Evaluation Specialist

Job Description

Job no: 552197
Position type: Fixed Term Appointment
Location: Nepal
Division/Equivalent: Kathmandu(ROSA)
School/Unit: Nepal
Department/Office: Kathmandu, Nepal
Categories: Research, Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation

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, result

The Evaluation Specialist post is based in Kathmandu, Nepal, and reports to the Chief, Social Policy, Evidence and Evaluation Section. The Evaluation Specialist supports the Management Team in the development and implementation of the costed evaluation plan and works with the Country-Office to undertake thematic and impact evaluations, evaluability assessments, and other evaluative activities for which UNICEF Nepal is accountable. S/he engages 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 Evaluation Specialist ensures credibility, impartiality, and independence of the evaluation function under her/his responsibility. He/she also facilitates the development and implementation of evaluation workplans in the 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 Evaluation Specialist helps the Country Office to manage its evaluation partnerships, including inter-agency relations within the UN, and collaboration with the Regional Office and Headquarters. The Specialist is responsible for the quality assurance of ToRs, evaluation designs, and procurement support for evaluations. S/he may be assigned to more specific duties that enable her/him to be a resource person across for methodological work and resource mobilization for evidence generation activities. The Specialist is responsible for the timely implementation of evaluations, 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 Evaluation Specialist will support the implementation of real time assessments and big data survey such as Nepal Child and family Tacker

Summary of key functions/accountabilities:

1. Evaluation Leadership

2. Evaluation Conduct and Use

3. Evaluation Capacity Strengthening and Partnership Building

1. Evaluation Leadership

Support the Country Office 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.

• • Guide the Country Office and 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 .
  •  Support the conceptualization of MTRs (where applicable) from an evaluation perspective.
  •  Monitor progress and support Country Management Team in the Country office Annual Reports, 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.

• 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.
•  In close collaboration with sectoral programme and partners, lead the process of formulating Terms of Reference and evaluation designs of high quality.
•  Manage and ensure the quality of evaluations, deliverables and 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. Foster organizational accountability and learning based on the outcomes of the evaluations. Promote further dissemination and use of evaluation to internal and external audiences (including national government, development partners, CSOs and private sector partners. Regularly document emerging good practices of evaluation use.
•  Support stakeholders to prepare a formal management response that reflects their reaction/views on the evaluation recommendations. Assist the CO 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.

• 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 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.

Required Qualification & Experience

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

• An Advanced University Degree in economics, social sciences, statistics, or in research methods is required. A degree or certification/accreditation in Evaluation is a significant advantage. Knowledge of statistics is a strong asset
• A minimum of 5 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.
• 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.
• Experience in the region where the post is situated is an asset
• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of any other UN language, an asset

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s Core Values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust and Accountability (CRITA) underpin everything we do and how we do it. Get acquainted with Our Values Charter: https://uni.cf/UNICEFValues

The UNICEF competencies required for this post are:

Core Competencies

• Demonstrates Self Awareness and Ethical Awareness (2)
• Works Collaboratively with others (2)
• Builds and Maintains Partnerships (2)
• Innovates and Embraces Change (2)
• Thinks and Acts Strategically (2)
• Drive to achieve impactful results (2)
• Manages ambiguity and complexity (2)
• Nurtures, Leads and Manages People (2)

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 committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages all candidates, irrespective of gender, nationality, religious and ethnic backgrounds, including persons living with disabilities, to apply to become a part of the organization.

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 also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. 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.

UNICEF’s active commitment towards diversity and inclusion is critical to deliver the best results for children. For this position, eligible and suitable [Insert diversity profile] are encouraged to apply.

How to Apply

Mobility is a condition of international professional employment with UNICEF and an underlying premise of the international civil service. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.

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 may also be subject to inoculation (vaccination) requirements, including against SARS-CoV-2 (COVID). 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.

Advertised: Jul 04 2022 Nepal Standard Time
Application close: Jul 17 2022 Nepal Standard Time

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