Vacancy Announcement Details

Background

UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence.

UNDP does not tolerate sexual exploitation and abuse, any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment, and discrimination. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks.

UNDP is the UN's global development network, an organization advocating for change and connecting countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help build nations that can withstand crisis, and drive and sustain the kind of growth that improves the quality of life for everyone. UNDP works in nearly 170 countries and territories, helping to achieve the eradication of poverty, and the reduction of inequalities and exclusion. We help countries to develop policies, leadership skills, partnering abilities, institutional capabilities and build resilience in order to sustain development results. UNDP is working to strengthen new frameworks for development, disaster risk reduction and climate change. We support countries' efforts to implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and achieve the new Sustainable Development Goals, which will guide global development priorities for the next 7 years.

UNDP’s Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) works to enhance UNDP's development effectiveness through independent thematic and programmatic evaluations and contributes to organizational learning, accountability and transparency. IEO assures the quality and use of UNDP evaluations by establishing norms, standards and guidelines and by knowledge sharing and networking with both internal and external partners.

Duties and Responsibilities

The Director heads an independent office and provides all evaluation reports directly and independently to the Executive Board in line with the UNDP Evaluation Policy.

The impact of results will be to support the following:

• Credibility of UNDP through validation of UNDP results;
• Improved organizational learning, accountability and transparency;
• Strengthened evaluation function throughout UNDP, including country office, and
• Effective interagency coordination in evaluation.

Specifically, the incumbent will be:

1) Providing intellectual and organizational leadership and strategic guidance in the implementation of the UNDP evaluation policy and UNDP’s evaluation function:

• Provide leadership and strategic guidance to the implementation of the UNDP evaluation policy through IEO's annual work programme that is approved by the UNDP Executive Board and that includes conduct of IEO's independent assessments of UNDP's programmes and activities.
• Guide the IEO in the systematic conduct of independent assessments of UNDP's programmes and activities; their effectiveness and impact.
• Provide leadership to the undertaking of strategic evaluations of UNDP programme and management policies and evaluation of the results of UNDP programmes at country, regional and global levels. 
• Facilitates the corporate management dialogue on results of evaluations and assessments as a contribution to strategic planning.
• Interact and liaise with and report periodically to the UNDP Executive Board on evaluation findings, development effectiveness and results, UNDP programme performance and the overall exercise of the evaluation function of the organization and UNDP funds and programmes.
• Interact with the Executive Office of UNDP and also with UNDP’s senior management and contribute to the deliberations of senior management as an observer of the Organisational Performance Group (OPG) and through periodical presentations to the Executive Group (EG), to enable senior management to respond to evaluation findings and better exercise oversight over decentralised evaluations.

2) Leading IEO's development of rigorous evaluation tools, guidelines, methodologies and training initiatives:

• Support the improvement of UNDP's development effectiveness through introduction of methodological innovations and application of evaluation to UNDP management. 
• Lead the development of rigorous evaluation tools, guidelines, methodologies and training initiatives to support results-orientation in the organization.
• Effectively lead and promote IEO’s tools to assist the organization to enhance organizational and operational effectiveness.
• Provide feedback and lessons learned to senior management and the organization as a whole.
• Provide UNDP management and leadership with regular reports using IEO data analytics.
• Prepare lessons learned and insights reviews on emerging trends and critical risks for senior management.

3) Setting and achieving UNDP's corporate goals vis-a-vis evaluation, ensuring an evaluation culture in UNDP through promoting the use of evaluation findings, lessons and recommendations in policy and programme formulation:

• Support the implementation of UNDP's orientation towards becoming a highly networked- and knowledge- driven organization through mainstreaming the culture of evaluation and evidence-based decision-making.
• Direct and lead the Independent Evaluation Office in setting corporate goals and the evaluation agenda and oversee the evaluation function in UNDP, including tracking compliance with evaluation requirements and recommendations. S/he works closely with UNDP associated funds and programmes in policies on monitoring and eyaluation.
• Promote the use of overall evaluation findings, lessons and recommendations in policy and programme formulation throughout the organization and ensure that evaluation findings are accessible to staff and stakeholders and are built into the UNDP knowledge management systems. 
• Ensures that strategic learning events and promotion of networking and dialogue on monitoring and evaluation are regularly organized and contribute to strategies for enhancing organizational learning within UNDP focus areas.

4) Promoting dialogue with partners and build strong partnerships with internal and external stakeholders:

• Provide overall guidance in carrying out the evaluation agenda and maintain dialogue with programme countries and support country office efforts to strengthen the capacities of programme countries and UNDP offices in evaluation as an integral part of good governance.
• Actively promote dialogue with partners and build strong partnerships within the UN system organizations, multilateral banks, OECD-DAC, bilateral donors, and evaluation communities to ensure infusion of globally acceptable quality standards of monitoring and evaluation.

5) Effective leadership and management of IEO:

• Effectively leads and manages the staff members, continuously strengthening the credibility and competency of the staff. 
• Direct and manage the Office, including strategic management of resources and resource mobilization. 
• Leads donor liaison and resource mobilization for the evaluation function, as necessary.
• Create synergies between IEO and other business units including OAI.

Full details available on the UNDP website. Application deadline 1st April 2023.