ONU Carrière recruits 01 Evaluation Consultant – Project Evaluation for DA 11th Tranche Project

vacance de poste

Intitulé publication: Evaluation Consultant – Project Evaluation for DA 11th Tranche Project

Département / Bureau: Programme des Nations Unies pour les établissements humains

Lieu d’affectation: CAIRO

Période de candidature: 30 novembre 2021 – 14 décembre 2021

No de l’appel á candidature: 21-United Nations Human Settlements Programme-169643-Consultant

Staffing Exercise N/A

Valeurs fondamentales de l’ONU: intégrité, professionnalisme, respect de la diversité

Result of Service

Evaluations in UN-Habitat are carried out to inform the management, governing bodies, including the Committee of Permanent Representatives, donors and other partners about what UN-Habitat is achieving, what improvements should be considered, and what is being learned. In UN-Habitat, results-based evaluation is conducted for the following reasons:

• Evaluations are an important source of evidence of achievement of results, UN-Habitat’s performance and maximizing the impact of UN-Habitat’s contribution. UN-Habitat relies on evaluations to assess performance, identify results achieved, measure effectiveness and determine alternative ways to meet its objectives.

• Sharing evaluation results with key audiences demonstrate accountability and transparency. By building a greater understanding about what UN-Habitat is intending to achieve and how it will achieve it; support is generated from donors, governing bodies and Member States.

• It provides credible and reliable evidence decision-making on project design, allocation of resources, implementation and improving knowledge of projects.

• It can be an agent of change and promote, defend or oppose specific approaches or projects and help shaping opinions.

• It informs the planning, programming, budgeting, implementation and reporting cycle, thereby increases cohesion, consistency and communication between branches and regional offices.

• It is an important contributor to building knowledge and organizational learning and may form a basis for making future interventions more relevant and effective.

• Evaluation offers a learning opportunity to find out what is working, what is not working, and what needs to improve.

In line with the above policy, the Development Account projects and following the OECD/ DAC criteria, the action will apply the UN-Habitat policies on monitoring and evaluation. As appropriate, the Evaluation Consultant of the action will initiate a final project evaluations, assisted both by UN-Habitat Country Offices, the Regional Office for Arab States and the Evaluation Unit in design and conducting of these mandatory project evaluations. The end-of-project Evaluation assesses relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, impact, and sustainability of the DA Urban Profiling Project in the Arab States Region. It will assess the applicability and mainstreaming of the city profiling methodology to further (post)conflict contexts across the Arab region. The evaluation methodology will take into consideration the challenges of evaluating in fragile and conflict affected settings and integrate human rights and gender equality aspects into the processes.

Work Location

Home-based

Expected duration

3 months

Duties and Responsibilities

Organizational Setting

UN-Habitat, the United Nations Human Settlements Programme, is mandated by the UN General Assembly to promote socially and environmentally sustainable towns and cities. It is the focal point for all urbanization and human settlement matters within the UN system.

Context and Topic of the Project

Since 2011, the Arab region has been witnessing revolutions and civil strife, in many cases resulting in brutal civil wars, such as in Syria (since 2011), Libya (since 2014), Iraq (2014) and Yemen (since 2015). These multiple crises have had an ‘urban’ face: urban poverty and exclusion fuelled uprisings, and wars destroyed urban centres- forming a viscous circle. Wars in the Arab region are mostly fought in cities, resulting in huge human and financial losses, and massive destruction in infrastructure and housing. Municipal basic services have often broken down, leading to a disruption in the delivery of basic services; the economic base of cities have been totally damaged because of destruction of residential properties, commercial areas, industrial areas, and basic services. Urban conditions leading up to the conflict, such poverty, informal settlements and under serviced areas, have exacerbated conflicts, and may increase tensions between communities during recovery periods, as well as risk recovery efforts.

As major international humanitarian and development partners are now looking at post-crisis scenarios, integrating humanitarian and development/reconstruction planning becomes crucial for sustaining peace. This cannot be implemented without proper policy planning based on solid evidence-based urban analysis to ensure that reconstruction efforts are prioritized, equitable, inclusive, sustainable and integrate peace and reconciliation and builds back better. Such an analysis will be used by policy makers at the national and local levels, as well as by the United Nations System and donors for sound decision-making.

Urban profiling, which is a key tool utilised by UN-Habitat in developing countries, is used for urban analysis to guide both humanitarian response, as well as development planning and prioritization for the reconstruction and recovery of conflict-affected cities. Urban profiling supports Arab states to strengthening evidence-based policy making, integration and implementation of the 2030 Agenda and contributes to addressing the peace-humanitarian-development nexus and the Sustaining Peace Agenda of the Secretary General. UN-Habitat has extensive experience in urban analysis such as in Iraq (Mosul), Syria, and Lebanon, with increased demands from all conflict-affected countries in the region.

The urban profiling project contributes to priority 1 of the Sendai Framework of Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR), which underlines that disaster response should be based on an understanding of disaster risk in its entire dimension. Furthermore, it enhances the capacity for local governments to ‘Building Back Better’ in crucial recovery, rehabilitation and reconstruction phase (SFDRR Priority 4). The proposed activity is also in line with SDG11. The to be evaluated project was funded by the 11th Tranche of the Development Account. It aimed to develop 5 urban profiles in cities in Iraq, Yemen, Syria and Libya. The project ran for approximately two and a half years and experienced a few set-backs related to rapidly changing circumstances on the ground, including: changing conflict frontlines and the emergence of COVID-19.

Reporting Line

The Consultant will work under the supervision and report to Knowledge Management and Reporting Officer, UN-Habitat Regional Office for Arab states. The evaluation will be managed by the project manager, in coordination with the Regional Office of Arab states and HQ. The UN-Habitat Head of Country Programme and ROAS will provide logistical support during the evaluation. The Regional Office of Arab States evaluation focal point will ensure that contractual requirements are met and approve quality of all deliverables (Inception Report and Final Evaluation Reports). The Consultant is responsible for meeting professional and ethical standards in planning and conducting the evaluation and producing the expected deliverables.

Duties and responsibilities

The consultant will develop an inception report and a final evaluation report based on the following methodology:

1. Stakeholder involvement

It is expected that this evaluation will be participatory, involving key stakeholders who will be kept informed of the evaluation processes including design, information collection, and evaluation reporting and results dissemination to create a positive attitude for the evaluation and enhance its utilization. Relevant UN-Habitat management, relevant branches at Headquarters, ROAS and country office, United Nations agencies, national partners, beneficiaries of the projects, donors, and other civil society organizations may participate through a questionnaire, interviews or focus group discussions. Stakeholders will be kept informed of the evaluation process including: design, information collection, and evaluation reporting and results dissemination to create a positive attitude for the evaluation and enhance utilization.

2. Evaluation approach and methods

The evaluation shall be independent, evidence-based and be carried out following the evaluation norms and standards of the United Nations System. A variety of methodologies will be applied to collect information during evaluation. These methodologies include the following elements:

a) Review of documents relevant to project. Documents to be provided by the Arab States region staff, and documentation available with the partner organizations. Documentation to be reviewed will include:

• Strategic Plan 2019-2023

• New Urban Agenda and relevant SDGs

• Original project documents and implementation plans;

• Monitoring Reports and Donor reports;

• Final products

b). Key informant interviews and consultations, will be conducted with key stakeholders. The principles for selection of stakeholders to be interviewed as well as evaluation of their performance shall be clarified in the inception report at the beginning of the evaluation. The informant interviews will be conducted to obtain qualitative information on the evaluation issues, allowing the senior evaluator to assess programme relevance, efficiency and effectiveness and impact outlook of the Project.

c. The Evaluation Consultant will meet with the Head of Offices the Iraq office, Syria office, Libya office and Yemen office for the implementation of urban profiles and the project lead at the end of the Evaluation in order to review findings with key partners. He or She will describe interpretation of evaluation questions, expected data analysis and instruments including time schedule in the inception report. Presentation of the evaluation findings should follow the standard format of Development Account projects (see annex).

3. Evaluation Criteria and Questions

The evaluation will base its assessments on the criteria of relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, impact and sustainability in line with standards and norms of evaluation in the United Nations system. As per Development Account guidance, the number of evaluation questions has been limited to 5 questions.

Relevance – Question 1: To what extent does the project design respond the needs of the Member States or the international community?

Relevance – Question 2: What adaptations were made to the design of the project during the implementation and were these justified in the context concerned?

Relevance – Question 3 – To what extent has the project contributed to reaching targets of selected SDGs?

Question 4: To what extent did the project achieve efficiency in implementation through the combination of project stakeholders involved, making use of comparative advantages and the creation of synergy?

Efficiency – Question 5: What aspects of policy related change has the project contributed towards?

Sustainability – Question 6: To what extent and in which ways have national level UN and other national level development organizations been involved in project implementation and what role can they be expected to play in sustaining the results achieved through the project at country level?

Innovation – Question 7: What innovative aspects of the project (addressing new topics or using new means of delivery or a combination thereof) proved successful?

Qualifications/special skills

Academic Qualifications:

Advanced university degree (Master’s degree or equivalent) in political science, international relations, social sciences, urban development, housing, infrastructure, local governance or related field is required. A first-level university degree in combination with two (2) additional years of work experience maybe accepted in lieu of the advance university degree.

Experience:

5 years of experience in results-based management, professional project management and monitoring and evaluation is required.

The ability to present credible findings derived from evidence and putting conclusions and recommendations supported by the findings is required. Example of an evaluation report produced by the evaluator should be included in the application.

Country specific knowledge and understanding of UN-Habitat’s mandate and the organizational context of the Arab States Region is required.

Experience working with projects/programmes in the field of urban development, local governance, housing or infrastructure is required.

Familiarity with post-conflict environment is required

Language:

Fluency in oral and written English is required. Fluency in written and oral Arabic is be an asset.

Additional Information

Competencies

Professionalism:

Demonstrates professional competence and mastery of subject matter. Good research, analytical and problem-solving skills. Conscientious and efficient in meeting commitments, observing deadlines and achieving results.

Communication:

Excellent and effective written and oral skills. Ability to present information in a concise and accurate manner, proven ability for preparing comprehensive documents and reports.

Teamwork:

Works collaboratively with colleagues to achieve organizational goals. Solicits input by valuing others’ ideas and expertise and is willing to learn from others.

Planning & Organizing:

Proven ability to plan, coordinate and monitor own work and that of others. Ability to work under pressure and uses time efficiently. Identifies priority activities and assignments, adjust priorities as required.

Aucun frais de dossier

THE UNITED NATIONS DOES NOT CHARGE A FEE AT ANY STAGE OF THE RECRUITMENT PROCESS (APPLICATION, INTERVIEW MEETING, PROCESSING, OR TRAINING). THE UNITED NATIONS DOES NOT CONCERN ITSELF WITH INFORMATION ON APPLICANTS’ BANK ACCOUNTS.