Senior Evaluation Officer

UNRWA, the largest United Nations operation in the Middle East with over 30,000 staff working across five areas of operation, is looking for highly committed personnel wishing to make a change. If you are looking for a rewarding opportunity to make a tangible difference for one of the most vulnerable communities in the world, UNRWA would like to hear from you. The Senior Evaluation Officer reports to the Chief, Evaluation Division.

Responsibilities

Scopes, plans, develops and leads evaluation assignments of UNRWA activities, including strategic evaluations of programmes (i.e., in-depth evaluations of core programmes, departments, or other organizational units) and thematic evaluations (i.e., evaluations of complex topics that cut across multiple programmes, departments or other organizational units), and carries out all the tasks involved in the assignments, which will include the provision of guidance to external consultants and other evaluation staff.

Conducts and manages impartial, independent and credible evaluations applying a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods, data collection and analysis tools, techniques and approaches, and maintains high professional standards in line with UNRWA’s Evaluation Policy and UN Evaluation Norms and Standards, ensuring strong human rights and gender-responsive evaluation methodologies as well as identifying and applying innovative evaluation approaches which support the utilization of evaluation results.

• Serves as a team leader of evaluations, managing junior Evaluation Division staff, providing guidance and coaching as required to develop staff capacity and support high technical performance. Contributes to the development of the UNRWA evaluation function and the normative standards, evaluation tools and capacity building efforts supporting central and decentralized evaluation management:
• Contributes to the review and further development of the architecture, policies, guidelines, systems, procedures and tools related to evaluation.
• Reviews central and decentralized evaluation terms of reference, inception and draft evaluation reports for quality assurance purposes.
• Provides advice and guidance on evaluation to management and staff and contributes to capacity building of UNRWA staff members on the conduct of decentralized evaluations.
• Participates in meetings, workshops and other discussion fora to establish a dialogue on evaluation results.
• Keeps abreast of developments in the area of evaluation. Contributes to the effective deployment of human and financial resources of the Evaluation Division:
• Plans evaluations and prepares evaluation budgets for individual evaluations, managing the use of available resources effectively and efficiently.
• Sources, hires or procures and supervises external consultants and evaluation firms to conduct evaluations that meet UNRWA evaluation requirements. Promotes the use of evaluation evidence internally and externally, including the development of briefs and other learning / knowledge products on evaluations.
• Participates and represents the Evaluation Division in briefings with management, and donor and host representative groups. Assists the Chief of the Evaluation Division in the development of annual reports on evaluation function activities and results, including the development of special synthesis reports on evaluation results and trends.

Education

• Advanced university degree (Master’s degree or equivalent degree) from an accredited educational institution in social sciences, business administration, public administration, programme evaluation, or in a related field, preferably with emphasis on international affairs and/or development.

Work Experience

• A minimum of seven years of progressively responsible relevant professional experience in the design, monitoring and evaluation of programmes and projects is required. Unless already serving as an international staff member in the UN Common System, a candidate for an international post must have at least two continuous years of relevant international experience outside UNRWA, and outside the country(s) of which the candidate is a national or holds citizenship, a passport, or a national identity number is required.
• Experience in evaluation design and management in a development context is required. Experience in applying international standards and professional norms in evaluation design, implementation and reporting is required.
• Experience in the design and implementation of qualitative and quantitative data collection is required.
• Experience in the management and conduct of evaluations, serving as a team leader is required. Experience related to UNRWA’s mandate and activities, including for example experience in evaluation of human development or humanitarian response is desirable. Knowledge of and practical experience in the application of the norms and standards for evaluation of the United Nations Evaluation Group is desirable. Work experience in the Middle East is desirable.
• Advanced university degree (Master’s degree or equivalent degree) from an accredited educational institution in social sciences, business administration, public administration, programme evaluation, or in a related field, preferably with emphasis on international affairs and/or development is required.

Languages

• Excellent command of spoken and written English.

Source: https://careers.un.org/jobSearchDescription/235451?language=en