Background

UNCDF makes public and private finance work for the poor in the world’s 47 least developed countries. With its capital mandate and instruments, UNCDF offers “last mile” finance models that unlock public and private resources, especially at the domestic level, to reduce poverty and support local economic development. UNCDF’s financing models work through two channels: financial inclusion that expands the opportunities for individuals, households, and small businesses to participate in the local economy, providing them with the tools they need to climb out of poverty and manage their financial lives; and by showing how localized investments — through fiscal decentralization, innovative municipal finance, and structured project finance — can drive public and private funding that underpins local economic expansion and sustainable development. By strengthening how finance works for poor people at the household, small enterprise, and local infrastructure levels, UNCDF contributes to SDG 1 on eradicating poverty and SDG 17 on the means of implementation. By identifying those market segments where innovative financing models can have transformational impact in helping to reach the last mile and address exclusion and inequalities of access, UNCDF contributes to a number of different SDGs.

UNCDF provides investment capital and technical support to both the public and the private sector. It provides capital financing -- in the forms of grants, soft loans and credit enhancement – and the technical expertise in preparing portfolios of sustainable and resilient capacity building and infrastructure projects.

UNCDF has proven its ability to deliver true leverage on smaller and more risky investments and interventions within its core areas of expertise: Inclusive Finance and Local Development Finance. The concept- proven pilot projects and programmes are replicated and brought to scale with the help and the add-on financing of other development partners with different and complementary mandates.

UNCDF’s work on inclusive finance

UNCDF’s work on inclusive finance seeks to develop inclusive financial systems and ensure that a range of financial products is available to all segments of society, at a reasonable cost, and on a sustainable basis. UNCDF supports a wide range of providers (e.g. microfinance institutions, banks, cooperatives, money transfer companies) and a variety of financial products and services (e.g. savings, credit, insurance, payments, and remittances). UNCDF also supports newer delivery channels (e.g. mobile phone networks) that offer tremendous potential for scale.

Expanding Financial Access (EFA) Programme: To support the government of Myanmar in the implementation process of the Financial Inclusion Roadmap, UNCDF developed the programme “Expanding Financial Access (EFA) that focuses on priority areas of the Financial Inclusion Roadmap. Started in 2015, EFA is the core programme in Myanmar and works hand in hand at the country level with other regional and global UNCDF.

The EFA programme intends, by 2021, to increase the percentage of the adult population which are financially included from 30% in 2015 to 40%, and those which use more than one financial product from 6% to 15%. Moreover, EFA aims to have 830,000 low income direct beneficiaries and 3 million indirect ones by providing a full range of affordable, quality, effective and responsible financial services to MSME, small-scale farmers, women-led enterprises, youth, poor and low-income clients by encouraging stakeholders to work together in an integrated manner.

A core component of EFA is the Market Development Facility which seeks to address systemic market failures in a number of thematic areas through targeted funding solutions. It functions as a catalytic wholesale financial agent able to take-on risk and leverage outside sources of capital to boost funding to undercapitalized MFIs operating in Myanmar. Digital Financial Services and Women's Economic Empowerment are also critical cross-cutting themes and form the basis for a number of UNCDF Myanmar interventions, and the CleanStart programme provides funding to institutions working in renewables and clean energy. EFA also works in partnership with the innovative regional Shaping Inclusive Finance Transformations (SHIFT) funding facility which aims to accelerate financial inclusion across the ASEAN region.

Another component recently added to the EFA Programme is the Women’s Economic and Financial Inclusion Initiative aims at increasing 200,000 women and girls’ awareness of, access to, and use of agency over appropriate financial products and services responsibly provided by diverse and sustainable service providers in a well-regulated environment with a focus on conflict-affected areas of Myanmar. As a result, FSPs will have an enhanced capacity to collect, analyse and use sex-disaggregated financial inclusion data. They will be able to recognize the importance of serving diverse segments of women and girls leading to an expertise to design and pilot financial products and services customized to their needs. At the institutional level, FSPs will be able to implement policies and practices to enhance the gender diversity of their workforce as well as promote leadership programmes for women at staff and management levels. 

On the demand-side, women and girls will have greater access to financial information and services offering the potential for an enhanced quality of life and expanded livelihood and development opportunities.

UNCDF is looking to hire a Monitoring and Evaluation Analyst to provide the coordination and planning of project outputs, support resources mobilization and project formulation within the EFA Programme.

The Monitoring and Evaluation Analyst will report to the UNCDF Programme Specialist P-4 /Myanmar Country Coordinator and is expected to work closely with the rest of project team. 

This position will be based in Yangon, Myanmar.

Duties and Responsibilities

Summary of Key Functions:

• Coordination and planning of project outputs and results
• Monitoring project performance
• Capacity building and knowledge sharing
• Support resources mobilization and projects formulation

1. Coordination and planning of project outputs and results:

• Together with the project team, plan, prioritize and sequence the implementation of project activities ensuring that the activities result in tangible outputs and outcomes
• Coordinate progress of project activities and outputs within the project to ensure synergies
• Develop and implement monitoring and evaluation plans in coordination with other relevant project staff

2. Monitoring project performance:

• Design and implement a monitoring mechanism to monitor and ensure the timely implementation of all activities of the project including development of performance indicators and success criteria
• Monitor financial expenditure of the project and ensure that financial delivery of the project is in accordance with the project plans
• Support liaising with all relevant partners to determine the effectiveness of the activities and outputs of the project
• Keep and update risks and issues log and inform the team about risks and issues arising within or outside the project that are relevant to any of the project activities  

3. Capacity building and knowledge sharing:

• Contribute to building the capacity of other team members to ensure proper monitoring and evaluation of the project
• Prepare presentations and briefings including performance monitoring charts and tables on all the results achieved by the project
• Ensure that the results achieved by the project are well disseminated and gain visibility?

4. Support resources mobilization and projects formulation:

• Based on the results achieved by the project, assist in analyzing information on donors, preparing briefs on possible areas of cooperation, identifying new funding opportunities
• Support the formulation of new projects, including desk research, documentation, drafting concept notes and project documents building on the results achieved by the project
• Support in creating and maintaining partnerships with other UN agencies, government institutions, bilateral and multilateral donors, private sector, civil society and informing them of the results achieved by the project 

Competencies

Core Competencies:

• Demonstrates integrity and fairness by modeling UN values and ethical standards
• Promotes the vision, mission and strategic goals of UNCDF and UNDP
• Promotes ethics and integrity, creating organizational precedents
• Builds support and political acumen
• Builds and promotes effective teams
• Creates and promotes enabling environment for open communication
• Creates an emotionally intelligent organization
• Shares knowledge across the organization and building a culture of knowledge sharing and learning
• Promotes learning and knowledge management/sharing is the responsibility of each staff member
• Ability to address gender equality and empowerment of women considerations in strategic and operational activities of UNCDF.

Functional Competencies:

Job Knowledge/Technical Expertise

• Understands financial inclusion as well as the fundamental concepts of related financial market development
• Understands the relevance of financial inclusion for women

Knowledge Management and Learning

• Promotes a knowledge sharing and learning culture in the office
• In-depth knowledge on development issues
• Ability to advocate and provide policy advice
• Actively works towards continuing personal learning and development, acts on learning plan and applies newly acquired skills

Building Strategic Partnerships

• Effectively networks with partners seizing opportunities to build strategic alliances relevant to the programme
• Identifies needs and interventions for capacity building of counterparts, clients and potential partners
• Promotes UNCDF’s agenda in inter-agency meetings

Development and Operational Effectiveness

• Ability to lead strategic planning, results-based management and reporting
• Good knowledge of RBM and M&E tools
• Strong IT skills (MS Office, presentation, email, internet, ERM)
• Ability to lead implementation of new systems (business side), and affect staff behavioral/ attitudinal change

Management and Leadership

• Focuses on impact and result for the client and responds positively to feedback
• Leads teams effectively and shows conflict resolution skills
• Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude
• Demonstrates strong oral and written communication skills
• Builds strong relationships with clients and external actors
• Remains calm, in control and good humored even under pressure
• Demonstrates openness to change and ability to manage complexities

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Master’s or Bachelor degree in Business Administration, Public Administration, Economics, Political Sciences, Social Sciences or related field.

Experience:

• Master’s degree or 2 years with Bachelor degree of relevant experience at the national or international level in the financial sector, including providing management advisory services including projects/ programmes management and support, hands-on experience in design, monitoring and evaluation of development projects.
• Working knowledge of financial inclusion and women economic empowerment
• Monitoring & Evaluation and reporting experience is a must;
• Knowledge and experience in M&E preferably adopting DCED standards and CGAP guidelines
• Experience in capacity development and knowledge transfer;
• Project implementation experience with the UN system is an asset;
• Experience in the usage of computers and office software packages (MS Word, Excel, etc.); 

Language Requirements:

• Fluency in spoken and written English a must and national language of the duty station required