Head of Evaluation

The Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) is seeking to recruit an experienced professional to assume the role of Head of Evaluation, Office of Independent Evaluation (OIE).  The Head of Evaluation will be responsible for providing the highest level of evaluation expertise and will promote decision-making based on evaluative and reflective thinking throughout the organisation. The successful candidate will be based at CDB’s office in St. Michael, Barbados.  

THE ROLE 

OIE conducts independent evaluation under the direction of the Head of Evaluation, who reports functionally to the Oversight and Assurance Committee (OAC) of the Board of Directors and administratively to the President. 

The Head of Evaluation is responsible for developing strategies to improve the evaluation function within CDB and setting standards for planning, conducting, and utilising the results of evaluations. The Head of Evaluation will be expected to contribute to building organisational capacity among CDB staff, and its BMCs by disseminating evaluation results and sharing knowledge and advice on improvements to existing policies and operations. 

The Head of Evaluation is expected to report on a timely basis to OAC on the performance of OIE in carrying out its responsibilities and for ensuring that all OIE evaluations are of a high quality, as measured by international good practice standards. 

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES 

The Head of Evaluation will be required to: 

1.              Lead and manage OIE as an efficient, effective and independent evaluation arm of CDB. 

2.              Develop operational policies, strategies, and related tools to improve the independent evaluation function. 

3.      Create an enabling environment for the delivering high-quality evaluation outputs by a team of competent professional staff and contingent consultancy resources. 

4.              Conduct strategic, thematic, country strategy and programme, and corporate process evaluations. 

5.           Direct the validation of Project Completion Reports to be submitted to OAC and the Board of Directors, disseminated to senior CDB staff. 

6.              Provide the necessary oversight to ensure quality control, and internationally accepted standards in the delivery of the evaluation work programme. 

7.         Develop and implement a five-year rolling strategic work plan, and annual detailed work plan and budget, taking into account such criteria as: level of coverage of CDB’s investments; absorptive capacity of CDB and BMCs; potential for organisational learning; and contribution to decision-making on projects, programmes, policies, strategies and other development activities. 

8.              Develop and implement a dissemination strategy to share evaluative information in a timely manner to promote organisational learning, and influence the formulation of policies, strategies and operations at appropriate stages of the programme and project cycles. 

9.             Maintain a repository of evaluations, management responses, and lessons and a system to track the implementation of commitments made and action plans to address the recommendations of OIE evaluations. 

10.       Submit an annual report to OAC that tracks the use of OIE evaluation results across CDB; and promotes dialogue with OAC, the management of the Bank and other senior staff on evaluation issues of critical importance to CDB. 

11.           Assist in identifying and mitigating risks in the execution of the responsibilities of the role. 

 Qualifications

 The successful candidate must have: 

1.              A postgraduate degree in Economics, Development, Development Banking or a related field.   

2.          Significant experience in evaluation work, including at least eight (8) years’ experience in the formulation, analysis and evaluation of international development projects and programmes. 

3.              At least five (5) years’ experience in leading and managing a team of professional staff to achieve demonstrable results. 

4.     Extensive experience and understanding of development issues and of operational and technical issues affecting international development project/programme design, implementation and management. 

5.       A successful track record in building partnerships with various stakeholders, and interacting with governing bodies of multilateral institutions or similar governance entities. 

Work experience in developing countries (other than home country) in analysing and evaluating development programmes would be an asset.