Vacancy Announcement Details

Organizational Setting

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is an international financial institution and a specialized United Nations agency dedicated to eradicating rural poverty and hunger. It does so by investing in rural people. IFAD finances programmes and projects that increase agricultural productivity and raise rural incomes, and  advocates at the local, national and international level for policies that contribute to rural transformation.

As per the IFAD Evaluation Policy, the Independent Office of Evaluation (IOE) reports directly to the IFAD Executive Board (EB). The Evaluation Policy established that the evaluation function at IFAD will operate in line with internationally accepted principles for the evaluation of development assistance. Foremost among these are Independence, Accountability, Partnership and Learning. The IFAD Evaluation Policy also states that the IOE Director will ensure that IOE is staffed by independent, experienced evaluators.

The Evaluation Officer works under the overall policy and management guidance of the IOE Director as well as the direct supervision and guidance of the Lead Evaluation Officer.

Job Role

The Evaluation Officer is responsible for the full programme/project evaluation cycle of work.

Key Functions and Results

1. PROJECT EVALUATION: The Evaluation Officer enhances IFAD’s success in advocating for the amelioration of rural food security and nutrition and the enabling of poor rural men and women to overcome their poverty through the conduct of project completion report validations and project performance assessments and prepare reports in accordance with the Fund’s evaluation policy and evaluation manual. Activities include but are not limited to:
a.    Leading  the entire evaluation process including developing the Approach Paper, desk reviews, organizing the evaluation mission, participating in interviews and field visits and write the report ;
b.    Liaising with government officials, country programme managers (CPMs) and other concerned stakeholders, leading or contributing to the fieldwork and guiding and managing consultants including assessing their performance; and
c.    Organizing in-country workshops/meetings, and making presentations on evaluation findings.

2. CONTRIBUTION TO HIGHER PLANE EVALUATION: The Evaluation Officer enhances IFAD’s ability to achieve its mandate by contributing to country programme and corporate level evaluations and evaluation syntheses. Activities include but are not limited to:
a.    Reviewing key documents, providing data analysis, drafting desk reviews and working papers on selected evaluation criteria; 
b.    Interacting with CPMs and other stakeholders, conducting field work and presenting emerging findings to the Government and other key stakeholders in the country; 
c.    Participating as requested in project and policy development teams and similar fora (e.g. Gender Policy Reference Group, OSC) to ensure that lessons learned  from IFAD’s experience are incorporated in the proposed projects//policy design; and
d.    Preparing IOE comments on selected new IFAD policies for presentation to the evaluation committee (e.g. IFAD’s Gender policy).

3. KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT: The Evaluation Officer is accountable for contributing to the institutional understanding of evaluation both as an accountability as well as a learning process in order to promote and build on lessons learned and best practices. Activities include but are not limited to:
a.    Using evaluation findings as a source of knowledge on rural development issues that must be systematically communicated and disseminated to partners; 
b.    Developing customized communication products as required, to be posted on IOE’s home page; 
c.    Participating in IOE internal peer reviews of selected evaluations such as reviewing draft evaluation approach papers, synthesis reports on cross-cutting issues and regular reports and providing written comments for the purpose of enhancing the overall quality of the evaluations; and
d.    Documenting innovation and lessons learned and documenting pro-poor innovations emanating from the experience of IFAD projects.

4. REPORTING: The Evaluation Officer is accountable for drafting and finalizing regular as well as periodic reports and documents to ensure complete and pertinent information and data is available at HQ for strategy and policy development. Major activities include but are not limited to participate in IOE delegations to international evaluation related meetings, preparing concise, reader-friendly and yet analytically rigorous evaluation reports and present them in-house and to the EB’s Evaluation Committee.

5. DIVISIONAL MANAGEMENT SUPPORT: The Evaluation Officer will support IOE in the preparation of the Work Programme and Budget and in the management of IOE financial and human resources. This will entail: (i) contributing to the drafting of the work programme and budget document; (ii) supporting IOE management in the periodic monitoring of budget use; (iii) supporting IOE management in the division of labour and periodic monitoring of the same.

6. MANAGERIAL FUNCTIONS: The Evaluation Officer is accountable for integrity, transparency, and equity in the management of IFAD resources. This includes accountability for assigned financial and material resources and related processes including contracting.

Full details available on the IFAD website. Application deadline 6th December.