Planning Monitoring & Evaluation Manager

Under the direct supervision of the Deputy Representative, the Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation Manager ensures that UNICEF South Africa has strategic and results-based programme planning strategies and documents; useful, valid, and reliable information on the situation of children’s and women’s rights; relevant, effective, and timely use of programme monitoring information and insights for strategic and programmatic decision making, including insights for coverage, coordination, and coherence in emergency contexts. More specifically, the Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation Manager will lead the first area, ensuring the alignment of programme planning, monitoring, and corporate reporting.

Summary of key functions/accountabilities:

Programme Planning and the Integrated Monitoring, Evaluation & Research Plan (IMEP):

• Support the Country Office and national partners to develop a well-prioritised and realistic programme plan, and monitoring and evaluation activities, collaboratively to deliver results for children.
• Lead development of the Country Programme Document (CPD), Country Programme Management Plan (CPMP), Results Framework, Programme Strategy Notes (PSNs), and Country Office Programme Workplans.
• In coordination with the Integrated Monitoring, Evaluation & Research Plan (IMEP)Committee, make professional contributions to and provide technical assistance for the planning and establishing the major research, monitoring and evaluation objectives, priorities, and activities in UNICEF’s multi-year and annual IMEPs, in consultation with child-rights and implementing partners.
• Support developing and coordinating the United Nations Sustainable Development Framework (UNSDF) M&E plan and reporting requirements from a sound rights and results-based programming process.

Situation Monitoring and Assessment:

• Ensure that the Country Office and national partners have a 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.
• In coordination with other stakeholders, support the collection of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and other key social development indicators data to improve national planning.
• Support partners in establishing and managing national statistical databases, ensuring key indicators are readily accessible to key stakeholders. Potential uses include Situation Analysis, Common Country Assessment, Early Warning Monitoring Systems, and Mid-Term Reviews.
• Develop a Situation Monitoring and Assessment system owned by all key partners which supports the preparation of country-level statistical and analytic reports on the status of children’s and women’s rights issues; and allows, when opportunities emerge, to influence developmental and social policies.
• Provide technical support and coordinate global reporting obligations, including national reports on progress toward the SDGs and Key Results for Children (KRC)fulfilment.

Programme Performance Monitoring and Reporting:

• Ensure the Country Office has quality information to assess progress towards expected results established in annual work plans, including emergency plans.
• Coordinate analysis of quality information collected and disseminated with the participation of all concerned partners to assess progress towards expected annual multi-year results and oversee the gathering and analysis of relevant and strategic information needed to manage the Country Programme.
• Strengthen and harmonize the Country Programme Monitoring systems, the Monitoring Information Systems (MIS) maintenance, biannual programme reviews, and corporate programme reporting (RAM, KRC, CRAVE, CSIs, UNINFO)Provide technical support to ensure that a set of programme performance indicators is identified and adjusted as necessary, with inputs of all concerned partners to assess progress towards expected annual and multi-year results in the context of the multi-year and annual IMEPs, the Annual Management Plan and Annual Work Plans, as outlined in the Programme Policy and Procedures Manual.
• Coordinate with partners to ensure that monitoring systems are properly designed and that data collection and analysis from field visits are coordinated and standardised across programmes to feed into programme performance monitoring, with special attention to humanitarian response.
• Drawing on monitoring and analysing key programme performance and management indicators, provide professional input to management reports, including relevant sections of the annual reports.

M&E Capacity Building:

• Ensure that the monitoring and evaluation capacities of Country Office staff and national partners – government and civil society – are strengthened, enabling them to increase and lead monitoring and evaluation processes.
• Enhance the monitoring and evaluation capacities of Country Office staff and national partners – government and civil society – to meet the expectations and requirements of their positions and responsibilities.
• Develop and maintain guidance, tools, templates, and materials for planning, monitoring and reporting in the UNICEF SharePoint site, the hub for all planning, monitoring and reporting activities.
• Promote the awareness and understanding of the shared responsibility of M&E function among all staff members through communication, training, learning and development activities organization wide.
• In close collaboration with partners, ensure that an M&E capacity-building strategy for UNICEF/UN staff national partners and institutions exists in the context of the IMEP or UNSDCF M&E plan. Pay particular attention so the capacity needs of national partners such as professional evaluation associations will be strengthened with involvement in evaluation processes and possibly through specific capacity-building initiatives.
• Collaborate on implementing capacity-building strategies as a joint commitment with other developmental partners.
• Utilise a range of appropriate skills-building strategies, including self-learning, seminars and workshops and practical experience to build the knowledge and skills of UNICEF and UN staff in understanding and to apply new M&E policies, tools, and methods to fulfil their responsibilities. Similarly, design and implement strategies suited to the skills needs of national partners.
• Actively seek partnerships with knowledge institutions to identify capacity gaps and develop strategies to address them.

Networking, Knowledge Management and Sharing:

• Ensure that the UNICEF office is effectively linked to wider UNICEF M&E developments and the UNSDCF M&E system that contributes to and benefits from organizational learning on effective M&E management.
• The UNICEF office is linked to wider UNICEF and UN M&E developments in a way that both contribute to and benefit from organizational learning on effective planning, M&E, and results management.
• Collaborate with Regional M&E Advisers and HQ Evaluation Office for overall coordination of priority research, monitoring and evaluation activities, especially those of regional scope requiring the coordinated effort of multiple countries.
• Partner with the Regional Monitoring and Evaluation Adviser to ensure that current and accurate M&E data and results are included in regional reports, multi-country studies, and knowledge-sharing networks.
• Undertake lessons-learned reviews on successful and unsuccessful M&E practices and experiences at the national level, and ensure they are shared as appropriate. Similarly, pay attention to M&E knowledge networks to identify innovations and lessons learned that may be relevant for the CO and partners to improve their M&E function.
• Support coordination of UNICEF inputs to UN-wide planning, monitoring, and reporting requirements.
• Coordinates knowledge management and strengthen the documentation of best practices and ensure effective sharing and generation of knowledge between UNICEF South Africa and other global & regional actors.

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

Minimum requirements:

Education:

• Advanced university degree in social sciences, statistics, planning development, planning, or related social science field.

Work Experience:

• Eight years of progressively responsible professional work experience at the national and international levels in programme planning, and monitoring. Practical experience in emergency programming, including preparedness planning and active involvement in a humanitarian crisis response programme, is an asset.

Language Requirements:

• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language is considered as an asset.

Source: https://jobs.unicef.org/cw/en-us/job/578057