Evaluation Specialist, P3, Fixed Term, Kabul, Afghanistan #90311 (For non-Afghan national only)

Contract

This is a P-3 contract. This kind of contract is known as Professional and Director staff. It is normally internationally recruited only. It's a staff contract. It usually requires 5 years of experience, depending on education.

Salary

The salary for this job should be between 110,481 USD and 144,666 USD.

Please keep in mind that the salary displayed here is an estimation by UN Talent based on the location and the type of contract. It may vary depending on the organization. The recruiter should be able to inform you about the exact salary range. In case the job description contains another salary information, please refer to this one.

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, advocacy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbkJiMmvKqk

How can you make a difference?

PURPOSE OF THE JOB: Under the supervision of the Chief Social Policy, the Evaluation Specialist ensures credibility, impartiality, and independence of the evaluation function in the UNICEF Afghanistan Office under her/his responsibility. He/she also facilitates the development and implementation of evaluation and research work plans in Afghanistan 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 Afghanistan Country Office to manage its evaluation partnerships, including inter-agency relations within the UN, and collaboration with the Regional Office and Headquarters. The Evaluation 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 Evaluation 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.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES and DUTIES & TASKS

Within the delegated authority and under the given organizational set-up, the incumbent may be assigned the primarily, shared, or contributory accountabilities for all or part of the following areas of major duties and key end results.

1. Managing Evaluation Support UNICEF Afghanistan and its partners to develop and implement a plan of evaluation activities that will provide relevant and strategic information to manage Country Programme and relevant national policies and programmes toward achieving results for children in both humanitarian and non-humanitarian environments.

Duties & Tasks

The Evaluation Specialist will work:

• Guide UNICEF and its 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 UNICEF in Afghanistan. Considering the humanitarian response situation, 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.
• Ensure that the Country Office and national partners use a well-prioritised and realistic plan of research, monitoring, and evaluation activities that will provide the most relevant and strategic information to manage the Country Programme, including tracking and assessing UNICEF’s distinct contribution.
• Identify gaps in knowledge and work with sector managers to ensure these are addressed and facilitate cross-sectoral collaboration.
• 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.
• Ensure that evaluation findings and lessons learned are incorporated in the country programme, Programme Strategy Notes, and other planning, and reporting documents. Support the conceptualization of programme reviews (where applicable) from an evaluation perspective.
• Monitor progress and support Country Management Team (CMT), Country office Annual Report 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

2. Evaluation Conduct and Use

Ensure that UNICEF-supported evaluations are designed and implemented to establish 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 Evaluation Specialist will support:

• 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 Office and their partners to formulate Terms of Reference and evaluation designs of high quality. The Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist is to sign off on the TORs before they can advance to the recruitment of the evaluation team.
• The Monitoring and Evaluation 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 input 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 so 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 sectoral managers in the country office. Promotes further dissemination and use of evaluation to internal and external audiences (including the 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 reactions/views on the evaluation recommendations. Assist the Country Office 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 Evaluation Specialist will support:

• 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 organizations, 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 Office 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.

4. Manage Research Portfolio

Ensure that the Country Office has high-quality research outcomes in line with expected results established in annual work plans.

The Evaluation Specialist will support:

• Provide technical support to ensure that a set of research and assessments is conducted, with inputs of all concerned partners in the context of the multi-year and annual IMEPs, the Annual Management Plan, and Annual Work Plans.
• Carry out qualitative and quantitative analyses (using, for instance, NVivo, Stata, SPSS, Excel, etc.) and secondary research, and participate in internal and external consultations to refine and finalize these topics for inclusion in the UNICEF Work Plan.
• Coordinate with partners to ensure that research and assessment systems are properly designed, and that data collection and analysis from field visits are coordinated and standardized across programmes with special attention to humanitarian response.
• Contribute to drafting well-tailored and well-written concept notes and terms of reference in close consultation with key internal and external stakeholders.

5. Coordination and Networking

Ensure that the UNICEF office is effectively linked to wider UNICEF Evaluation developments in a way that both contributes to and benefits from organizational learning on effective evaluation management.

The Evaluation Specialist will support:

• Collaborate with Regional Evaluation Advisers and HQ Evaluation Office for overall coordination of priority research, monitoring and evaluation activities, especially those of regional scope requiring the coordinated effort of multiple countries.
• Partner with the Regional Evaluation Adviser to ensure that current and accurate evaluation data and results are included in regional reports, multi-country studies, and knowledge-sharing networks.
• Undertake lessons-learned reviews on successful and unsuccessful evaluation practices and experiences at the national level, and ensure they are shared as appropriate. Similarly, pay attention to evaluation knowledge networks to identify innovations and lessons learned that may be relevant for the CO and partners to improve their evaluation function.

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

Qualifications

• 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 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 of evaluation in humanitarian settings is a value addition.
• 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 in an advantage;
• 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 the delivery of programmes and projects) is an asset.
• Experience in related evidence functions is an asset, including 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.
• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is an asset.

Technical Knowledge:

• Professional expertise in evaluation process management, dissemination of results, and utilization.
• Technical knowledge of methodologies employed in Evaluation, including Results-based Management (RBM), theories of change, stakeholders mapping, standards and models, research designs, quantitative/qualitative/mixed methods of data collection, validity/reliability testing of data, data and qualitative information analysis and interpretation, and statistical inference methods.
• Technical knowledge in routine monitoring systems; preferably those associated with Health, Nutrition, Education, Child Protection, Social Policy or WASH sectors
• Technical knowledge on utilization of evaluation and other evidence approaches to realize Gender Equality and Human Rights based development.
• Familiarity with ethics review processes.
• Exposure to mobile technology platforms, ‘big data’ and other innovative techniques.
• Use of data and information quantitative and qualitative software for data analysis is an asset.
• Knowledge of UNICEF & UNEG Evaluation norms & standards.
• Communication skills (oral, written and in developing effective and user-targeted materials).
• Gender equality and diversity awareness
• Developing country work experience and/or familiarity with emergencies is considered an asset.

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s Core Values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, 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. 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.

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). 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.

Eligible UNICEF International Professional (IP) Staff Members on fixed-term, continuing or permanent contracts applying to a Temporary Appointment, which is dedicated to L3 (or L2) Response, may be able to retain a lien and their fixed-term entitlements. The conditions of the temporary assignment will vary depending on the status of their post and their current tour of duty, and relocation entitlements may be limited as per the relevant policies.