Vacancy Announcement Details

Short Term Consultant To Map Status of Evaluation Commitments of UN Agencies to Environmental and Social Concerns

13 Jan 2020

GEF

Context and Overall Objective

The UNEG Working Group on Integrating Environmental and Social Impact into Evaluations (WG from henceforth)[1] was established during the 2019 Annual General Meeting of the United Nations Evaluation Group (UNEG) in Nairobi, Kenya.[2] In line with the UN system-wide effort to move towards a common approach to environmental and social standards for UN programming, the objective of this WG is to establish a common UN-wide approach, norms and standards for incorporating environmental and social considerations into all evaluations (whether or not the evaluand is an environmental program). To achieve this end, the WG will develop a system-wide guidance on this topic to guide the evaluations of interested UNEG member organizations.[3]

As the first step towards this objective, the WG is undertaking a stock-taking exercise involving the extent to which the mandate and practices of UN agencies reflect the environmental and social considerations, and whether these are reflected in policies and guidance for evaluation. The stocktaking would also come up with examples of good practice among UNEG members.

Deliverables

  • A compilation of all existing evaluation guidance in UNEG member agencies on the topic.
  • A compilation of the mandates of all UNEG member agencies and commitments.
  • Table summarizing the status based on an analysis of these compiled documents. The table shall include the following:
  • “Markers” to assess the levels of commitments through an analysis of the organizational mandates and related documents, and the respective status of each agency.
  • “Markers” to assess the levels of commitments through an analysis of the evaluation policies, manuals, and guidance on the topic, and the respective status of each agency.
  • Include in this table, agency type (e.g., development, humanitarian, environmental) and its mandate (rural development, food security, human development, environment, etc.).
  • A survey of all UNEG members to gauge agency interest in the topic and what they wish to get out of the WG (content of the planned system-wide guidance), and summary presentation of the analysis of the survey results.
  • The draft report including the final findings, summary tables and survey results, including examples of best practices and considerations for potential areas of improvements to WG for comments
  • A presentation of the final report to WG for discussion and validation.

Management Arrangements

The elected Chair and Vice-Chair of the WG are, respectively, the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). The contractual arrangement will be with the GEF Independent Evaluation Office. The assignment is home-based.

The consultant will be supervised by the Chair of the WG and work closely with the Chair and Vice-Chair to deliver results.

The consultant will be introduced to the WG members prior to commencing the work. It is expected that the WG members will be available to interact frequently with the consultant to validate findings/observations as they emerge. Prior notice of 2-5 days will be provided.

The consultant is responsible for addressing all feedback from WG members and work closely with the Chair and Vice-Chair in resolving conflicting comments, if any.

Qualifications

The specific qualifications for the job are:

  • Master’s degree or higher in suitable social or natural sciences, such as public policy, geography, international affairs or environment.
  • Work experience of 5-10 years in international development, environmental and/or social issues.
  • Experience in conducting desk-study-based research and web-based surveys.
  • Skilled in preparing synthesis reports and other analytical outputs.
  • Fluency in English. Working knowledge in French and/or Spanish would be an advantage.
  • Contract duration

The contract offered to the selected candidate would be for 30 working days between February and April 2020.

Instructions

The interested candidates should submit their CV along with a cover letter to gefevaluation@thegef.org with in the subject line "UNEG Integrating Environmental and Social Impact". The CV should provide information on academic training including academic accomplishments (academic performance, awards & scholarships, scholarly papers and publications, etc.) and relevant work experience.

Full details available on the The GEF website. Please note the deadline for this application is 26th of January 2020.