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UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential.
Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone.
And we never give up.
For every child, a chance.
This Multi-Country (MC) Evaluation Specialist post will, on the basis of efficiency and effectiveness considerations, be located in the Regional Office for Eastern and Southern Africa, ESARO. 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.
How can you make a difference?
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 nonhumanitarian environments.
The Multi-Country Evaluation Specialist will work with assigned Country Offices to:
- 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:
- 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.
- 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.
- Manage select Country Programme Evaluations and multi-country evaluations, including conceptualization, design, contracting, and oversight of all evaluation phases, including management of the quality assurance processes.
- 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 Country Offices to monitor and report on the implementation of agreed management response actions. At a larger scale, support the Country Offices 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 Country Offices under his/her responsibility [or connected to external experts] 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.
To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…
- 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.
- A minimum of 8 years of relevant 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 with building staff and organizational capacities in Evaluation.
- Experience in supporting national evaluation capacity and working with professional evaluation associations is an advantage.
- 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.
- Experience in the region where the post is situated is advantageous.
- Developing country work experience and/or familiarity with emergency is considered an asset.
- Fluency in English and French is required. Knowledge of another official UN language or 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
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
During the recruitment process, we test candidates following the competency framework. Familiarize yourself with our competency framework and its different levels: competency framework here.
UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most disadvantaged children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, or any other personal characteristic.
We offer a wide range of benefits to our staff, including paid parental leave, breastfeeding breaks and reasonable accommodation for persons with disabilities. UNICEF strongly encourages the use of flexible working arrangements.
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. UNICEF is committed to promote the protection and safeguarding of all children.
Remarks:
UNICEF’s active commitment towards diversity and inclusion is critical to deliver the best results for children. For this position, eligible and suitable female candidates are encouraged to apply.
Mobility is a condition of international professional employment with UNICEF and an underlying premise of the international civil service.
UNICEF appointments are subject to medical clearance. Issuance of a visa by the host country of the duty station, which will be facilitated by UNICEF, is required for IP positions. Appointments are also 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 cancelled.
All selected candidates will 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.
Government employees that are considered for employment with UNICEF are normally required to resign from their government 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.
Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.
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