UNOPS recruits 01 Monitoring and Quality Assurance Specialist

Monitoring and Quality Assurance Specialist

Hosted Entities: Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN)

Job categories: Health

Vacancy code: VA/2019/B5119/18484

Department/office: ECR, GVA, UN portfolio

Duty station: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Contract type: Local ICA Specialist

Contract level: LICA Specialist-10

Duration: Open-ended

Dealine date:  17-Sep-2019

Applications to vacancies must be received before midnight Copenhagen time (CET) on the closing date of the announcement.

 Background Information – Job-specific

Launched in September 2010, the purpose of the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement is to catalyse collective action and create an enabling environment to end malnutrition in all its forms. With 61 SUN Countries and four Indian States at the helm, the SUN Movement represents an unprecedented country-led effort to bring together stakeholders – from governments, national and global civil society organisations, businesses, the UN system, researchers and scientists across different sectors – and provide them with a collaborative space to convene, mobilise, share, learn, advocate, align and coordinate actions and approaches to improve nutrition.

SUN countries, supported by all stakeholders in the Movement, are committed to creating an enabling environment for scaling up nutrition by strengthening four strategic processes as set out in the SUN Movement Strategy and Roadmap 2016-2020: expanding and sustaining an enabling political environment; prioritising effective actions that contribute to good nutrition; implementing actions aligned with national common results frameworks; and effectively using, and significantly increasing, financial resources for nutrition. The SUN Movement Coordinator, UN Assistant Secretary General, oversees the day-to-day implementation of the Strategy and Roadmap, leads the SUN Movement Secretariat and represents the SUN Movement globally.

Since 2012, the SUN Movement Secretariat has developed as a small coordinating mechanism. It has a catalytic role, and seeks to link together countries and networks in the SUN Movement to ensure that countries receive the support they need, to improve actions and achieve nutrition objectives in a coordinated and coherent way.  It also ensures that the Movement’s progress is tracked efficiently and communicated clearly. The Secretariat is headed by the Director of the Secretariat who is responsible for ensuring that the Secretariat catalyses, facilitates and supports effective action across the overall SUN Movement. It is located in Geneva.

The SUN Movement Pooled Fund was established in 2017 with the aim to strengthen the capacity of non-governmental systems in SUN Countries. The Pooled Fund is a catalytic and innovative source of grants to support multi-stakeholder platforms in SUN Movement countries, in order to increase the effectiveness and impact of national efforts to end malnutrition in all its forms. The Pooled Fund grants also focus on promoting engagement of additional relevant actors in the implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of multi-sectoral and multi-stakeholder national plans for nutrition. To date, alliances of civil society organizations from 38 countries have received grants from the SUN Movement Pooled Fund to contribute to end malnutrition in all its forms addressing country-specific needs. The Pooled Fund has planned to cover more countries and partners in 2019 and 2020.

Purpose and Scope of Assignment

UNOPS Geneva Office is the legal and administrative host of the SUN Movement Secretariat. As part of these hosting arrangements UNOPS is also fund manager of the SUN Movement Pooled Fund. The team supporting the SUN Movement Pooled Fund is composed of one Pooled Fund Coordinator, one Monitoring & Evaluation Specialist, one Grants Analyst and one Grants Management Officer. This team works in close collaboration and synchronization with the work undertaken by the SUN Movement Secretariat. The SUN Movement Coordinator oversees the work of the Pooled Fund and provides strategic guidance.

In order to expand the Pooled Fund’s capacity at decentralized levels, three regional Monitoring and Quality Assurance Specialists are being recruited. The proposed Monitoring & Quality Assurance Specialist(s) will work under the supervision of the UNOPS Geneva Office’s Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist and in collaboration with the Pooled Fund Coordinator and the Country Liaison Team at the SUN Movement Secretariat and the Grants Management Officers at UNOPS.

The postholder will be responsible for the implementation and maintenance of a functional monitoring, quality assurance and reporting system for the Pooled Fund Project at decentralized levels. S/he will be assigned to provide support to the Pooled Fund grantees covering 12 to 15 countries in the regions.  S/he will directly work with the Pooled Fund grantees, project partners and stakeholders in all aspects related to project monitoring, quality assurance and reporting functions.

S/he will also support in-country SUN stakeholders to effectively collaborate and scale up their actions for nutrition. S/he will monitor and report on the progress of national and subnational SUN stakeholder collaboration – including how this can become more effective and what steps are needed to achieve this.

He/she will be a proactive, opportunistic and flexible colleague, fostering cross-team collaboration and encouraging innovative solutions to the challenges faced by SUN Countries. With strong communication skills – both oral and written – the postholder will build and maintain effective understanding and support productive exchanges. S/he will use a knowledge management system to ensure that stories, progresses, challenges, lessons learned from the grass-root level in SUN Countries are documented reaches to serve other SUN players.

Like all in the SUN Movement, the Monitoring & Quality Assurance Specialist(s) must always be vigilant that the SUN Movement’s principles are upheld everywhere and at all times.

S/he will work in close collaboration with Geneva based Pooled Fund team members and s/he will be expected to join weekly (or more frequently) meetings and report on progress on a regular basis.  S/he will be required to undertake frequent field visits (field missions will be up to 50% of the assignment). In addition, s/he will be required to support the Country Liaison Team and other members of the SUN Movement Secretariat as and when needed.

The successful candidate(s) must be flexible and open to take on additional tasks as required to meet the evolving needs of SUN Countries

Functional Responsibilities

Implementation and maintenance of a functional monitoring and reporting system: …

 Education

Master’s degree in Social science, Business administrations, Economics, De…

Experience

A minimum of 5 years of experience in programme/project monitoring and evalu…

 Languages

Fluency in written and spoken English is required. Knowledge of anot…

 Competencies

Develops and implements sustainable business strategies, thinks long term and ex…

 Contract type, level and duration

Contract type: ICA Contract level: LICA-10 (Specialist) Contract duration: …

 Additional Considerations

Please note that the closing date is midnight Copenhagen time Applications …

 Background Information – UNOPS

UNOPS is an operational arm of the United Nations, supporting the successful imp…