Deputy Director, Independent Evaluations Office

UNDP is the UN’s global development network, an organization advocating for change and connecting countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help build nations that can withstand crisis, and drive and sustain the kind of growth that improves the quality of life for everyone. UNDP works in nearly 170 countries and territories, helping to achieve the eradication of poverty, and the reduction of inequalities and exclusion. We help countries to develop policies, leadership skills, partnering abilities, institutional capabilities and build resilience in order to sustain development results. UNDP is working to strengthen new frameworks for development, disaster risk reduction and climate change. We support countries’ efforts to implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and achieve the new Sustainable Development Goals, which will guide global development priorities for the next 7 years.

UNDP’s Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) works to enhance UNDP’s development effectiveness through independent thematic and programmatic evaluations and contributes to organizational learning, accountability and transparency. IEO assures the quality and use of UNDP evaluations by establishing norms, standards and guidelines and by knowledge sharing and networking with both internal and external partners.

Duties and Responsibilities

• The Deputy Director reports to the Director of the IEO and holds key oversight, managerial, and supervisory responsibilities over the entire team of evaluation and operational staff. Operating with an explicit delegation of authority from the Director for operations, the main responsibilities of the incumbent will be in the following key areas:
• UNDP adopts a portfolio approach to accommodate changing business needs and leverage linkages across interventions to achieve its strategic goals. This is a recognition of the interconnected nature of development risks & crises that the world is facing and that call for assembling of multidisciplinary teams for an integrated & systemic response. Therefore, UNDP personnel are expected to work across issues, units, functions, teams and projects in multidisciplinary teams in order to enhance and enable horizontal collaboration.

The Deputy Director’s key results also have a considerable impact on overall economy, efficiency, and effectiveness of office operations as it relates to the use of corporate resources in the following areas:

• Financial services
• Human Resources
• Procurement and logistical services
• Information and Communications Technology for Development Evaluation

Leadership and Strategic Planning

• The Deputy Director supports the Director in providing organizational leadership and strategic guidance to UNDP’s evaluation function and implementing the UNDP evaluation policy. He/she develops the IEO’s annual workplan, which encompasses all workstreams, including approximately 15-35 Independent Country Program evaluations, 2-3 thematic evaluations, synthesis, corporate learning, engagement and knowledge management. He/she is responsible for fostering an environment of methodological rigor and professional empowerment of IEO’s team to live up to the high standards expected by the stakeholders. He/she supports the Director in managing interactions with the UNDP’s Senior Management, the Executive Board, and other external/ internal stakeholders.

Management Oversight and Supervision

• The incumbent exercises management oversight in the implementation of the substantive overall programme of work of the office. The Deputy Directors supervises and provides guidance to the senior staff including team leaders regarding the operational aspects of their work. He/she is responsible for early and consistent engagement in evaluation processes to assure quality and substance, provision of substantive guidance as the work progresses and project management of issues relating to political sensitivity, credibility, timeliness and use of evaluations.

Administrative, Financial and Human Resource management and accountability

• The incumbent is responsible for oversight and accountability of core resources and extra-budgetary funds mobilized from donors. In securing the accountability and smooth functioning of the office, the incumbent exercises oversight and executive responsibility over the office budget, recruitment of staff and consultants, all financial expenditure and procurement, and operations support, in line with the direction of IEO’s Director. He/she directly supervises the Operations Manager, and the Chief of Sections.

Other Specific duties and responsibilities

Specific duties include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Maintain and ensure adherence to UNDP’s Evaluation Policy
• Supervise evaluations or assessments of UNDP programmes, themes or policies of key importance at the corporate level.
• Support the implementation of ccutting-edge evaluation methodologies to enhance the rigor of evaluations carried out by the IEO.
• Ensure the IEO’s high quality methodological and process standards through strict guidance to the IEO’s professionals and evaluation consultants.
• Foster and sustain productive partnerships for evaluation with UN system evaluation offices/units and multilateral institutions on the one hand, and with leading evaluation institutions, networks and regional/national professional associations on the other.
• Provide strategic advisory support and guidance on evaluation matters to country offices and HQ units, as required.
• Coordinate responses to any corporate requirements or demands from external parties.
• Coach and mentor staff as required, more particularly the mid managers, to maintain a sustainable delivery capacity in the IEO.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Advanced university degree (Masters) in social sciences, Economics, Business or Public Administration or any other related field.
• A first level university degree (Bachelors) with an additional 2 years of relevant experience.

Experience:

• A minimum of 15 years’ experience in progressively responsible and relevant professional experience in conducting and managing evaluations for large, complex organizations (including international, national and NGOs).
• Documented evidence of evaluation technical and professional skills, and first-hand experience conducting evaluations for United Nations organizations, and/or other multilateral and bilateral development organizations.
• Proven experience in managing operations in the UN system at the corporate level or any other multilateral development organization. Acquaintance with UNDP’s operations is also desirable.

Language

• Fluency in English.
• Proficiency in Spanish, French or any other UN official language is highly desirable.

Source: https://estm.fa.em2.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/CandidateExperience/en/sites/CX_1/requisitions/job/17782