Planning & Monitoring Specialist, P3

Job no: 572394
Contract type: Fixed Term Appointment
Duty Station: Nairobi
Level: P-3
Location: Somalia
Categories: Emergency, Programme Management, Research, Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation

UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential.

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone.

And we never give up.

For every child, Care

PURPOSE OF THE JOB

To support and facilitate the planning, monitoring, and reporting functions for the country programme.

To ensure that the UNICEF Country Office has useful, valid, and reliable information on

• the situation of children’s and women’s rights;
• the performance of UNICEF-supported programmes including their relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, and sustainability, and in emergency contexts, their coverage, coordination, and coherence.

To work within the UN country team to support UNCT goals for delivering valid and reliable information on the attainment of the MDGs and other goals, and on the performance of UN-supported programmes.

To assist in the establishment of planning and monitoring tools which enhance partnership between the UNCT, government and other key players to collectively track progress on SDGs and other international commitment for children.

To assist in the development of national capacities for planning, monitoring, evaluation, and research, with special attention to the interest, concern and participation of government, community, and civil society stakeholders.   

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES and DUTIES & TASKS

Within the delegated authority and under the given organizational set-up, the incumbent may be assigned the primarily, shared, or contributory accountabilities for all or part of the following areas of major duties and key end-results.

1.  Integrated Monitoring, Evaluation & Research Plan (IMEP) 

Ensure that the Country Office and national partners use a well-prioritised and realistic plan of research, monitoring and evaluation activities that will provide the most relevant and strategic information to manage the Country Programme, including tracking and assessing UNICEF’s distinct contribution. 

• 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.
• Likewise, support the development of UNDAF M&E Plans from a sound results-based programming process.
• Identify the M&E objectives, priorities, and activities required for effective CO and partner Emergency Preparedness and Response Plans,
• In humanitarian response situations, within the first month, draft and recommend a simple one-month data-collection plan to cover key data gaps as required for the initial emergency response, working in close collaboration with the humanitarian clusters partners
• After the initial humanitarian response, support management of the medium-term response with a revised IMEP

 2.  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 Goal (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, and Mid-Term Reviews. 
• Develop a collectively 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 which allow, 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 toward 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, working in close collaboration with the humanitarian clusters partners.

3.  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, with inputs of all concerned partners 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 to programme performance monitoring, with special attention to humanitarian response.
• Drawing on monitoring and analysis of key program performance and management indicators, provide professional input to management reports, including relevant sections of the annual reports.

4.  Data and Statistics:

Ensure that the Country Office has a systematic collection of qualitative data for the sound and up-to-date assessment of the situation of children and women to provide the baselines for result-based decisions on interventions and evaluations.

• Establish a data repository whereby staff can access all the latest information, research, surveys, data about children and women in Somalia.
• Corroborate various data from different tools and sources to facilitate identification of the situation of children and women, programme performance and results, and opportunities for process improvements and strategic reflections.
• Preparing periodic reports for program managers on both humanitarian and development interventions that effectively communicate trends, patterns, and predictions using relevant data. Such reports will include creation of engaging interactive data visualizations including interactive charts, maps and dashboards based on UNICEF’s data work and contribute to publications and media reports.
• Provide technical leadership to support Field Offices and where necessary Partners in the areas of capacity development for responsible data work: data collection, data analysis and data use.
• Establish and nurture a series of opportunities which assist the Country Office to build capacity in Government to identify issues susceptible to being solved using data, and to build the partnerships necessary to access the data, avail of expertise and computing power, and apply the insights for results for children.
• Establish and maintain good working relationships with partners including UN agencies, multilateral and bilateral donors, foundations, private sector organizations, academia, civil society organizations and professional associations.
• Ensure the establishment and delivery of technologies, tools, approaches, and methodologies to unlock the value in UNICEF data, including guiding data use and structures to remove data silos, and ensure responsible cross-fertilization of data across the organization especially between humanitarian and development.

5.  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 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.
• Actively seek partnerships with knowledge institutions for the identification of capacity gaps and development of strategies to address them.

6.  Coordination and Networking 

Ensure that the UNICEF office is effectively linked to wider UNICEF M&E developments in a way that both contributes to and benefits from organizational learning on effective M&E 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 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.

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

• An advanced university degree (master’s or higher) in social sciences, statistics, planning development, planning.  
• A minimum of [five years] of relevant professional experience in developing country work experience or familiarity with emergency is considered an asset.
• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is an asset.

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s Core Values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, Accountability and Sustainability (CRITAS) underpin everything we do and how we do it. Get acquainted with Our Values Charter: UNICEF Values

UNICEF competencies required for this post are...

(1) Builds and maintains partnerships (2) Demonstrates self-awareness and ethical 3) Drive to achieve results for 4) Innovates and embraces change(5) Manages ambiguity and complexity(6)Thinks and acts 7) Works collaboratively with others and 8) competency (Nurtures, leads and manages people).

During the recruitment process, we test candidates following the competency framework. Familiarize yourself with our competency framework and its different levels: competency framework here.

UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most disadvantaged children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, or any other personal characteristic.
We offer a wide range of benefits to our staff, including paid parental leave, breastfeeding breaks and reasonable accommodation for persons with disabilities. UNICEF strongly encourages the use of flexible working arrangements.
UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF is committed to promote the protection and safeguarding of all children. 

Remarks:

UNICEF’s active commitment towards diversity and inclusion is critical to deliver the best results for children. For this position, eligible and suitable [female Candidates] are encouraged to apply.

Mobility is a condition of international professional employment with UNICEF and an underlying premise of the international civil service. 

UNICEF appointments are subject to medical clearance. Issuance of a visa by the host country of the duty station, which will be facilitated by UNICEF, is required for IP positions. Appointments are also subject to inoculation (vaccination) requirements, including against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid). Should you be selected for a position with UNICEF, you either must be inoculated as required or receive a medical exemption from the relevant department of the UN. Otherwise, the selection will be cancelled.

All selected candidates will undergo rigorous reference and background checks and will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.

Government employees that are considered for employment with UNICEF are normally required to resign from their government before taking up an assignment with UNICEF. UNICEF reserves the right to withdraw an offer of appointment, without compensation, if a visa or medical clearance is not obtained, or necessary inoculation requirements are not met, within a reasonable period for any reason.

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.

Advertised: 28 May 2024 E. Africa Standard Time
Deadline: 04 Jun 2024 E. Africa Standard Time