Individual Contractor: Evaluation Specialist, Beirut, Lebanon

Contract

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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!

BACKGROUND (RATIONALE AND CONTEXT): UNICEF Lebanon Country Office (LCO) is entrusted with significant resources to provide assistance to vulnerable children and women during a time of multiple crises. The UNICEF Humanitarian Appeal for Children for the LCRP is estimated at over USD 450 million for 2021. The LCO must ensure that these resources are spent effectively and efficiently to achieve equitable results for most vulnerable children. Against this backdrop, LCO aims to strengthen its evaluation performance and initiate over ten evaluations this year as prioritized in the LCO Costed Evaluation Plan. While LCO benefits from the technical support, oversight and quality assurance in evaluation provided by Regional Office, LCO and its staff members can greatly benefit from enhanced capacity on evaluation at the country level. Therefore, the consultancy is required to provide additional technical support to LCO in this area.

How can you make a difference?

The purpose of the consultancy is to provide operational and technical support to LCO in the area of evaluation management including:

• Working with the LCO Evaluation Focal Point (Evaluation Specialist) and contributing to the design and effective conduct and uptake of evaluations in accordance with the UNICEF evaluation policy. This includes providing quality assurance throughout the evaluation process and providing technical guidance.
• Providing substantive technical guidance and support, i.e. on enhancing evaluability, assessing and identifying capacity gaps, providing capacity development support or advising LCO on practical ways to enhance evaluation capacity in view of the context, and providing substantive technical support to and building country-level capacity on specific technical areas as per needs, such as development of theory of change, conducting needs assessment, methodologies, etc.
• Advising the Chief PRIME and Country Representative in the area of evaluation including promoting and independent and impartial evaluation culture.

The selected consultant/institution will work for the period of six months initially and can be extended for up to 12 months depending on satisfactory completion of the first phase of six months. It is anticipated that the work is done both remotely and onsite as required. The exact schedule of the activities will be agreed with the consultant based on the Costed Evaluation Plan and consultancy implementation progress. The deadline for completion of the first phase is the 31st of December. The second phase will be completed by the 29th of June 2022 if extended.

SUPERVISOR: The consultant will be supervised and report to the UNICEF Chief of PRIME with regular de-briefing with the Country Representative, who is accountable for evaluation at the country level. On a day-to-day basis, the consultant is expected to work closely and liaise with the Country Office Evaluation Focal Point (Evaluation Specialist) who is responsible for managing evaluation functions on the ground.

DESCRIPTION OF ASSIGNMENT: (TASKS, SMART DELIVERABLES, DEADLINES):

Tasks End Products/ Deliverables Duration/ Deadline

1. Develop quarterly work plans Workplan to be developed based on the Costed Evaluation Plan and updated routinely. First work plan to be developed two days after the inception meeting.

2. Update Supervisor and Evaluation Focal Point on progress. Weekly debrief on progress with a monthly written report on progress against work plan at the end of each month. Starting from debrief till end December 2021. Monthly progress report at the end of every month.

3. In close coordination with the in-country evaluation focal point, provide technical oversight and quality assurance. Quality-assured terms of reference, inception reports, draft reports and final reports of evaluations. As per the timeline of each evaluation. (Progress to be reported during the bi-weekly online debrief).

4. Provide technical support and ensure the implementation of the Management Response to evaluations. Actions to address recommendations as per management response completed. As per the timeline of each management response / action points.

5. Provide technical support and guidance to enhance evaluability of LCO programmes. As per request and deliverables will be monitored as part of the bi-weekly online debrief. Timeline to be agreed as per requirements.

6. Identify capacity needs and provide capacity development support. As per request and deliverables will be monitored as part of the bi-weekly online debrief. Timeline to be agreed as per requirements.

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

1. Education: Advanced university degree in evaluation, economics, social sciences, or related field.

2. Work experience:

• Ten years of relevant professional work experience in evaluation activities. Work experience in the field, particularly experience in humanitarian settings is desirable.
• Experience in managing evaluations, as team leader of evaluations, in humanitarian evaluation.
• Experience in facilitating workshops and trainings, and experience in theory of change development workshop desirable.

3. Technical knowledge/competencies: Knowledge of good and best practices in the evaluation community, knowledge about innovative methodologies and approaches. Ability to work well with people from diverse knowledge and background and at different levels of the organization. Excellent communication and analytical skills.

4. Language: Fluency in English is required. Fluency in Arabic is an asset.

UNICEF's values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, and Accountability (CRITA) and core competencies in Communication, Working with People and Drive for Results.

The UNICEF competencies required for this post are:

Integrity and Accountability

To view our competency framework, please visit here.

Click here to learn more about UNICEF’s values and competencies.

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.

Remarks:

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.

Qualified candidates are requested to submit:

1. Cover letter/application.
2. Financial quote as lump sum for professional fees, and lump sum for travel/administrative/subsistence, in case in-country mission is requested.
3. CV.
4. Two examples of previous, relevant work, e.g. evaluation reports and/or workshop reports.
5. Proposed approaches to capacity development in evaluation, considering the context in Lebanon. Technical proposal should also include a reference to past experience in facilitating workshops or training.
6. At least 2 Referees.

Successful applicants may be invited for further technical assessment and offers will be evaluated by the following criteria:

TECHNICAL QUALIFICATION (max. 80 points) Overall Response Understanding of tasks, objectives and completeness and coherence of response Overall match between the TOR requirements and proposal Proposed Methodology and Approach Quality of proposed approach/methodology Quality of previous work Technical Capacity Relevance of consultant’s experience with similar projects and as per required qualifications

FINANCIAL PROPOSAL (max. 20 points) Professional fees Administrative costs (travel, per diems, insurance, etc.) Total estimated cost of contract (proposed contract fee only)

TOTAL SCORE (max. 100 points)