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Under the direction of the Director of Evaluation and the supervision of the Senior Evaluation Specialist, Humanitarian, the Evaluation Specialist is responsible for managing the evaluation portfolio related to humanitarian action. The Evaluation Specialist will provide technical and operational support to a series of projects (both internal to UNICEF, as well as inter-agency). The scope of work covers primarily evaluations, but may also include other exercises such as reviews, research studies, meta-analysis, and surveys, that draw on the same technical and project management skills. The Evaluation Specialist will support the Senior Evaluation Specialist, Humanitarian to commission and manage evaluations, promote follow up and use of evaluation findings and recommendations, promote the evaluation function in the organization, and manage human and financial resources. The Evaluation Specialist will also work with the Director of Evaluation and the Humanitarian Evaluation Portfolio (HEP) Team to shape the strategic direction of the portfolio, maximizing its utility as a source of both accountability and learning to UNICEF and its partners.

In accordance with UNICEF’s mission, guiding principles, standards, commitments, and accountability framework, and under United Nations Evaluation Group (UNEG) revised norms and standards, the Evaluation Specialist will ensure that all evaluations conducted under her/his leadership are of the highest relevance, timeliness, quality, credibility and utility possible, and that they support the organizational learning and accountability needs of UNICEF and its stakeholders in achieving results for children.

The incumbent will also contribute to cross-cutting initiatives within the Evaluation Office and the wider evaluation function within UNICEF.

 Key Functions

1. Manage and/or conduct evaluations that are impartial, independent and credible and that meet professional standards.
   • Assist the Senior Evaluation Specialist, Humanitarian in EO to plan evaluations for individual evaluations
   • Conduct background research on the emergencies or themes to be evaluated in any given year.
   • Contribute to the conduct of evaluations of projects, programmes and policies, as requested by the Senior Evaluation Specialist of the Unit.
   • Supervise evaluations conducted by staff members and consultants.
   • Provide technical support to regional and country offices undertaking humanitarian evaluations, including L3, L2 and L1 contexts, and in other country/regional thematic evaluations of humanitarian action.
   • Participate on an ad hoc basis in inter-agency humanitarian evaluation management groups, providing feedback on specific evaluation outputs, and liaising with internal colleagues and inter-agency counterparts to convey feedback on these outputs.
   • Apply high professional standards in line with evaluation policy and the UNEG Norms and Standards for Evaluation.
   • Apply evaluation quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis tools, techniques and approaches.
   • Keep abreast of developments in the area of evaluation.
   • Cooperate with other United Nations evaluation units and professional evaluation bodies.
2. Promote evaluations that are useful and ensure that evaluation findings and recommendations are followed up.
   • Assist the Senior Evaluation Specialist of the Unit with the reporting to management on evaluation findings and recommendations.
   • Organize meetings, workshops and other discussion in order to establish a dialogue on evaluation results, recommendations and lessons learned.
   • Ensure that evaluation results are considered in the continued implementation of projects and programmes and in the design and appraisal of new projects and programmes.
   • Ensure that project and programme managers respond to recommendations and monitor the follow-up on evaluations.
3. Promote the evaluation function in the organization.
   • Contribute to the development and review of evaluation-related policies, guidance, systems, procedures and tools, while also ensuring their relevance and utility at the decentralized level.
4. Support innovation, knowledge management and capacity development.
   • Promote innovative approaches and good practices by integrating evaluation principles and norms through advocacy and operational support/services.
   • Contribute to the development of approaches and guidance for humanitarian evaluations, ranging from the development of guidance, approaches and innovative data collection systems that enhances how humanitarian evaluations are undertaken; to systematic strengthening of humanitarian evaluation capacities at RO and COs levels; and piloting various approaches.
   • Keep abreast, research, benchmark, introduce and implement good practices on evaluation planning and management, institutionalize and disseminate key lesson learned to maximize the use of evaluation results to support improve programming and results delivery.
   •   Implement capacity development initiatives to enhance the competencies of a wide range of internal and external partners/stakeholders to enhance their evaluation systems/and capacity.
5. Undertake special assignments as may be assigned by the supervisor and by the Director of Evaluation.

Full details available on the UNICEF website. Application deadline 17 April 2024.