Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) Specialist

Details

Mission and objectives

The UNDP Sierra Leone Country Office was established in 1978 and has over the years grown to a total staff strength of over 140 and with an average annual delivery of USD 25 million. UNDP has established a Planning and Support Unit (PSU) to provide effective and efficient management advisory support services to senior management and to programme and operations Units. It specifically leads on programme quality assurance, results-based management, resource mobilization, and donor relations and reporting.
Under the overall guidance of the Resident Representative and direct supervision of the Team Leader of the PSU, the Donor Relations and Reporting Specialist leads on partnership building and ensuring donor compliance and high-quality donor reporting. He/she will: (i) identify and explore potentials for strategic partnership and programme synergies, (ii) coordinate donor relations and development assistant (iii) ensure donor reporting compliance and consistency with UNDAF/CPD and other corporate documents (iv) develop and enhance partnerships and (v) mobilize resources. He/she will also support knowledge management and information dissemination in a coordinated, systematic, client-oriented and timely manner for all programmes. The Donor Relations and Reporting Specialist works in close collaboration with Senior Management, Team Leaders in the Programme and Operations Units. He or she is expected to coordinate with relevant colleagues in other UN Agencies.

Context

The UN Secretary-General launched on 1 January 2019 a bold and new global reform that repositioned the UN Development System to deliver more effectively and efficiently with the achievement of the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals. As part of this reform, UN Resident Coordinator Offices (UN RCO), under the leadership of an empowered and independent UN Resident Coordinator – the highest-ranking official of the UN Development System and Representative of the UN Secretary-General at the country level – support countries in the achievement of their development priorities and the attainment of the SDGs.
The Peacebuilding Fund (PBF) support has helped catalyze critical peacebuilding processes over the past twenty years, helping to restore democracy, rebuilding state institutions, sustaining post-war reconstruction, and rebuilding social cohesion, after the country civil war. Thanks in part to PBF assistance, and with the technical support of UN agencies alongside the government’s commitment and participation, progress has been made in sustaining peace and moving forward some of the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation report. Since the end of the civil war, PBF has invested about USD 84 millions.
Since 2016, the UN Peace and Development Advisor has helped to further develop the PBF portfolio – which, currently, is about USD 16 millions -, providing assistance to the UN Agencies, NGOs, and Government to plan and design the project, undertaking the monitoring and supporting to unblock bottlenecks and properly advice on conflict sensitivity aspects and provide dedicated training on conflict analysis to local stakeholders. Considering the number of tasks ahead, it has been decided to establish a small dedicated PBF Secretariat within the RC Office, consisting of the PBF Coordinator and the PBF M&E expert to help in the coordination and quality assurance of the PBF portfolio of projects in Sierra Leone. In addition, a dedicated PBF Joint Steering Committee will be established to strengthen high level oversight of the PBF-supported projects and to strengthen overall coordination of the portfolio. The JSC will be co-chaired by the United Nations Resident Coordinator and the Minister of Planning and Economic Development of the Sierra Leone’s Government. The PBF Secretariat, will help the Joint Steering Committee (JSC) in its coordination and monitoring tasks.
The PBF Secretariat personnel will be recruited by UNDP, as the administrative Agency for this purpose.
Under the overall guidance of the Resident Coordinator (RC/O), reporting directly to the PBF Coordinator, the Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) Specialist of the PBF Secretariat will work in close collaboration with the RCO M&E Officer and oversee development and implementation of a monitoring, evaluation, and reporting framework for the PBF portfolio in Sierra Leone. He/she will contribute to strengthening PBF recipient agencies and partners’ M&E capacities.
The M&E Specialist will oversee the development of a joint integrated M&E system for PBF projects (including cross-border and gender and youth promotion initiative projects) to promote synergies between projects. He/she will ensure the formulation of common results and indicators at the macro level to help measure achievements based on priorities defined in the future PBF eligibility application.

Task description

1. Design and implement monitoring and evaluation frameworks, systems, and tools, and as applicable, conduct programme quality assurance in keeping with corporate policies.
• Develop integrated monitoring and evaluation (M&E) and results-based management (RBM) frameworks and systems for overseeing Peacebuilding Fund (PBF) projects. This will help provide a portfolio level sense of progress and will help the Resident Coordinator (RC), the Joint Steering Committee (JSC) and Peacebuilding Support Office (PBSO) in making informed decisions.
• Provide M&E-related analysis to the JSC and PBSO, including monitoring and analysis of PBF-supported project implementation progress, and facilitating potential field visits by the JSC.
• Monitor the impact of peacebuilding projects by organizing field visits and joint M&E missions to project sites, in close collaboration with the Agencies and project teams.
• Facilitate joint M&E activities with national partners and JSC as appropriate.
• Identify any challenges to project implementation and, with the PBF Coordinator and project implementing teams, propose solutions or corrective measures in a timely manner.
• Conduct a joint annual review of work plans as part of reviewing implementation progress.
• Prepare briefing to communicate project results to RC(O), JSC and PBSO
2. Lead coordination of and support to monitoring, reporting, evaluation and results-based management of PBF portfolio
• Support the implementing agencies of PBF projects in collecting and analyzing data.
• Ensure that data collection aligns with future PBF Strategic Result Framework.
• In collaboration with project teams, ensure that the results of different projects are documented, monitored, evaluated, analyzed.
• Support PBF projects to commission baseline and endline surveys as well as project evaluations in close collaboration with the PBF Secretariat Coordinator and the peacebuilding team.
• Regularly review individual project implementation through monitoring visits.
• Review PBF agency project reports and support their quality assurance. by providing timely feedback
• Support the PBF Coordinator to draft the PBF strategic annual report.
3. Provide substantive contributions to capacity building and facilitate knowledge building and sharing on monitoring, evaluation, and results-based management.
• Contribute to assessing M&E capacity needs and elaborating capacity development plans, tools, and methodologies for implementing Agencies.
• Support the project coordinator to identify, document, and disseminating key lessons learned and good practices derived from monitoring and evaluating activities.
• Create a database of interventions and stakeholders involved in peacebuilding to promote synergies.
• Support the PBF coordinator to promote visibility of the PBF portfolio.
4. The incumbent performs other duties within their functional profile as deemed necessary for the efficient functioning of the Office and the Organization.