Background

The project is aimed at promoting youth employment in Uzbekistan, particularly among college and university graduates, young women, returning migrants, and other vulnerable groups by helping the Government implement a number of active labor market initiatives stipulated in the government’s medium-term Employment Promotion Programme and policies. The project documents is available at https://info.undp.org/docs/pdc/Documents/UZB/Project_document_UZB%20Youth_employment_ENG_Final_signed.pdf. The project activities are grouped into three major directions:

• Support to and promotion of youth employment through active labor market policies;
• Promoting youth and women entrepreneurship and business start-ups;
• Increasing the capacities of MELF to deliver services in support of youth employment.

The FE will assess the project performance (in terms of relevance, effectiveness and efficiency), and determine outcomes and impacts (actual and potential) stemming from the project, including their sustainability. The FE will have two primary purposes: (i) to provide evidence of results to meet accountability requirements, and (ii) to promote learning, feedback, and knowledge sharing through results and lessons learned among UNDP and their national partners such as the MELR and regional hokimiyats (local authorities), as well as final beneficiaries – youth and women, mostly in regions, who are interested in engaging in productive employment and self-employment. TE’s outcomes and recommendations will be instrumental for development of new employment project proposals for various donors through establishing a sound and well-informed ground for establishment of baselines and conducting an evidence-based situation analysis.

COVID-19 related note. The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly slowed or contracted economic growth for most countries globally and halted, or in some cases significantly reversed, progress on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Uzbekistan’s GDP growth in 2020 was suboptimal and poverty levels increased for the first time in two decades as a result of impact of the COVID-19 crisis.

In this regards, UNDP is now seeking an experienced International Consultant for the Terminal Evaluation of UNDP project “Promoting Youth Employment in Uzbekistan”.

Duties and Responsibilities

1. To develop evaluation report (a full outline of the FE report’s content is provided in ToR Annex A) that must provide evidence-based information that is credible, reliable and useful by assessing project performance against expectations set out in the project’s Results Framework (see ToR Annex B);
2. To review all relevant sources of information including the Project Document, ESSP, Project Inception Report, PPRs, Project Board meeting minutes, Financial and Administration guidelines (SOP), project budget revisions, national strategic and legal documents, and any other materials that the evaluator considers useful for evidence-based evaluation.
3. To review the baseline, targets and indicators and annual reports submitted to the project’s donors;
4. To follow a participatory and consultative approach ensuring close engagement with the Project Team, government counterparts (the MELR, local authorities), national partner agencies, the UNDP Country Office(s), direct beneficiaries and other stakeholders. Engagement of stakeholders is vital to a successful FE. Stakeholder involvement should include online interviews with stakeholders who have project responsibilities, including but not limited to MELR, local community authorities, regional authorities  Local Centers for Professional Development, Youth Union, Ministry of Pre-school Education, Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Ministry of Higher Education, Ministry of ICT development and telecommunications, Federation of Trade Unions, Business Women Association, business support service providers, IT companies, local think tanks and international organizations such as ILO, JICA, World bank, ADB, KOICA, GIZ, EU, UK Embassy. As applicable, include any relevant data/information/policy framework that may be required for each activity;
5. To take into account criteria such as relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, sustainability, to review the final results and progress of the project (see ToR Annex C: guiding evaluation questions).
6. To deliver results as indicated in the deliverables table.

Competencies

• Demonstrates commitment to UNDP’s mission, vision and values;
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
• Demonstrating/safeguarding ethics and integrity;
• Demonstrate corporate knowledge and sound judgment, self-development, initiative-taking;
• Acting as a team player and facilitating teamwork;
• Managing conflict and facilitating and encouraging open communication in the team, communicating effectively;
• Creating synergies through self-control;
• Learning and sharing knowledge and encourage the learning of others;
• Promoting learning and knowledge management/sharing is the responsibility of each staff member;
• Informed and transparent decision-making.

Functional Competencies:

1. Communications and Networking

• Has excellent oral communication skills and conflict resolution competency;
• Has excellent written communication skills, with analytic capacity and ability to assess project outputs and relevant findings for the preparation of quality project evaluation reports;
• Demonstrates maturity and confidence in dealing with senior and high ranking members of national and international institutions, government and non-government.

2. Knowledge management and Learning

• Leadership and Self-management;
• Focus on result for the client and responds positively to feedback;
• Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude;
• Remains calm, in control and good humored even under pressure;
• Competent in leading team and creating team spirit, stimulating team members to produce quality outputs in a timely and transparent fashion.

3. Development and Operational Effectiveness

• Ability to organize and complete multiple tasks by establishing priorities;
• Ability to handle a large volume of work under time constraints.

4. Job Knowledge/Technical Expertise 

• Understands the main processes and methods of work regarding to the position;
• Strives to keep job knowledge up-to-date through self-directed study and other mans of learning;

5. Leadership and Self-Management

• Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude;
•  Demonstrates good oral and written communication skills.

Desired additional skills and competences:

• Relevant experience with results-based management evaluation methodologies;
• Experience applying SMART indicators and reconstructing or validating baseline scenarios;
• Competence in adaptive management, as applied to labor/employment change adaptation;
• Experience in evaluating projects;
• Experience working in Central Asian countries;
• Experience in relevant technical areas for at least 5 years;
• Demonstrated understanding of issues related to gender and employment change adaptation; experience in gender responsive evaluation and analysis;
• Excellent communication skills;
• Demonstrable analytical skills;
• Project evaluation/review experience within United Nations system will be considered an asset;
• Experience with implementing evaluations remotely will be considered an asset

Required Skills and Experience

I. Academic Qualifications:

• Master’s degree in economics, finance, public administration or public policy, business administration, management, labor economics or other closely related field.

II. Years of experience:

• At least 5-years of progressive work experience in the field of public administration, private sector development, rural development, gender and youth issues, development of laws and regulations, methodology and/or analysis;

III. Language requirements:

Fluency in written and spoken English. Knowledge of Russian will be considered an asset.

Application Process:

Interested candidates need to apply online at www.jobs.undp.org and upload requested documents in Part 4 of Procurement Notice no later than end of March 9, 2022 (New York time). Please combine all your documents into one (1) single PDF document as the system only allows to upload maximum one document. Your on-line applications submission will be acknowledged to your email address provided in application. If you do not receive an e-mail acknowledgement within 24 hours of submission, your application may not have been received. In such cases, please resubmit the application, if necessary.

Link to application at the UNDP Job Site – https://jobs.undp.org/cj_view_job.cfm?cur_job_id=105011

(cut and paste into browser address bar if the link does not work).

Your on-line applications submission will be acknowledged to your email address provided in application. If you do not receive an e-mail acknowledgement within 24 hours of submission, your application may not have been received. In such cases, please resubmit the application, if necessary.

You can review detailed Procurement Notice, Terms of Reference and download templates from the UNDP Procurement Notices Site following the link http://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_notice.cfm?notice_id=88458. (cut and paste into browser address bar if the link does not work).

Application submitted via email, incomplete applications or received after the closing date (March 9, 2022) may not be given consideration.

For more detailed information about UNDP Uzbekistan please visit our website at www.uz.undp.org UNDP is an equal opportunity employer. Qualified female candidates, people with disabilities, and minorities are highly encouraged to apply. UNDP Balance in Manage Policy promotes achievement of gender balance among its staff at all levels.

Requests for clarification must be sent in writing to pu.uz@undp.org, ensuring that the reference number above is included in the subject line. UNDP shall endeavor to provide such responses to clarifications in an expeditious manner, but any delay in such response shall not cause an obligation on the part of UNDP to extend the submission date of the Proposals, unless UNDP deems that such an extension is justified and necessary.