Humanitarian Evaluation Advisor; Independent Evaluation Office – P5  

The Position:

The Humanitarian Evaluation Advisor in the UNFPA Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) is expected to lead the UNFPA humanitarian evaluation function, supervise the humanitarian evaluation team, manage humanitarian centralized evaluations, engage with partners to deliver the Evaluation Policy and contribute to the functioning of the IEO.

How you can make a difference:

UNFPA is the lead UN agency for delivering a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young person’s potential is fulfilled. UNFPA’s strategic plan (2022-2025), reaffirms the relevance of the current strategic direction of UNFPA and focuses on three transformative results: to end preventable maternal deaths; end unmet need for family planning; and end gender-based violence and harmful practices. These results capture our strategic commitments on accelerating progress towards realizing the ICPD and SDGs in the Decade of Action leading up to 2030. Our strategic plan calls upon UN Member States, organizations and individuals to “build forward better”, while addressing the negative impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on women’s and girls’ access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights, recover lost gains and realize our goals.

In a world where fundamental human rights are at risk, we need principled and ethical staff, who embody these international norms and standards, and who will defend them courageously and with full conviction.

UNFPA is seeking candidates that transform, inspire and deliver high impact and sustained results; we need staff who are transparent, exceptional in how they manage the resources entrusted to them and who commit to deliver excellence in programme results.

The Independent Evaluation Office is the custodian of the evaluation function. It reports functionally to the Executive Board and administratively to the Executive Director. The office is independent from the operational, management and decision-making functions in the organization, and is impartial, objective and free from undue influence.

The IEO conducts or commissions centralized evaluations, including selected country programme and regional programme evaluations, selected global and country-level humanitarian evaluations, as well as other types of evaluations. It develops evaluation standards, criteria and methodological guidance and maintains evaluation quality assessment mechanisms. The IEO provides the necessary capacity development on issues related to evaluation and engages in partnerships with professional evaluation networks, such as the United Nations Evaluation Group and the Interagency Humanitarian Evaluation Steering Group, and supports the harmonization of the evaluation function in the United Nations system. It also promotes multistakeholder and intergenerational partnerships to strengthen national evaluation capacities, including meaningful involvement of young evaluators.

Within the IEO, the Humanitarian Evaluation Team, led by the Humanitarian Evaluation Adviser, aims to provide evaluative evidence with a view to accounting for the performance of UNFPA in humanitarian assistance and informing UNFPA’s current and future humanitarian programming.

Responsibilities include:

A. Leading the humanitarian evaluation function within the IEO

• Provides strategic inputs for the development of the humanitarian portfolio of the UNFPA multi-year costed evaluation plan;
• Enhances the quality of UNFPA humanitarian evaluation methods and tools;
• Represents the IEO in various fora related to humanitarian assistance in general, and humanitarian evaluation in general;
• Supervises the humanitarian evaluation team.

B. Conducting and/or managing credible and independent centralized humanitarian evaluations and other evaluative studies relating to UNFPA engagement in humanitarian assistance

• Leads and manages different types of centralized humanitarian evaluations as per the UNFPA Multi-year costed Evaluation Plan, including thematic, programme, institutional and joint evaluations, as well as other evaluative exercises relevant to UNFPA’s mandate;
• Develops terms of reference and budget, selects and contracts individuals or firms, constitutes and chairs evaluation reference groups, contributes substantially to the development of the scope, approach and methodology of evaluations, quality assures and pre-approves all evaluation deliverables and prepares a dissemination plan for all exercises;
• Ensures that evaluations meet high professional standards in line with the UNFPA Evaluation Policy (2024) and UNEG Norms & Standards;
• Partners closely with other UNFPA business units or external partners when conducting evaluations to ensure a high degree of utility;
• Operates within a constant mindset of improvement by keeping abreast of developments and innovations in evaluation in general, and humanitarian evaluation in particular, and ensures that relevant evaluation techniques and approaches are applied in the conduct of evaluative exercises;
• Supervises inputs of other IEO staff, as well as the work of research assistants.

C. Strengthening the decentralized humanitarian evaluation function

• Being a lead contributor to the mapping of country programme evaluations (CPEs) and project evaluations with a humanitarian component
• Take the lead in supporting Regional Planning, Monitoring, and Evaluation Advisors (RPMEAs) by quality-assuring the terms of reference and design reports for all CPEs with a humanitarian component, as well as selected humanitarian project evaluations;
• Provides ad hoc support to evaluation managers conducting a CPE with a humanitarian component or a humanitarian project evaluation, in consultation with the concerned RPMEA;
• Coordinate support the IEO Decentralized Evaluation Team (DET) in reviewing costed evaluation plans of country offices facing a humanitarian situation;
• Coordinate support the DET with the technical review of all country programme documents with a humanitarian component, focusing on humanitarian aspects, before submission to the UNFPA Executive Board.

D. Strengthening UNFPA’s position in evaluation practice within the UN system through participation in United Nations Evaluation Group work and inter-agency cooperation

• Contributes to United Nations Evaluation Group workplan and inter-agency cooperation as part of UNEG working groups, as required;
• Contributes to the harmonization of evaluation practices and guidelines among UN organizations;
• Contributes to global communities of practice, as relevant;
• Participates in international evaluation conferences and presents evaluative work, as required; and,
• Engages in networks with other UN organizations, bilateral donors, development cooperation organizations, professional institutions/associations on evaluation strategies, policies and practices.
• Being a lead contributor to United Nations Evaluation Group workplan and inter-agency cooperation as part of UNEG working groups, as required;
• Drives the working group by contributing relevant policies focusing on the harmonization of evaluation practices and guidelines among UN organizations;
• Contributes to global communities of practice, as relevant;
• Participates in international evaluation conferences and presents evaluative work, as required; and,
• Engages in networks with other UN organizations, bilateral donors, development cooperation organizations, professional institutions/associations on evaluation strategies, policies and practices

E. Leads staff within the Independent Evaluation Office, including planning and reporting on the UNFPA evaluation function.

• Oversee the preparation of UNFPA’s multi-year costed evaluation plans;
• Management of the preparation of the IEO budget, as required;
• Substantively contributes to the IEO reporting including: annual report on evaluation to the Executive Board and presentations and updates to Executive Committee, Oversight Advisory Committee and Oversight Compliance and Monitoring Committee, as required;
• Contributes to IEO’s human resources management as required;
• Promote the ethical and responsible use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in evaluation work;
• Acts as Officer in Charge as required; and,
• Any other task as required by the Director

Qualifications and Experience:

Education:

• Master’s degree in social sciences, public health, economics, gender studies or demography.

Knowledge and Experience:

• At least 10 years of experience in managing complex humanitarian evaluations in the areas of gender, health and/or population dynamics, as well as UNFPA’s other core programming areas;
• Demonstrable experience in managing and conducting humanitarian evaluations in or for UN organizations, other multi-lateral or bilateral development organizations;
• Proven track record as an evaluator of humanitarian operations, programmes and projects;
• Demonstrable experience in working collaboratively within the office and with external partners and experts;
• Demonstrable experience in conducting evaluation-related workshops and training courses – both in person and online;
• Strong leadership and management skills, with a focus on overseeing teams in different duty stations
• Knowledge of specialized software applied to evaluation; knowledge of AI is desirable.

Languages:

• Excellent verbal and writing skills in English required;
• Fluency in Arabic or in French is an asset.

Required Competencies:

Values:

• Exemplifying integrity,
• Demonstrating commitment to UNFPA and the UN system,
• Embracing cultural diversity,
• Embracing change

Core Competencies:

• Achieving results,
• Being accountable,
• Developing and applying professional expertise/business acumen,
• Thinking analytically and strategically,
• Working in teams/managing ourselves and our relationships,
• Communicating for impact

Functional Competencies:

• Developing appropriate evaluation tools and approaches
• Evaluating UNFPA activities using both formative and summative approaches
• Promoting accountability, results based-management and adaptive management
• Promoting organizational learning and use of evaluative evidence

Managerial Competencies (if applicable):

• Providing strategic focus
• Engaging staff and partners
• Leading, developing and empowering people/creating a culture of performance
• Making decisions and exercise judgment.

Compensation and Benefits:

This position offers an attractive remuneration package including a competitive net salary plus cost of living adjustment, rental subsidy, education grant, home leave, health insurance and other benefits as applicable.

UNFPA Work Environment:

UNFPA provides a work environment that reflects the values of gender equality, diversity, integrity and healthy work-life balance. We are committed to ensuring gender parity in the organization and therefore encourage women to apply. Individuals from the LGBTQIA+ community, minority ethnic groups, indigenous populations, persons with disabilities, and other underrepresented groups are highly encouraged to apply. UNFPA promotes equal opportunities in terms of appointment, training, compensation and selection for all regardless of personal characteristics and dimensions of diversity. Diversity, Equity and Inclusion is at the heart of UNFPA’s workforce – click here to learn more.

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