UNDP Jobs - 48751- Consultant – Evaluation Quality Assurance

Consultant – Evaluation Quality Assurance

Location :

New York, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Type of Contract :

Individual Contract

Starting Date :

01-Oct-2014

Application Deadline :

19-Aug-14 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

National Consultant

Duration of Initial Contract :

220 days over 11 months

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 Bureau for Policy and Programme Support (BPPS) has corporate responsibility for developing all relevant policy and guidance to support the results of UNDP’s Strategic Plan. BPPS’s staff provides technical advice to Country Offices; advocates UNDP corporate messages, represents UNDP at multi-stakeholder fora including public-private dialogues, government and civil society dialogue initiatives, South-South and Triangular cooperation initiatives and engages in UN inter-agency coordination in specific thematic areas. BPPS works closely with UNDP’s Crisis Response Unit (CRU) to support emergency and crisis response. BPPS assists UNDP and partners to achieve higher quality development results through an integrated approach that links results based management and performance monitoring with more effective and new ways of working. BPPS supports UNDP and partners to be more innovative, knowledge and data driven including in its programme support efforts.

The Cluster on Sustainable Development focuses on integrating UNDP’s economic, social and environmental work into a coherent sustainable development policy and programming framework. It seeks to provide an integrated package of services covering all strands of sustainable development, including on integrated development planning and inclusive and sustainable growth, sustainable livelihoods and economic recovery in post crisis situations and natural capital and the environment.

The UNDP – GEF Unit is one of the units within the Cluster on Sustainable Development with specialized technical and policy advisory teams in New York, Addis Ababa, Bratislava/Istanbul, Bangkok and Panama working on catalyzing environmental finance for sustainable development. To achieve this, UNDP – GEF works closely with UNDP country offices to develop country capacity to put in place the right mix of regulatory and financial incentives, remove institutional and policy barriers, and create enabling environments that attract and drive public and private sector investment into sustainable development. In doing this, UNDP-GEF assists partner countries to access, combine and sequence resources from a wide range of funds, and financial instruments and mechanisms.

UNDP serves as an Implementing Agency for a number of Environmental Vertical Funds: the Global Environment Facility Trust Fund (GEFTF); Nagoya Protocol Implementation Fund (NPIF); Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF); the Special Climate Change Fund (SCCF); and the Adaptation Fund (AF). In addition, UNDP is registered as an observer to the Green Climate Fund and will be applying for accreditation, as soon as this Fund will be operational.

UNDP-supported GEF-financed projects are required to follow UNDP monitoring and evaluation (M&E) requirements, as well as, GEF M&E requirements. Guidance for conducting mid-term reviews (MTRs) and terminal evaluation (TEs) of GEF financed projects has been developed to support compliance with the UNDP and GEF policies and to support managing for development results.

The UNDP-GEF Directorate is seeking a consultant to support the Directorate in providing quality assurance support during the MTR and TE process. This support is aimed at streamlining the quality of the review/evaluation process and to ensure the review/evaluation reports meet the quality criteria established by UNDP and GEF. In addition, the consultant will develop new ways to codify, benchmark, and disseminate knowledge distilled from the MTR and TE processes.

Under the direct supervision of the UNDP-GEF Results Management and Evaluation Advisor, the consultant will provide quality assurance support to the MTR and TE process for GEF-financed projects.

Duties and Responsibilities

MTR/TE portfolio-level tracking

Set up and maintain a detailed UNDP-GEF evaluation tracking system that will inform UNDP-GEF Technical and regional teams, and Country Offices/Commissioning Units when the MTR and TE process for a GEF-financed project should begin and monitor the duration of the MTR/TE process;
Generate reports by region and by UNDP-GEF Technical Team to support annual business planning;
Provide input to the further development of the Evaluation Resource Center (ERC).

Quality Assurance of MTR/TE Terms of Reference (TORs)

Carry out quality review of draft MTR/TE TORs to ensure that UNDP and GEF guidelines are followed and the TORs meet UNDP and GEF quality criteria;
Support the further development of the global roster of qualified evaluation consultants for GEF-financed projects;
Support the identification of qualified evaluation consultants as appropriate;
Provide quality control and corrective/anticipatory feedback as appropriate during the MTR/TE process.

Quality Assurance of draft MTR/TE reports

Carry out quality review of draft MTR/TE reports to ensure the report is aligned with the TOR and the UNDP and GEF guidance;
Draft feedback of the draft report for UNDP Country Offices (COs)/Commissioning Units/UNDP-GEF staff in the Regional Coordination Units as appropriate;
Provide quality control and corrective/anticipatory feedback as appropriate.

Knowledge management and learning

Draft/update guidance on the UNDP-GEF MTR and TE process;
Codify, benchmark, and disseminate knowledge distilled from the MTR and TE processes;
Set up and maintain an on-line evaluation knowledge management platform;
Undertake survey to evaluate the quality assurance support provided and consolidate findings into a final report with recommendations for future support;
Provide other support as required.

Key Performance Indicators:

System to track MTR and TEs set up and generates accurate and useful reports for management decision making;
Global roster of qualified evaluation consultants developed and widely disseminated;
50% increase in the quality ratings of the TE reports;
Evaluation knowledge management platform created;
Findings from survey of quality assurance support provided consolidated into final report;

Information on Working Arrangements:

The Consultant will be given access to relevant information necessary for execution of the tasks under this assignment;
A monthly progress report will be required to be shared with the Supervisor;
The Consultant will be responsible for providing her/his own laptop;
Payments will be made upon submission of a detailed time sheet and certification of payment form, and acceptance and confirmation by the Results Management and Evaluation Advisor on days worked and outputs delivered.

Travel to join duty station (if necessary):

The Basic Security in the Field II course must be successfully completed prior to commencement of travel;
Individual Consultants are responsible for ensuring they have vaccinations/inoculations when travelling to certain countries, as designated by the UN Medical Director;
Consultants are required to comply with the UN security directives set forth under https://dss.un.org/dssweb/;
Travel to join the duty station, if necessary, should be included in the financial proposal.

Competencies

Technical

Analytic capacity and demonstrated ability to process, analyse and synthetise technical information;
Ability to support the development of high quality knowledge materials.

Corporate

Demonstrates integrity by modelling 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 favouritism.

Communication

Communicate effectively in writing to a varied and broad audience in a simple and concise manner.

Professionalism

Capable of working in a high pressure environment with sharp and frequent deadlines, managing many tasks simultaneously;
Excellent organizational skills;
Exercise the highest level of responsibility and be able to handle confidential and politically sensitive issues in a responsible and mature manner.

Teamwork

Works well in a team to advance the priorities of UNDP and GEF as a whole;
Projects a positive image and is ready to take on a wide range of tasks;
Focuses on results for the client;
Welcomes constructive feedback.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

Bachelor’s or equivalent University degree in global public policy, environment or another closely related field (max 20pts);
Some training or certification in evaluation or project management would be desirable (max 15pts).

Experience:

Minimum 2 years’ experience in environment and/or development related activities (max 20pts);
Experience with GEF Monitoring &Evaluation processes highly desirable (max 10pts);
Mastery in the usage of computers and office software packages (MS Word, Excel, as a minimum; database management as a plus) (max 10pts).

Language Requirements:

Excellent oral and written communication skills in English (max 10pts);
Strong proficiency in Spanish and/or French highly desirable (max 15pts).

Evaluation method:

Applicants must submit a duly completed and signed UNDP Personal History form (P11). Kindly note you can upload only ONE document to this application;
Incomplete applications will not be considered;
Only those applications which are responsive and compliant will be evaluated;
Offers will be evaluated according to the Combined Scoring method – where the qualifications (max 100pts) and an interview (max 20pt) will be weighted at 60% and the financial offer will be weighted at 40% (max 100pts);
Only the top 4 scoring candidates of those obtaining 85 points or more from the review of qualifications will be considered for financial evaluation and interview;
The applicant receiving the Highest Combined Score and accepting UNDP’s General Terms and Conditions will be awarded the contract.

UNDP Personal History form (P11) required of all applicants:

http://www.undp.org/content/dam/undp/library/corporate/Careers/P11_Personal_history_form.doc.

General Conditions of Contract for the ICs:

http://www.undp.org/content/dam/undp/documents/procurement/documents/IC%20-%20General%20Conditions.pdf.