Chief Evaluation Adviser

Grade: IS - 6

Deadline: 21 August 2022 (11:59 PM KST)

Location: Songdo, Incheon, South Korea

Job Category: International

Salary: USD 152,100 net (plus attractive benefits, that include the following allowances (as appliable): Relocation, dependency, education assistance and home country travel)

The mission of the Green Climate Fund is to assist developing countries to respond to climate change while bringing prosperity to their people. Established in 2010, the GCF invests in transformational climate projects in the developing world. The Fund makes an ambitious contribution to global climate action and channels significant financial resources into developing countries to help build low-emission and climate-resilient societies.  It is country-driven and undertakes actions that reflect the circumstances of each country concerned and its national aspirations. The GCF is a key enabler of the 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change. Since its establishment, the GCF has approved 192 projects in 123 countries and has committed USD 10.1 billion in climate finance. In addition, it has built up an extensive program to support developing countries to identify their needs, in particular, those who are most vulnerable to climate change impacts. The GCF’s diverse workforce is advancing its mission from its headquarters in South Korea. Our talented staff makes unique contributions to the Fund, enriching the institution through their combined expertise and professional commitment.

The Independent Evaluation Office (IEU) of the GCF is mandated by the GCF Board under paragraph 60 of its governing instrument inform its decision making. Specifically, the governing instrument states “… the Board will establish an operationally independent evaluation unit as part of the core structure of the Fund. The head of the Unit will be selected by, and will report to, the Board. The frequency and types of evaluation to be conducted will be specified by the unit in agreement with the Board.”
The IEU has several objectives:
a)    Informing decision-making by the Board and identifying and disseminating lessons learned, contributing to guiding the GCF and stakeholders as a learning institution, providing strategic guidance;
b)    Conducting periodic independent evaluations of GCF performance to objectively assess the results of the GCF and the effectiveness and efficiency of its activities;
c)    Providing evaluation reports to the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Paris Agreement for purposes of periodic reviews.
 

Position Description
The Evaluation Adviser will be responsible for participating in, leading and  managing corporate and thematic evaluations of the IEU while ensuring his/her participation in  other work streams of the IEU. He/she will manage and participate in high-quality, credible, and useful corporate, thematic, portfolio evaluations that contribute to the overall strategic evaluations of the GCF. In doing this, she/he will also need to manage teams composed of both in-house staff as well as external experts, while keeping abreast of state of the art developments in the field. S/he will also engage with a diversity of stakeholders including GCF secretariat staff as well as others at the region, country and local level in developing, planning, conceiving, implementing and delivering these evaluations. She/he will also lead and participate in assessments of GCF-wide  performance and results, and in generating lessons and identifying areas of improvement. He/she will focus on measuring overall impact within these evaluations, while using evaluation criteria that have been specified. He/she will also make recommendations, both internally within the IEU, and externally to the GCF Secretariat and  programme/project/activities staff that allows the improvement of designs, projects and portfolios. This position will require traveling as required in the position and also representing IEU at international events while keeping abreast of developments in the field.

Duties and responsibilities
•    Lead and or participate in independent evaluations undertaken by the IEU as outlined in the evaluation policy of the GCF, under the overall  guidance of the Head of the Independent Evaluation Unit;
•    Lead the tasks related to the development of the Evaluation Policy for the GCF, including IEU actions required after the adoption of the Policy by the Board; 
•    Provide overall management tasks, including initiating, managing evaluations (including budgets) and evaluation teams, ensuring timely delivery and trouble-shooting to ensure that timeliness and quality are not discounted;
•    Prepare inception reports, terms of reference, evaluation reports and other related evaluation research related products;
•    Build productive relationships with GCF’s stakeholders and leaders in the field of evaluation and climate change;
•    Liaise effectively with GCF stakeholders and staff, members of the Board and other stakeholders to take on board their concerns and requirements of independent evaluations that require that quality is built at entry and data and that information systems are built in programmes and projects and policies of the GCF so that IEU evaluations are credible, high quality and usable;
•    Undertake quantitative and qualitative assessment of the GCF portfolio, including data quality and evaluability concerns;
•    Ensure credible, high quality, trusted evaluation that can also be a possible force of change;
•    Inform IEU’s strategy, formulate guidelines and build procedures to help undertake corporate-level evaluations, thematic evaluations and portfolio evaluations that can help feed into overall strategic guidance to the GCF Board;
•    Facilitate interactions and cooperate with related divisions in assessing the need for, feasibility of and conditions required for evaluation guidelines and procedures for different types of evaluations while considering conditions for and processes for quality at entry of GCF supported programmes, entities and proposals; and
•    Perform other related duties including travel, as required.

Expected experience and qualifications
•    Master’s or doctoral degree in applied economics, law, applied social sciences, climate change related subject, statistics or fields related to evaluation; 
•    10 years of relevant experience or equivalent combination of relevant education and experience; Bachelor plus two more years 
•    Experience with leading the development of evaluation policy of a multilateral or climate institution;
•    Relevant experience with liaison with a governing body, such as members of a Board or equivalent; 
•    Excellent knowledge of the institutional context of evaluations and their political economy; 
•    Excellent knowledge of process tracing methods, theories of change and of mixed methods for evaluations;
•    Long experience with large, high quality, credible evaluations that use mixed methods and preferably measure impacts and causal changes. Experience leading or participating in large-scale institutional evaluations is desirable. 
•    At least one thematic area of expertise that is applicable to climate change evaluations and strong technical and analytical skills;
•    Familiarity with climate change topics and international politics;
•    Familiarity with processing information requests from a range stakeholders is an advantage;
•    Excellent people management skills;
•    Be able to manage multiple tasks with exacting deadlines and deliver on time;
•    Be flexible, humble, with a good collegial attitude and an ability to work in multi-cultural environments that may have ambiguously defined structures and policies and have a keen ability to troubleshoot;
•    Ideal candidates will require analytical and organizational skills, sound judgement, decision-making abilities, will be tactful and diplomatic while ensuring that things get done, and be capable of working with pressing timelines and competing demands and have a history of delivering quality work on time;
•    Ability to deal with large volumes of work under time pressure with a high level of accuracy and attention to detail; be able to exercise tact and discretion in dealing with governing bodies and colleagues;
•    Strong teamwork and interpersonal skills, and highly developed cultural sensitivity in communicating with all levels of staff and external clients, both orally and in writing;
•    Ability to build training modules and train people in monitoring and evaluation is a big advantage; and
•    Excellent written and oral communication skills in English are essential for this position; knowledge of another UN language an advantage.
 

*The person assessed by the Selection Panel as most suitable for the position will be proposed for appointment. Selection among short-listed candidates will also take into account performance at interview, appropriate testing, and references. Applications from women and nationals of developing countries are strongly encouraged.