RE-ADVERTISMENT: Individual national consultancy for legal and institutional assessment of child- and youth-centred data interoperability

## Individual National Consultancy for Legal and Institutional Assessment of Child- and Youth-Centred Data Interoperability, Podgorica, Montenegro - Organization:UNICEF - United Nations Children's Fund - Office:UNICEF Montenegro UNICEF works in over 190 countries and territories to save children’s lives, defend their rights, and help them fulfill their potential, from early childhood through adolescence. At UNICEF, we are committed, passionate, and proud of what we do for as long as we are needed. Promoting the rights of every child is not just a job – it is a calling. UNICEF is a place where careers are built. We offer our staff diverse opportunities for professional and personal development that will help them reinforce a sense of purpose while serving children and communities across the world. We welcome everyone who wants to belong and grow in a diverse and passionate culture., coupled with an attractive compensation and benefits package. Visit our website to learn more about what we do at UNICEF. How can you make a difference? The purpose of this national consultancy is to provide specialised legal and institutional support to the comprehensive assessment of conditions required to establish interoperability between administrative data systems and registries across the education, employment, social welfare, child protection, health, and related sectors in Montenegro.To make the assessment operational, interoperability will be assessed through a limited set of priority child- and youth-centred use cases, to be agreed with UNICEF, MoESI and the Coordination Team during the inception phase. These use cases should include, at a minimum:• identification and follow-up of young people who are NEET or at risk of becoming NEET;• early identification of children at risk of school dropout, prolonged absenteeism or disengagement from education;• improved intersectoral response to violence against children and child protection risks;• improved monitoring and tailored support for children with disabilities and other children requiring additional support in education.The assessment shall therefore not be limited to a general mapping of systems, but shall examine the legal basis, data flows, institutional responsibilities, safeguards, operational procedures and technical feasibility required for each selected use case.The National Legal Consultant will ensure that all proposed data exchanges, institutional responsibilities, safeguards and operational recommendations are legally grounded, institutionally feasible and actionable within Montenegro’s legal and administrative framework. The consultant will develop the legal analysis, Legal Basis Register, legal and regulatory gap assessment, and recommendations for laws, by-laws, protocols, agreements or institutional procedures required to enable lawful and secure inter-institutional data exchange.The consultant will not access identifiable child-level data and will work only with system metadata, legal documentation, institutional procedures, anonymised or aggregated examples where needed, and information provided through consultations.The assignment will include consultations with relevant institutions, including but not limited to: Ministry of Education, Science and Innovation; Ministry of Public Administration; Ministry of Interior; Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Dialogue; Ministry of Social Welfare, Family Care and Demography; Employment Agency of Montenegro; Ministry of Health; Ministry of Justice; Examination Centre; Universities; Tax Administration; Ombudsperson’s Office and other relevant institutions and stakeholders. Scope of Work: The National Legal Consultant will support the International Consultant and work closely with the National Technical Consultant. The International Consultant will lead the overall methodology, synthesis and final interoperability roadmap; the National Technical Consultant will lead the national technical and systems assessment; and the National Legal Consultant will lead the legal, regulatory, institutional and data protection analysis.Key responsibilities include:• Conduct legal and regulatory analysis related to administrative data exchange and interoperability;• Analyse compliance with national legislation, including but not limited to the Law on Electronic Administration, Law on Administrative Procedure, Law on Information Security, Law on Personal Data Protection and other relevant legal and by-law frameworks;• Assess institutional mandates, responsibilities and governance arrangements in the selected priority use cases, with a focus on data exchange between education, employment, social welfare, child protection and health, as well as other relevant base registries or public-service systems;• Review existing inter-institutional agreements, protocols and legal bases for data sharing between MoESI and education institutions, employment services, social welfare and child protection bodies, health institutions, Ministry of Interior/civil status and identification systems, Ministry of Justice where relevant, the Examination Centre, higher education institutions, Tax Administration and other institutions identified as relevant for the agreed priority use cases;• Prepare and maintain a Legal Basis Register for all proposed data exchanges. For every data field to be accessed, received or reused by another institution, the register shall identify the providing institution, receiving institution, purpose of processing, relevant law, by-law, rulebook, protocol or agreement, specific article or provision where available, applicable data protection basis, limitations on use, and any conditions required before exchange can take place;• Where no adequate legal basis exists, or where the existing legal basis is unclear, fragmented or insufficient, identify the specific legal or regulatory gap and provide a recommendation on the law, by-law, rulebook, protocol, agreement or institutional procedure that should be amended or adopted;• Assess compliance with GDPR principles and data protection obligations, including data minimisation, purpose limitation, lawful basis, transparency, storage limitation, integrity and confidentiality, accountability and safeguards for the use of data in decisions affecting children and young people;• Analyse legal and organisational safeguards related to sensitive personal data, especially data concerning children and vulnerable groups, including role-based access, authentication and authorisation requirements, logging and audit trails, retention and deletion rules, procedures for correcting inaccurate data, restrictions on onward sharing, confidentiality and accountability;• Provide legal inputs to business-process descriptions, data-flow maps, Data Exchange Matrix, draft SOPs, data-sharing protocols, governance arrangements and operational recommendations;• Support stakeholder consultations and coordination with national institutions, particularly legal departments, data protection focal points and institutional decision-makers;• Work in close coordination with the International Consultant and National Technical Consultant to ensure that technical proposals are legally feasible and that legal recommendations are operationally realistic.The National Legal Consultant will be responsible for ensuring that all legal findings and recommendations are accurate, actionable and aligned with Montenegro’s legal and institutional framework.The consultant will work under the direct supervision and guidance of the ADAP Officer (NoB), as well as closely with the Education section and all relevant programme colleagues. The consultant will also work in close cooperation with the International Consultant, National Technical Consultant, Ministry of Education, Science and Innovation and other relevant government institutions. All documents shall be produced in the English and Montenegrin languages. Work Assignment Overview: Legal and regulatory desk review input