Consultancy: Evaluation Specialist - Education Section, PD - NYHQ, Requisition# 506539

The consultant will provide technical assistance in the areas of quantitative evaluation and research for the Humanitarian Education Accelerator (HEA) and the overall innovations in education portfolio. For the HEA, the consultant will provide technical review and quality control to the research and technical assistance (mentoring & training) work of the ESP, and will provide subsidiary mentorship activities. For the overall innovations portfolio, the consultant will focus on providing technical support in the development of fit for purpose monitoring (including real time monitoring) and evaluation methods for innovative programmes before, during, and after scaling up (e.g. Data Must Speak interventions, Strengthening Real Time Monitoring Systems Initiative). The latter will include methods that could be applied in fragile and resource constrained contexts.

If you are a committed, creative professional and are passionate about making a lasting difference for children, the world's leading children's rights organization would like to hear from you.

For 70 years, UNICEF has been working on the ground in 190 countries and territories to promote children's survival, protection and development. The world's largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments.

Background & Rationale

UNICEF’s Education Programme aims to increase the provision of quality education opportunities and improve learning outcomes for the most marginalized children and youth, which is particularly challenging in the context of protracted emergencies. To identify effective education interventions that could work at scale in protracted emergencies, where development and humanitarian interventions intersect, UNICEF, DFID, and UNHCR launched the Humanitarian Education Accelerator (HEA) in early November 2015. In the HEA, UNICEF is responsible for providing leadership on technical evaluation, evidence generation and dissemination.

The goal of the HEA is to strengthen teams and organizations implementing innovative approaches to education in areas of protracted humanitarian crisis, and to help them reach the scale needed to have broad impact. Implementing the innovation approach in education, the HEA will provide technical assistance to innovation teams, and at the same time, as it’s the focus of our will systematically generate evidence on the process of scaling up innovations in fragile and complex emergency contexts. The HEA seeks to embed evaluative practice into the scaling process, enlist expertise from external evaluators to build a robust evidence base of effective innovations, and identify factors that enable effective scaling-up of small-scale successes to meet the large-scale education demands that governments and partners currently face. UNICEF has contracted an Evaluation, Research and Technical Assistance Services Provider (ESP), which will be in charge of building the generation of evidence component, using mixed methods to conduct process and impact evaluations on the five innovative interventions selected for the HEA.

This task aligns with one of the key outputs in education in the 2014-2017 UNICEF Strategic Plan, “Increased national capacity to provide access to early learning opportunities and quality primary and secondary education”, and one of its related output indicators, “Countries with innovative approaches at scale to improve access to education and learning outcomes for the most disadvantaged and excluded children”. It also aligns with Output 8 of the 2017 Education Annual Work Plan, “Programmes and systems strengthened in education through technical support, tools guidance, research, evidence and use of innovations” and its related Activity 6, “Strengthen and develop innovations in Education at global, regional and country levels”.

Purpose

The consultant will provide technical assistance in the areas of quantitative evaluation and research for the Humanitarian Education Accelerator (HEA) and the overall innovations in education portfolio.  For the HEA, the consultant will provide technical review and quality control to the research and technical assistance (mentoring & training) work of the ESP, and will provide subsidiary mentorship activities. For the overall innovations portfolio, the consultant will focus on providing technical support in the development of fit for purpose monitoring (including real time monitoring) and evaluation methods for innovative programmes before, during, and after scaling up (e.g. Data Must Speak interventions, Strengthening Real Time Monitoring Systems Initiative).  The latter will include methods that could be applied in fragile and resource constrained contexts.

Expected results: (measurable results)

The following results are expected by the end of the consultancy:

• Evaluation and research work produced by the HEA’s ESP technically reviewed and quality assured.
• Mentoring and training conducted by the HEA’s ESP quality assured
• HEA innovation teams trained and mentored by the consultant in monitoring and evaluation areas
• HEA programme management (e.g. biannual reports, timely communication with partners) supported
• UNICEF Regional and Country Offices, and government counterparts, technically supported in monitoring and evaluation areas (e.g. Data Must Speak and Strengthening Real Time Monitoring Systems Initiative).

Duty Station

NYHQ Office

TIMEFRAME: 241 days

Start date:  09 October 2017                               

End date:  22 September 2018

Key competences, technical background, and experience required 

• At least a Master’s in economics, education, social sciences, statistics or another quantitative field.  Ph.D. (or Ph.D. candidate) highly desirable.
• 3-8 years of junior to mid-level experience in applying research, evidence and data-driven decision making to medium and large-scale programs with an appreciation for practical and logistical constraints
• Experience in research and M&E design and implementation in protracted conflict contexts highly desirable.

• Strong familiarity with various research and evaluation design concerns, including experimental and quasi-experimental methods
• Strong familiarity with a range of data processing, statistical, and geospatial software packages such as Stata, Excel, R, CSPro, Optimal Design, Open Data Kit, ArcGIS, QGIS, etc., with the ability to discover, learn and apply new technologies that increase the efficiency of data analysis and learnings.

• Strong interpersonal and communications skills to work effectively with a team that is geographically dispersed
• Self-directed/self-motivating personality, with proven ability to manage demands from multiple stakeholders while adhering to program deadlines and priorities
• Quick to learn, motivated to self-teach and capable of independently translating new knowledge into practice
• Willingness to travel as needed to meet the demands of the programme
• Fluency and strong writing skills in English are required. Fluency and strong writing skills in another official UN language highly desirable.

To view our competency framework, please click here. 

Please indicate your ability, availability and daily/monthly rate (in US$) to undertake the terms of reference above (including travel and daily subsistence allowance, if applicable).  Applications submitted without a daily/monthly rate will not be considered.

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.