Chief Planning & Monitoring, P4, Fixed Term Appointment, based in Kathmandu, Nepal

UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential.

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone.

And we never give up.

For every child, a future

Nepal is set to graduate to (Lower) Middle Income status in 2026.  It is a highly geographically and ethnically diverse country, and prone to a range of natural disasters including droughts, floods, and earthquakes, sitting on a major fault line in a seismically active zone.  Nepal also features 125 caste/ethnic groups speaking 123 languages and representing over 10 religions. Spanning several decades, Nepal has implemented 14 national plans to date and has made impressive strides in development. The number of people living in poverty has declined significantly and development gains have contributed to achieving a progressively higher Human Development Index, enabling Nepal to graduate from Least Developed Country status by 2026.

The new Country Programme just began in 2023 and the Country Programme Action Plan has recently been signed. The country programme has six components: health; nutrition; climate-resilient water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH); education; child protection; and social protection and child-friendly governance. Four overarching priorities will permeate the programme include child-friendly governance, gender-equality programming, social inclusion and disaster risk reduction, climate resilience and environmental sustainability.

UNICEF key programming priorities at Federal and Provincial level focuses on upstream policy and system strengthening across different programmes, whereas at the local level, the country programme supports small-scale modelling of evidence based, affordable,  effective and sustainable strategies and interventions targeting the most left-behind children and women, and advocate for application and scale-up through federal, provincial and local level  policies, programmes and resource allocations. The key change strategies include multisectoral convergent programming, social behavior change, child rights advocacy and participation, evidence, data and analysis, innovation and public-private partnerships.

How can you make a difference?

The purpose of the post is to ensure and advance high quality, aligned (derived), and coordinated programme planning and monitoring (P&M) processes in the context of the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) and UNICEF Country Programme Document (CPD) for advancing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for children.  Specifically, the post will ensure:

• Formulation, planning, monitoring, and reporting on the results set out in UNICEF CPD, in collaboration with sectoral programme, operations, and communication chief.
• Strong coordination of UNICEF planning and monitoring processes with UNSDCF and ongoing UN reform processes, including timely and quality reporting to fulfill UNICEF and UNSDCF requirements.
• Enhanced field programme monitoring system and contribution to improved provincial and local government planning, budgeting and monitoring process in the context of the new federal government system
• Quality assurance and risk management of programme partnership agenda
• Effective and efficient fund and grants management with focus on results-based budgeting and spending against results.

Under the supervision of the Deputy Representative, the incumbent will work closely with the programme chiefs and chiefs of field office to plan, partner, and monitor the achievement of specific results while acting as the focal point for UNICEF in UNSDCF planning and monitoring processes. In addition, the incumbent will work closely with the Social Policy, Governance, and Evidence Chief and Evaluation Specialist for design and the annual plan for research and evaluation.

Summary of key functions/accountabilities:

1.  Situation Monitoring and Assessment 

• Ensure that the Country Office and national partners have timely and accurate measurement of change in conditions in the country or region, including monitoring of socio-economic trends and the country’s wider policy, economic or institutional context, to facilitate planning and to draw conclusions about the impact of programmes or policies (e.g., regular update to Situation Analysis and alignment to the UN Common Country Assessment).

2. Setting Standards for Programme performance planning and monitoring.

• Formulate the vision and help set goals for the Country Office aimed at maximizing the UNICEF delivery of results at scale in highly prioritized themes where UNICEF has a clear value-add and/or programmatic niche.
• Coordinate the preparation and ensure quality assurance of programme planning documents, including CPD, situation analysis, annual work plans, annual management plans, emergency response plans, and other documents as needed.
• Contribute to quality and timely corporate reporting requirements, including SitReps, donor reports, RAM, CSIs and annual reports. Ensures that programme results are adequately and accurately reflected in all relevant programme documents and donor reports in collaboration with Sections and Resource Mobilization Team respectively.
• Coordinate implementation of monitoring tools by all programme sections and Field Offices including providing technical assistance, quality assurance and oversight in the application of these tools and advice on corrective action as necessary.
• Provide overall coordination with the Government of Nepal and stakeholders, and support to programme planning for achieving results for children by aligning with the new federal set up of the country and the three tiers of the government – federal, provincial and local levels.
• Contribute to strengthen provincial and local government planning, budgeting and monitoring system in coordination with Social Policy, Governance and Evidence section.

3. Networking and partnership building

• Provide technical and operational support to a wide range of stakeholders on UNICEF policies, practices, standards and norms.
• Build and sustain effective close working partnerships with government counterparts and national stakeholders through active sharing of information and knowledge to facilitate and build their capacity for planning and implementation.
• Ensure quality review, monitoring and reporting of partnership documents.
• Maintain expertise of global UNICEF procedures and guides the office to adapt and apply the procedures in a meaningful manner for the office. Ensures commonly identified problems are identified and proposes remedies for overcoming.
• Ensure that the UNICEF office is effectively linked to wider UNICEF P&M developments in a way that both contributes to and benefits from organizational learning on effective P&M management.
• Collaborate with the regional planning team to ensure P&M data and results are included in regional reports, multi-country studies, and knowledge sharing networks.
• Undertake lessons-learned reviews on successful and unsuccessful P&M practices and experience at the national level, and ensure they are shared as appropriate.

4. Monitoring Budget and expenditure

• Oversees, provides guidance and supervises staff responsible for fund and grant management to promote results-based budgeting, spending, and monitoring of spending against results. This includes regular interaction with section chiefs and Chiefs of Field Office on various aspects of fund management, determining the resource envelope for the various programmes and overseeing that the Office achieves all the global indicators related to fund management. Responsible for coordination of budget closure requirements and the Humanitarian Action for Children funds and results monitoring and reporting.
• Actively follow up with Programme sections to ensure effective and timely budget planning and expenditure. This includes ensuring the work breakdown structure in VISION is correctly inputted and adhered to thereafter, and that programme coding and all special markers/tags and reporting in VISION are properly done and updated as necessary.
• Establish systems to monitor the optimum and appropriate use of program financial resources and verify compliance with organizational rules, regulations and procedures, donor commitments and standards of accountability and integrity in collaboration with operations team.

5. HACT Assurance and risk management

• Manage, provide guidance and technical support and supervise staff responsible for implementation of the HACT assurance activities in line with UNICEF procedures and policies to ensure the Country Office is HACT compliant by developing assurance plans as well as conducting regular monitoring of and reporting on HACT compliance.
• Provide leadership in risk management and HACT implementation including providing guidance to partnership development for programme implementation.
• Ensure proper use of eTools in the office and provide overall quality assurance and documentation in the area of HACT and partnerships.
• Facilitate the learning of lessons for improved programme implementation from HACT programmatic checks, micro assessments and other reviews.

6.  Innovation, knowledge management and capacity building

• In coordination with Social Policy, Governance and Evaluation section, lead and support office knowledge management, and liaise with Innovations, ICT and sectoral colleagues to strengthen the knowledge management agenda in the office.
• Identify, capture, synthesize and share lessons learned from routine monitoring and evaluations for integration into broader knowledge development planning and management efforts.
• Research and report on best and cutting-edge practices for development planning of knowledge products and systems for evaluations.

Participate as resource person in capacity building initiatives to enhance the competencies of clients/stakeholders.

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…

Education:

An advanced university degree is required in one of the following fields: international relations, social sciences, international development, public administration, planning, statistics or another relevant technical field.

A first university degree in a relevant field combined with at least two additional years of highly relevant work experience relative to the position may be accepted in lieu of an advanced university degree.

Experience:

A minimum of eight years of progressively responsible professional experience at the national and international levels in one or more of the following areas is required: public affairs, planning, monitoring, programme development, implementation, or other relevant area.

Developing country work experience and/or at least one instance of exposure to emergency programming including preparedness planning is an asset.

Language Requirements:

Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is an asset.

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s Core Values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust and Accountability (CRITA) underpin everything we do and how we do it. Get acquainted with Our Values Charter: https://uni.cf/UNICEFValues

The UNICEF competencies required for this post are:

Core Competencies

• Nurtures, Leads and Manages People (2)
• Demonstrates Self Awareness and Ethical Awareness (2)
• Works Collaboratively with others (2)
• Builds and Maintains Partnerships (2)
• Innovates and Embraces Change (2)
• Thinks and Acts Strategically (2)
• Drive to achieve impactful results (2)
• Manages ambiguity and complexity (2)

During the recruitment process, we test candidates following the competency framework. Familiarize yourself with our competency framework and its different levels: competency framework here.

UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most disadvantaged children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, or any other personal characteristic.

We offer a wide range of benefits to our staff, including paid parental leave, breastfeeding breaks and reasonable accommodation for persons with disabilities. UNICEF strongly encourages the use of flexible working arrangements.

UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF is committed to promote the protection and safeguarding of all children. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks, and will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.

Remarks:

UNICEF’s active commitment towards diversity and inclusion is critical to deliver the best results for children. For this position, eligible and suitable female candidates are encouraged to apply.

Mobility is a condition of international professional employment with UNICEF and an underlying premise of the international civil service.

UNICEF appointments are subject to medical clearance.  Issuance of a visa by the host country of the duty station, which will be facilitated by UNICEF, is required for IP positions. Appointments are also subject to inoculation (vaccination) requirements, including against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid). Government employees that are considered for employment with UNICEF are normally required to resign from their government before taking up an assignment with UNICEF. UNICEF reserves the right to withdraw an offer of appointment, without compensation, if a visa or medical clearance is not obtained, or necessary inoculation requirements are not met, within a reasonable period for any reason.

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.