Social Protection Reforms
TERMS OF REFERENCE FOR CONSULTANTS
1. A consulting firm, recruited through quality- and cost-based selection with a ratio of
80:20 will be recruited to provide 13 person-months of international and 17 person-months of
national expertise for the entire duration of the TA (27 months), including their travel and other
costs. The outline terms of reference of the 5 international and 5 national experts is given
below.
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2. Participative process to update the social protection strategy. The main objective of
the assignment will be to support the Ministry of Population Development and Social Protection
(MPDSP) in updating the social protection strategy (formerly called the social security strategy).
MPDSP has established a consultative committee supported by a secretariat and will establish
working groups respectively in charge of social insurance, social welfare, and the labor market.
The consultative committee includes representatives of various ministries and international
partners. The team leader will support the secretariat. For each of these three areas, the team
leader and other consultants under the firm will undertake a critical review of present strategies,
generate new background information to fill knowledge gaps, and prepare strategic
recommendations and an implementation framework with key activities. These strategic
recommendations and implementation framework will be validated by the consultative
committee and used by the team leader to update the draft social protection strategy. The
process is expected to take about 24 months. Labor market issues are also the responsibility of
the Ministry of Labor whose involvement in the TA will be determined during the inception
phase. The EA intends to establish an additional working group on population development. The
Consultants involvement in this working group will be agreed during the inception mission. The
Consultants will be flexible enough to accommodate reasonable changes to the scope of the
studies if MPDSP so requests.
3. Outline of the updated social protection strategy. The outline of the updated social
protection strategy will be agreed with MPDSP.
4. Collection of available background information. The team leader and the other
consultants under the firm will collect existing data and information available under each of the
three areas (social insurance, social welfare, and labor market) from various sources
(government, domestic research groups, reports from international partners, civil society, etc.).
The consultants will carry out a critical review of present strategies.
5. Preparation of new background information. New information will be generated by
the group of consultants to fill knowledge gaps required to update the social protection strategy.
New information will be of about 10-15 pages background papers (in English and these 10-15
pages will be translated in Mongolian) on each topic below. These papers will be prepared
along the following outline: (i) situation and impact analysis; (ii) critical review of existing
strategies, if any; and (iii) proposed strategic recommendations for Mongolia. The priorities and
sequencing of the background will be agreed with MPDSP and reported in the inception report.
The team of consultants will organize capacity development activities in consultation with
Recruitment of all personnel under the TA will be merit-based. However the consulting firm will ensure a good
gender balance, especially between the team leader and the deputy team leader. Many social protection programs
are related to women and children, and it is particularly important to include in the consultant team both men and
women, as a balanced and merit-based representation will strengthen gender equity.

2. MPDSP to advise, mentor, and train concerned staff of MPDSP and its agencies on new
background information. New information requirements will be agreed with MPDSP and will
tentatively include the following:
Social Welfare
(i) Assessment of child and mother-related social protection benefits;
(ii) Assessment of health insurance benefits with specific emphasis on the poor and
vulnerable
(iii) Assessment of disability benefits with specific emphasis on the poor and
vulnerable
(iv) Assessment of pension benefits for the poor and vulnerable in the informal and
rural (herders) sectors
(v) Assessment of social protection benefits extended by other ministries and
government agencies
(vi) Options for conditional welfare services in Mongolia, with reference to
international programs
(vii) Effectiveness of social welfare delivered through cash transfers versus services
(viii) Options on rationalizing social welfare in Mongolia
(ix) Assessment of specific poverty reduction programs for the poor (food stamps,
community-based poverty programs, and other poverty relevant programs
implemented by the government)
(x) Assessment of poverty and vulnerability targeting in Mongolia;
(xi) Opportunities and implications of using the proxy means testing methodology for
targeting vulnerable people under the various social protection schemes under
the General Office for Social Welfare Services and other government ministries
(xii) Relevance of social protection services delivery versus cash transfers including
the implications on infrastructure, staffing, capacity development, supervision,
and budgets
Social Insurance
(i) Impact of changing labor markets in Mongolia on social protection in the context
of increasing informality of labor markets and industrial policy focusing on a
capital-intensive mining sector
Labor Market
(ii) Assessment on employment benefits under unemployment insurance and social
welfare
(iii) Role of social protection in the changing labor market and economic environment
of Mongolia
Others
(i) Role of the private sector, nongovernment organizations (NGOs), and
community-based social protection support
(ii) Gender implications of social protection in Mongolia
6. Task allocation. The consulting firm will assign the responsibilities to the different
consultants to ensure an effective and timely updating of the social protection to the satisfaction
of MPDSP and the Asian Development Bank. National and international consultants will closely
coordinate among each other and with international partners active in the field of social
protection. National consultants will assist in interpretation and translation as required. The
following consultants will be recruited:

3. A. International Experts
7. Social protection economist and team leader (5 person-months). An international
social protection economist with at least 15 years of related technical, 10 years of policy and
strategy experience, and 5 years of management experience, will be hired as team leader and
social protection economist for the project. S/he will be responsible to deliver all outputs under
the assignment.
8. International poverty targeting social protection expert (3.7 person-months). The
expert will have at least 15 years of related technical, and 10 years of policy and strategy
experience.
9. International social insurance expert (1.2 person-months). An international social
insurance expert with at least 15 years of related technical, and 10 years of policy and strategy
experience, will be part of the consultant team.
10. International labor market and social protection economist (1.6 person-months).
An international labor market expert with at least 15 years of related technical, and 10 years of
policy and strategy experience, will be part of the consultant team.
11. International gender and social protection economist (1.5 person-months). An
international gender expert (economist) with at least 15 years of related technical, and 10 years
of policy and strategy experience, will be part of the consultant team.
B. National Experts
12. Social protection economist and deputy team leader (7.5 person-months). An
expert with at least 10 years of related technical, 8 years of policy and strategy experience, and
5 years of management experience, will be hired as deputy team leader for the project.
13. National poverty targeting social protection expert (4 person-months). The expert
will have at least 10 years of related technical, and 8 years of policy and strategy experience will
be hired as poverty expert.
14. National social insurance expert (2.3 person-months). The expert will have at least
10 years of related technical, and 8 years of policy and strategy experience.
15. National labor market and social protection economist (1.4 person-months). The
expert will have at least 10 years of related technical, and 8 years of policy and strategy
experience.
16. National gender and social protection economist (1.8 person-months). The expert
will have at least 10 years of related technical, and 8 years of policy and strategy experience.
17. Reporting. The consulting firm will provide
. .
(i) background papers on each of the topic listed above and agreed with the
MPDSP,
(ii) an inception report, which includes: (a) the methodological approach and timing
for each of the sub-reports, (b) how the social protection strategy will be updated

4. (including consultation and decision making process to be followed, identification
of key stakeholders, preliminary outline of strategy document), (c) a
corresponding revised work plan and personnel schedule, (d) the priority list for
the background papers agreed with MPDSP, (e) the responsibilities assigned to
each consultants given the revised TOR, and (f) coordination mechanism and
quality control measures between the different consulting companies included in
the consortium,
(iii) a pre-midterm report explaining progress, including 5 background papers
approved by the MPDSP
(iv) a midterm report which includes the status of the updated social protection
strategy and planned activities, and at least 10 out of 17 background papers
approved by the MPDSP and ADS
(v) a draft final report which includes the draft updated social protection strategy
validated by the consultative committee and all MPDSP and ADS approved final
background papers.

5. LIST OF EXPERTS CONTRACT NO. 552515