Chief Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, P-4, Lilongwe

Purpose of the Position

The incumbent of this post will ensure the following:

• UNICEF Malawi Country Office (MCO) has useful, valid and reliable information on the situation of children's and women's rights;
• MCO has useful, valid and reliable information on the performance of UNICEF-supported programmes including their relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, and sustainability, and in emergency contexts, their coverage, coordination and coherence;
• The budget section of MCO takes appropriate action to ensure proper and full utilization of funds at its disposal;
• The donor reporting and relation is managed effectively and efficiently to ensure continued funding of UNICEF programmes;
• The inter-agency HACT activity for the UN is managed to enhance coherence and synergies available to ensure transparency, accountability, compliance with the HACT framework.

The incumbent will also work within the UN country team to support the United Nations Country Team (UNCT) goals for delivering valid and reliable information on the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and other goals, and on the performance of UN-supported programmes. The incumbent will assist in the development of national capacities for monitoring and project evaluation, with special attention to the interest, concern and participation of government, community and civil society stakeholders.

Key Expected Results

Planning and Monitoring

• Ensure that the Country Office has well-prioritised and realistic section plans (either one year or two year rolling work plans) that are signed with government partners, shared with national partners as indicated in the plans, and adequately monitored. The plans are to be coherent and provide synergistic support for the improvement of children and mother's lives in Malawi.
• Support MCO sections in development and finalization of section work plans with relevant government partner in a timely manner.
• Provide fund allocation for each plan in a timely manner to MCO sections, such that the plans can be finalized in the last quarter of each year. Furthermore, ensure in the last quarter of each year the following year's plans are signed, attached in VISION and ready for implementation.
• Supervise the section M&E Focal Points of MCO, and support their activities in building the capacity of M&E interventions of the sections.
• Ensure GIS training of the new section members and lead the GIS activities of the MCO.
• Make professional contributions to and provide technical assistance for the M&E function of the office, and establishing the major research, monitoring and evaluation objectives, priorities, and activities in UNICEF's multi-year and annual IMEPs. Likewise, support the development of UNDAF M&E Plans from a sound results-based programming process.
• Ensure the IMEP is implemented in a timely and coherent manner.
• Lead the development of the Annual Work Plan (AWP) and Annual Management Plan (AMP) and monitor and report on the implementation.

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.
• In coordination with other stakeholders, support the collection of Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and other key social development indicators (through MICS or other surveys) to improve national planning.
• Support partners in the establishment and management of national statistical databases (e.g. DevInfo), ensuring that key indicators are readily accessible by key stakeholders. Potential uses include the Situation Analysis, Common Country Assessment, Early Warning Monitoring Systems, Mid-Term Reviews and End of Country Programme Reviews.
• Support the preparation of country level statistical and analytic reports on the status of children's and women's rights issues when opportunities emerge to influence developmental and social policies. To include technical support to global reporting obligations including national reports on progress toward the MDGs, and towards CRC and CEDAW fulfilment.
• In humanitarian response situations, provide professional support for one or more rapid assessments (inter-agency or independently if necessary) to be carried out within the first 48-72 hours.

Programme Performance Monitoring

• Ensure that the Country Office has quality information to assess progress towards expected results established in annual work plans.
• Provide technical support to ensure that a set of programme performance indicators is identified and adjusted as necessary, in the context of the multi-year and annual IMEPs, the Annual Management Plan and Section 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 to programme performance monitoring, with special attention to humanitarian response.
• Drawing on VISION reports that provide monitoring and analysis of key program performance and management indicators, provide professional input to management reports, including the statutory meetings of the MCO (such as PMT, CMT, etc.); supervise and approve performance monitoring data inputted into the RAM, and relevant sections of the annual reports.
• Lead the Mid-Year Reviews (MYR) and Annual Review (AR) process of the MCO.

Evaluation

• Ensure that UNICEF-supported evaluations are designed and implemented to established UN quality standards, and the results are disseminated in a timely fashion to stakeholders in order to improve programme performance and contribute to wider learning.
• Technically support programme partners to formulate Terms of Reference and evaluation designs of high quality in compliance with the organization's programme evaluation policies and guidelines.
• Monitor and ensure the quality of the field work and data management during the implementation phase, and the quality of the analysis and ease of understanding during the report writing phase.
• Disseminate evaluation findings and recommendations to the intended audiences in user-friendly methods. In particular, to ensure that effective participatory feedback is provided to community and civil society stakeholders.
• Monitor and ensure that a management response to the findings and recommendations of the evaluation is completed, recorded, and followed up for implementation. Most specifically, ensure that evaluation recommendations are submitted to the Country Management Team and follow-up actions recorded in CMT minutes. Submit electronic copies of all evaluations to NYHQ via the Evaluation Data Base web portal, with full accompanying documentation.

Monitoring and Evaluation 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 increasingly engage in and lead monitoring and evaluation processes.
• 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 UNDAF M&E plan. Pay particular attention so the capacity needs of national partners such as professional evaluation associations will be strengthened by involvement in evaluation processes and possibly through specific capacity building initiatives.
• Collaborate to implement capacity building strategies as a joint commitment with other developmental partners. Utilize a range of appropriate skills building strategies including self-learning, seminars and workshops and practical experience in order that UNICEF and UN staff have the basic knowledge and skills in understanding and applying new M&E policies, tools, methods to fulfil their responsibilities. Similarly, design and implement strategies suited to the skills needs of national partners.
• Lead the M&E TWG of the UNDAF.

Cross Cutting Support

• Ensure that the budget unit of MCO, the donor relations officer of MCO and the UN HACT coordinator are properly supervised, coordinated with relevant sections and UN agencies; and timely deliverables for each unit/officer provided to senior management of MCO and where relevant UNCT.
• 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 experience 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.
• Ensure that the budget section of the MCO is managed properly, budget in VISION is allocated in a timely manner, cost distributions for salary payments finalized on time, allocations and re-allocation of funds are undertaken in a timely manner to ensure full utilization of the MCO Grants.
• Ensure that the donor relations officer performs duties as per post's JD, including liaising with relevant HQ and Regional office staff. Main duty is to ensure high quality donor reports are produced on time and submitted to donors. Supervise the donor relations officer grant management activities to ensure full utilization of MCO grants. Support the grant management training of MCO.
• Ensure that the UN HACT coordinator performs duties as per post's JD, including managing all UN HACT activities such as spot checks, micro assessments, regular audits and special audits of the partners. Ensure UN HACT implementation is as per the revised HACT guidelines found on the UNDG website. Ensure that the macro-assessment of the country is undertaken in a timely manner. Support the HACT capacity building of partners.

Qualifications of Successful Candidate

• An advanced university degree (Master's) in Social Sciences, Demography, Development Planning, Statistics or a directly-related technical field(s) is required.
• A minimum of eight (8) years of relevant experience, at the national and international levels, in programme planning, monitoring and evaluation is required.
• Previous hands-on experience in a supervisory/managerial capacity is required.
• Previous hands-on experience of emergency programming, including preparedness planning and humanitarian crisis response programming is highly desirable.
• Knowledge of Project Evaluation, including Evaluation Process Management is highly desirable.
• Previous work experience in an emergency duty station is considered an asset.
• Fluency in English (written & verbal) is required. Knowledge of an additional UN Language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish) is considered an asset.

Competencies of Successful Candidate

• Communicates effectively to varied audiences, including during formal public speaking.
• Able to work effectively in a multi-cultural environment.
• Sets high standards for quality of work and consistently achieves project goals.
• Has good leadership and supervisory skills; co-ordinates group activities, ensuring that roles within the team are clear.
• Analyzes and integrates potentially conflicting numerical, verbal and other data from a number of sources.
• Sets clearly defined objectives and plans activities for self, own team or department.
• Translates strategic direction into plans and objectives.
• Demonstrates and shares detailed technical knowledge and expertise.

HOW TO APPLY:

UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages qualified female and male candidates from all national, religious and ethnic backgrounds, including persons living with disabilities, to apply to become a part of our organisation.

If you want a challenging career while improving the lives of children around the world UNICEF, the leading children’s rights organization, would like to hear from you.

Visit us at www.unicef.org/about/employ to register in our new e-Recruitment system and apply to this and other vacancies. Applications must be received by 13-Feb-15

Vacancy position link:https://careers.unicef.org/sap/bc/webdynpro/sap/hrrcf_a_posting_apply?PA...

Please note that only candidates who are under serious consideration will be contacted.

In the selection of its staff, UNICEF is committed to gender balance and diversity without distinction as to race, sex or religion, and without discrimination of persons with disabilities: well qualified candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.