UNDP Jobs - 61441- Provision of Individual Services of a Team Leader

Provision of Individual Services of a Team Leader for the Mid Term Review Report for the Regional Programme for Arab States

Location :

Beirut, LEBANON

Type of Contract :

Individual Contract

Starting Date :

Application Deadline :

18-Nov-15 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

International Consultant

Duration of Initial Contract :

Languages Required :

English

Expected Duration of Assignment :

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.

Background

The United Nations Development Programme strives to attain the highest standards in programme and project management towards the delivery of development results.

Regional Programme for Arab States (2014-2017), has been approved by UNDP’s Executive Board in January 2014. It is aligned with the framework of the UNDP Strategic Plan 2014-2017, which stands as a projection of how UNDP can best achieve results in the context of a quickly changing world.

The programme is designed to respond to development challenges in a region that may well stay volatile, at least for a while. Popular demand is gaining traction in some places for increasing well-being and participation in decisions related to public resources and policy, but space for citizens to voice their demands and responsive institutions are often circumscribed. Therefore, the programme accentuates inclusion and resilience as crosscutting, overarching principles for all its proposed areas of work and outcomes. It targets the means to improve economic opportunities, enable institutional transformation and actively manage risks, consolidate gains and prevent backsliding, by strengthening policies, systems and institutions. It focuses on high-quality analysis of development conditions and options, consensus building around sensitive issues, a wider and deeper set of partnerships, institutional innovations and intensive South–South and triangular exchange of knowledge, experience and expertise with other countries and regions.

The programme is designed based on a situation analysis of changing context and lessons learned from past work, recalibrating its focus to stay on inclusive growth and youth employment, gender equality and women’s empowerment, transparency and accountability, and risks related to climate change, disaster, conflict and transition. Continuous feedback from regional partners, especially during Executive Board discussions, regional consultations on the post-2015 development agenda and project-specific exchanges have been instrumental in its design.

The adoption of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in September have further contextualized the development agenda based on which this program intends to respond to the particular challenges in the Arab region. The critical interventions, ranging from regional economic integration, climate resilience, anti-corruption and integrity to women’s empowerment, crisis response, social cohesion, and disaster resilience under the programme have direct linkages with the targets identified in the 17 goals of the SDGs.

The programme is based on five ‘regionality’ principles, which define the “value-added”, of regional, sub-regional, and cross-country approaches to addressing development challenges:

Promotion of regional public goods based on strengthened regional cooperation and integration;
Management of cross-border externalities and spillovers that are best addressed collaboratively on an inter-country basis;
Advancement of awareness, dialogue and action on sensitive and/or emerging development issues that benefit strongly from multi-country experiences and perspectives;
Promotion of experimentation and innovation that overcomes institutional, financial and/or informational barriers that may be too high for an individual country to surmount;
Generation and sharing of development knowledge, experience and expertise, for instance, through South-South and triangular cooperation, so that countries can connect to, and benefit from, relevant experiences from across the region and beyond.

The regional programme prioritized four outcomes from the UNDP strategic plan related to a number of areas of work, namely, inclusive growth, sustainable development, inclusive and effective democratic governance, and resilience building.

These outcomes are:

Outcome 1 (Strategic plan outcome 1) Growth and development are inclusive and sustainable, incorporating productive capacities that create employment and livelihoods for the poor and excluded;
Outcome 2 (Strategic plan outcome 2) Citizens’ expectations for voice, effective development, the rule of law and accountability are met by stronger systems of democratic governance;
Outcome 3 (Strategic plan outcome 4) Faster progress is achieved in reducing gender inequality and promoting women’s empowerment;
Outcome 4 (Strategic plan outcome 6) Early recovery and rapid return to sustainable development pathways are achieved in post-conflict and post-disaster settings.

The specific interventions under each outcome area are listed in Annex II of this ToR.

The interventions under the regional programme are financed by UNDP core resources (TRAC) under the UNDP financial framework, as well as by non-core resources such as Third-Party Cost-Sharing contributions through resource mobilization efforts.

The programme has established numerous regional partnerships with key stakeholders and player on the regional development context. These partnerships include the League of Arab States, the European Union, the Swedish International Development Coordination Agency (SIDA), International Islamic Trade and Finance Corporation (ITFC) of the Islamic Development Bank Group, the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum Foundation (MBRF), Siemens Integrity Initiative (SII), United States Government (USG), OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID), UN Women, King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz International Centre for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue (KAICIID), MBC, Regional Center for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (RCREEE), the Arab Water Council (AWC), the Clean Energy Business Council, Anti-Corruption and Integrity Network (ACINET), UNODC, Center for Arab Women Training and Research (CAWTAR), Karama (regional peace and security network through civil society organizations), and the Arab Women Organization of the League of Arab States.

Duties and Responsibilities

The MTR should cover the Arab region and focus on those countries where UNDP is undertaking or plans to undertake development interventions.

The MTR should provide an initial assessment of the contributions of UNDP to the development results in the areas set out in the RBAS Regional Programme Document 2014 – 2017 and provide an analysis of changes and context specific issues at the regional and sub-regional levels and review the interventions in light of SDG goals to better map and align the interventions.

The MTR, bearing in mind that most results and impacts are seen in much longer term, will use the following criteria:

Effectiveness - will assess progress in regional programme interventions in terms of achievement of results in the specified outcome areas and crosscutting themes at the regional level;
Efficiency - will assess the extent to which regional programme has instituted systems and clear procedures to support the implementation of the development interventions, including the monitoring of these interventions. This would also require looking into the resources to assess whether they are sufficient to deliver the intended outputs;
Relevance - will assess whether the interventions under the regional programme are set to deliver the intended results that are most relevant for the key partners and to contribute to UNDP’s Strategic Plan;
Sustainability - will assess regional programme’s ability to support institutions and develop their capacities to sustain the results achieved after the current interventions end.

The mid-term review (MTR) team will comprise of two externally recruited independent consultants with strong reputation and extensive evaluation experience in relevant fields and should have experience of working with multilateral organizations.

The team composition should reflect a sound understanding of the functioning of the United Nations’ system in general and UNDP in particular, gender related concerns, human rights and human development principles. The team should have gender and regional balance.

The team will be responsible for document review, review assessment, study design, coordinating study and contribute to preparation of synthesis report. One expert shall be selected to work as the team leader. The team leader shall, in addition have the responsibility of preparing the final report, will ensure quality, smooth, and efficient conduct of work by the members of MTR team.

The Team Leader, in close collaboration with the other MTR team members and UNDP Regional Programme Coordinator, should take the lead role in conceptualization and design of the MTR and coordinate the work of all other team members to ensure the quality of the review process, outputs, methodology and timely delivery of all products.

The tasks of the team leader include:

Prepare an inception report outlining the design, methodology, criteria for the MTR work, required resources and indicative work plan of the MTR team;
Assigning and coordinating team tasks within the framework of the TORs;
Overseeing and quality assuring the preparation of the study and take a lead in the analysis of the Mid-term Review evidences;
Designing, overseeing the administration, and analyzing the results of any surveys that may be scheduled;
Drafting the MTR report, and leading the preparation of specific inputs from team members based on desk reviews, analysis and consultations;
Preparing for meetings with UNDP and other stakeholder to review findings, conclusions and recommendations. Brief UNDP on the MTR through informal sessions and finalize the MTR report based on feedback from UNDP;

Competencies

Corporate Competencies:

Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UN’s values and ethical standards;
Promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UNDP;
Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
Treats all people fairly without favoritism;
Fulfills all obligations to gender sensitivity and zero tolerance for sexual harassment.

Functional Competencies:

Solid understanding of international development and development economics;
Excellent analytical, writing and editing skills;
Knowledge of the UN System and familiarity with UNDP;
Ability to lead a team to achieve common objective.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

Advanced university degree in Economics, Social Sciences, Political Sciences, or related field with a focus on development studies or related field.

Experience:

A minimum of 10 years of progressively responsible experience in multilateral organizations including substantive experience on evaluation of development results and impacts;
Familiarity with the United Nations standards, norms and ethical guidelines for evaluations.

Languages:

Fluency in English with excellent drafting skills;
Written and spoken knowledge of Arabic and/or French is an added advantage.