Evaluation Specialist (Multi-Country) – P4

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. 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 personal and professional development that will help them develop a fulfilling career while delivering on a rewarding mission. We pride ourselves on a culture that helps staff thrive, coupled with an attractive compensation and benefits package.

Visit our website to learn more about what we do at UNICEF.

 

For every child, Hope!

A Multi-Country (MC) Evaluation Specialist post will, on the basis of efficiency and effectiveness considerations, be located in one of the Country Offices for which it is being established or in the Regional Office. Irrespective of the location, a matrix management approach will be applied in which the Regional Office and cooperating Country Offices contribute to the performance review of the MC Evaluation Specialist. The MC Evaluation Specialist reports to the Regional Evaluation Adviser (P-5) for evaluation oversight, and to the Representatives of the Country Offices that fall under his/her responsibilities for administrative oversight, including in matters related to evaluation sponsorship, planning, funding and use. The MC Evaluation Specialist works in close coordination with the Country Office evaluation staff/focal persons in the development and implementation of the Country Office costed evaluation plan, and works with the Country-Office to undertake thematic evaluations, evaluation of humanitarian action (for Level 1 emergencies) evaluability assessments, and other evaluative activities for which Country Offices are accountable. S/he works with the CO in engaging competent evaluators who conduct their work in accordance with the norms and standards of the UNICEF evaluation policy.

The incumbent works in accordance with the norms and standards of the United Nations Evaluation Group (UNEG) and the UNICEF evaluation policy. S/he provides guidance to staff involved in managing evaluations in the countries under his/her responsibility and consults the supervisor when major policy decisions and actions must be undertaken.

 

How can you make a difference? 

The MC Evaluation Specialist works with the evaluation specialists/focal points in their duties in the assigned countries.

The MC Evaluation Specialist ensures credibility, impartiality, and independence of the evaluation function in the COs under her/his responsibility. He/she also facilitates the development and implementation of evaluation workplans in each Country Office and provides guidance and technical support to sectors and to the Country Management Team as well as the national government on evaluation and on related matters.

The MC Evaluation Specialist helps the Country Offices to manage its evaluation partnerships, including inter-agency relations within the UN, and collaboration with the Regional Office and Headquarters.  The Specialist may also be assigned more specific duties that enable her/him to be a resource person across the region, including methodological work, resource mobilization, and procurement support for evaluations.

The Specialist is responsible for contributing to the design and effective conduct and uptake of evaluations in accordance with the UNICEF evaluation policy. He/she ensures that the UNEG Norms and Standards for evaluation as well as well UNICEF evaluation coverage benchmarks and quality standards are upheld.

The term evaluation’ in this JD refers to the entire range of evaluation products listed in the section B Evaluation Coverage of the UNICEF Evaluation Policy 2023.

 

1.  Evaluation Leadership

 Support the Country Offices under his/her responsibility and their national partners to develop and implement a plan of evaluation activities that will provide relevant and strategic information to manage Country Programmes and relevant national policies and programmes toward achieving results for children in both humanitarian and non humanitarian environments.

The Multi-Country Evaluation Specialist will work with assigned Country Offices:

• Guide the offices and their partners to identify priority evaluation topics in accordance with the UNICEF Evaluation Policy, the UNICEF Strategic Plan, the Sustainable Development Goals, the Country Programme Document and national policies and programmes.
• Identify the Evaluation objectives, priorities, and activities required for effective Country Office and partner Emergency Preparedness and Response Plans. In humanitarian response situations, help the Country Office adjust the prevailing evaluation plan in UNICEF Evidence Information System Integration system (EISI), in accordance with guidance for emergency situations. Likewise, adjust the evaluation plans in EISI in accordance with the transition through the stages of transition and recovery.
• Identify gaps in knowledge and work with sector managers to ensure these are addressed. Facilitate cross-sectoral collaboration in the execution of these efforts.
• Provide technical support to ensure that a set of evaluation performance indicators is monitored and fed into decision-making processes in the context of the multi-year and annual evaluation plans in EISI, as well as associated office-wide management plans and work plans, ensuring close follow up on the implementation of planned evaluative activities .
• Consolidate evaluation plans within required systems and documentation, including the EISI planning platform and in the Costed Evaluation Plan that accompanies the Country Programme Document for consideration by the Executive Board. Ensure that evaluation findings and lessons learned are incorporated in country programme, Programme Strategy Notes and other planning, and reporting documents. Support the conceptualization of MTRs (where applicable) from an evaluation perspective.
• Monitor progress and support Country Management Teams (CMTs), Country office Annual Reports and, where applicable, Mid-term Reviews (MTR), as well as other review moments that lead to plan revisions. Provide input to management reports, including relevant sections of the Country Office Annual Report.

2.  Evaluation Conduct and Use

 Ensure that UNICEF-supported evaluations are designed and implemented to established UN quality standards, and the results are disseminated in a timely fashion and used by stakeholders in order to improve programme performance and contribute to wider learning.

 The Multi Country Evaluation Specialist will support Country Offices to:

• Undertake an evaluability assessment of themes listed in costed evaluation plans, as required, and make recommendations on changes to improve the evaluability of the programs.
• Assist Country Offices and their partners to formulate Terms of Reference and evaluation designs of high quality. The MC Evaluation Specialist is to sign off on the TORs before they can advance to recruitment of the evaluation team. Work with the country office evaluation specialist/focal point to manage the recruitment of appropriate and highly qualified consultants.
• The Specialist will closely monitor the implementation of the evaluation, quality review the deliverables and will indicate when the quality is high enough that it can be accepted.  As part of this role, she/he will help establish and manage the necessary governance bodies (Steering Committee; Reference Group) for their inputs into the quality assurance process.
• Work closely with external evaluation consultants/teams to enable them to deliver results according to the agreed Terms of Reference. Exercise sufficient oversight that quality is assured, and any quality problems are detected soon enough that timely remedial action is possible.
• Develop and implement a multi-method communication plan to disseminate the evaluation report to intended audiences via user-friendly methods. Fosters organizational accountability and learning based on the outcomes of the evaluations, working with other Evaluation Managers in the region. Promotes further dissemination and use of evaluation to internal and external audiences (including national government, development partners, CSOs and private sector partners. Regularly documents emerging good practices of evaluation use in the countries under her/his responsibility.
• Support stakeholders to prepare a formal management response that reflects their reaction/views on the evaluation recommendations. Assist the COs to monitor and report on the implementation of agreed management response actions. At a larger scale, support the CO to find means to engage partners around the value of the evaluation, with a consistent goal of increasing utilization and reach.
• Support country-led evaluations of policies and programmes and the consideration of the results by partners.

3.  Evaluation Capacity Strengthening and Partnership building

 Ensure that evaluation capacities of Country Office staff and national partners ? including government and civil society ? are strengthened, enabling them to increasingly engage in and lead evidence generating processes.  Ensure that the Country Office is effectively linked to wider UNICEF capacity building developments in a way that both contributes to and benefits from organizational learning. 

 The Multi Country Evaluation Specialist will support Country Offices to:

• Build and strengthen strategic partnerships through networking and advocacy with local/national governments and sub-regional governmental bodies, UN system agency partners, donors, NGOs, funding organization, research institutes, including universities, and the private sector. Promotes joint Govt/UNICEF evaluations that rigorously assess national policies, programmes and innovative models.
• Ensure that sufficient systems and procedures are in place within the COs under his/her responsibility for appropriate ethics reviews of evidence activities as per the UNICEF Procedure for Ethical Standards in Research, Evaluation and Data Collection and Analysis.
• Foster policy-level and academic partnerships to support national evaluation capacity development initiatives. Ensure that evaluation capacities of country office staff and national partners ? government and civil society ? are strengthened enabling relevant Government units to increasingly engage in and lead evaluation processes.

The MC Evaluation Specialist is expected to be a well-informed focal point on a range of learning options and themes, and a first point of contact for the COs to arrange upskilling efforts.

 

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have?

Minimum requirements:

• Education: An Advanced University Degree in the social sciences, economics, public policy, statistics, or in research methods is required.  A degree or certification/accreditation in Evaluation is a significant advantage.
• Work Experience: A minimum of 8 years of professional experience in the implementation of equity-focused evaluations and the management of the evaluation function at national and international level. Experience in development and/ or humanitarian settings is required.
• Experience in supporting national evaluation capacity and working with professional evaluation associations;
• Experience in evaluation design and in conducting evaluations as per UNICEF and UNEG norms and standards for Evaluation in the UN System;
• Familiarity with methods used in conducting both ?up-stream’ evaluations (e.g. focusing on policies, strategies and systems), as well as ?down-stream’ evaluations (e.g. focusing on delivery of programmes and projects) is an asset.
• Experience in related evidence functions is an asset, including Social Policy, Public Policy, Quantitative and Qualitative Data Analysis, Research, Programme Audit, and Programme Planning and Monitoring.  Experience in these areas cannot be substituted for the Evaluation experience but is an advantage.
• Language Requirements: Fluency in French and English are required.  A prominent language of the duty stations covered by the MC Evaluation Post is an asset.

 

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s Core Values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust and Accountability and Sustainability (CRITAS) underpin everything we do and how we do it. Get acquainted with Our Values Charter: UNICEF Values

The UNICEF competencies required for this post are?

(1) Builds and maintains partnerships

(2) Demonstrates self-awareness and ethical awareness

(3) Drive to achieve results for impact

(4) Innovates and embraces change

(5) Manages ambiguity and complexity

(6) Thinks and acts strategically

(7) Works collaboratively with others 

(8) Nurtures, leads and manages people 

Familiarize yourself with our competency framework and its different levels.

UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages all candidates, irrespective of gender, nationality, religious or ethnic background, and persons with disabilities, to apply to become a part of the organization. To create a more inclusive workplace, UNICEF offers paid parental leave, breastfeeding breaks, and reasonable accommodation for persons with disabilities. UNICEF strongly encourages the use of flexible working arrangements. Click here to learn more about flexible work arrangements, well-being, and benefits.

According to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), persons with disabilities include those who have long-term physical, mental, intellectual, or sensory impairments which, in interaction with various barriers, may hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others. In its Disability Inclusion Policy and Strategy 2022-2030, UNICEF has committed to increase the number of employees with disabilities by 2030. At UNICEF, we provide reasonable accommodation for work-related support requirements of candidates and employees with disabilities. Also, UNICEF has launched a Global Accessibility Helpdesk to strengthen physical and digital accessibility. If you are an applicant with a disability who needs digital accessibility support in completing the online application, please submit your request through the accessibility email button on the UNICEF Careers webpage Accessibility tendersglobal.net UNICEF.

UNICEF does not hire candidates who are married to children (persons under 18). UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination based on gender, nationality, age, race, sexual orientation, religious or ethnic background or disabilities. UNICEF is committed to promote the protection and safeguarding of all children. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks, and will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check, and selected candidates with disabilities may be requested to submit supporting documentation in relation to their disability confidentially.

UNICEF appointments are subject to medical clearance.  Issuance of a visa by the host country of the duty station is required for IP positions and will be facilitated by UNICEF. Appointments may also be subject to inoculation (vaccination) requirements, including against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid). Should you be selected for a position with UNICEF, you either must be inoculated as required or receive a medical exemption from the relevant department of the UN. Otherwise, the selection will be canceled.

 

Remarks:

As per Article 101, paragraph 3, of the Charter of the United Nations, the paramount consideration in the employment of the staff is the necessity of securing the highest standards of efficiency, competence, and integrity.

UNICEF’s active commitment to diversity and inclusion is critical to deliver the best results for children. For this position, eligible and suitable females candidates are encouraged to apply.

Government employees who are considered for employment with UNICEF are normally required to resign from their government positions before taking up an assignment with UNICEF. UNICEF reserves the right to withdraw an offer of appointment, without compensation, if a visa or medical clearance is not obtained, or necessary inoculation requirements are not met, within a reasonable period for any reason. 

UNICEF does not charge a processing fee at any stage of its recruitment, selection, and hiring processes (i.e., application stage, interview stage, validation stage, or appointment and training). UNICEF will not ask for applicants’ bank account information.

Mobility is a condition of international professional employment with UNICEF and an underlying premise of the international civil service.

All UNICEF positions are advertised, and only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process. An internal candidate performing at the level of the post in the relevant functional area, or an internal/external candidate in the corresponding Talent Group, may be selected, if suitable for the post, without assessment of other candidates.

Ouagadougou is a non-family duty station with a Rest & Recuperation cycle every 8 weeks.

Additional information about working for UNICEF can be found here.

 

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