Background:
The UN Women, grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, works for the elimination of discrimination against women and girls; the empowerment of women; and the achievement of equality between women and men as partners and beneficiaries of development, human rights, humanitarian action and peace and security. Placing women’s rights at the center of all its efforts, the UN Women will lead and coordinate United Nations system efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action throughout the world. It will provide strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States’ priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors. The mandate and functions of UN Women call for the promotion of organizational and UN system accountability on gender equality through evaluation, strengthening evaluation capacities and learning from evaluation, and developing systems to measure the results and impact of UN Women with its enhanced role at country, regional and global levels. The purpose and role of evaluation in UN Women is to enhance accountability, inform decision-making and contribute to learning on the best ways to achieve women’s empowerment and gender equality through operational and normative work.
Reporting directly to the Executive Director, the independent Evaluation Office of UN Women serves as the custodian of the evaluation function in line with United Nations Evaluation Group (UNEG) Norms and Standards. It deploys quantitative and qualitative approaches to evaluate transformative changes in gender equality and human rights and UN Women’s contribution therein. It undertakes corporate evaluations and promotes their use at decision making levels; supports decentralized evaluations for improved programming and evidence generation on what works for gender equality; supports evaluation capacity development within the organization and of regional and country partners, and promotes coordination with the UN system on joint evaluation of gender equality and the inclusion of gender in system wide evaluation.
UN Women is searching for an Evaluation Specialist to be based in the Evaluation Office in New York. Under the supervision of the Chief of Evaluation, the Evaluation specialist will lead corporate strategic evaluations and their methodological development, promote the use of evaluations findings, collaborate with UN and other evaluation partners, as well as provide evaluation capacity development.
Competencies
Guiding Principles:
- Ethics: Acts according to the standards of ethical conduct for evaluators, including policies on receiving and giving gifts, conflicting
financial interests, outside employment and activities, misuse of position, impartiality in performing official duties and related statutory
authorities. Acts with integrity and honesty in relationships with all stakeholders.
- Integrity: Demonstrating consistency in upholding and promoting the values of UN Women in actions and decisions, in line with the UN
Code of Conduct.
- Cultural Sensitivity/Valuing diversity: Demonstrating an appreciation of the multicultural nature of the organization and the diversity of its
staff. Demonstrating an international outlook, appreciating differences in values and learning from cultural diversity.
Core Competencies:
- Ethics and Values: Promoting Ethics and Integrity / Creating Organizational Precedents
- Organizational Awareness: Building support and political acumen
- Developing and Empowering People / Coaching and Mentoring: Building staff competence, creating an environment of creativity and
innovation
- Working in Teams: Building and promoting effective teams
- Communicating Information and Ideas: Creating and promoting enabling environment for open communication
- Self-management and Emotional intelligence: Creating an emotionally intelligent organization
- Conflict Management / Negotiating and Resolving Disagreements: Leveraging conflict in the interests of the organization & setting
standards
- Knowledge Sharing / Continuous Learning: Sharing knowledge across the organization and building a culture of knowledge sharing and
learning
Functional Competencies:
Knowledge of UN context and gender equality:
- Possesses detailed knowledge of the role of the UN and its components and UN Women’s mandate with the UN system.
- Detailed understanding of the Organization, funds and programs and the distinctions between them.
- Substantive knowledge of key UN topics.
- Provides supervision to evaluation staff in the evaluation of gender equality and women's human rights activities, projects and
programmes.
- Technical and Professional Competencies:
Evaluation Design:
- Ability to develop well-focused Terms of Reference that includes a complete background, addresses salient issues, and identifies potential
impact, with minimal guidance.
- In-depth understanding of various methodologies in evaluation, both qualitative and quantitative, such as surveys, record reviews, focus
groups and case studies and is able to contribute to the development of the most efficient and effective methodology for the design, with
minimal guidance.
- In-depth understanding of various sampling techniques and their applications and is able to develop the most accurate sampling technique
for the methodology.
- Substantive knowledge of how to address gender equality on evaluation design.
Data Collection and Analysis:
- Possesses competencies to collect reliable, valid and accurate information in an objective way. Masters effective interviewing skills and is
able to conduct interviews independently.
- Detailed understanding of questionnaire design and is able to develop questionnaires and other review instruments that will address issues
identified in the design, independently.
- Masters effective interviewing skills and is able to conduct interviews independently.
- Skills to use programme data and documents and to design and conduct case studies independently.
- Ability to guide and direct junior staff in data collection and to ensure the data analysis addresses evaluation issues.
Gender Analysis:
- Experience in conducting gender analysis; has grounded knowledge of gender equality and women’s human rights.
Oral and Written Communication:
- Ability to articulate relevant subject matter in a clear and concise way.
- Pose basic questions and contribute information appropriately in formal settings
- Effectively use appropriate support items, including charts, graphs, audio-visual techniques, and hand-outs
- Conceptualize ideas and issues during the evaluation reporting process
- Utilize critical thinking to formulate findings and recommendations based on the results of both qualitative and quantitative data, and the
broader context of evaluation issues
- Successfully develop clear, concise and compelling evaluation reports that meet UNEG reporting standards, with minimal guidance.
Evaluation process management:
- Masters the skills of evaluation management, including developing a plan and schedule, assigning tasks, ensuring milestones are met on a
timely basis, ensuring project costs are within and approved budget and ensuring evaluation objectives are adequately addressed.
- Independently assume responsibility for managing complex evaluation projects and to supervise evaluation team members.
- Exercises effective negotiation skills with external partners on issues related to evaluations and conflict resolution skills.
Ethics:
- Acts according to the standards of ethical conduct for evaluators, including policies on receiving and giving gifts, conflicting financial
interests, outside employment and activities, misuse of position, impartiality in performing official duties and related statutory authorities.
- Acts with integrity and honesty in relationships with all stakeholders
- Knowledge Management and Learning:
Shares knowledge and experience
- Encourages office staff to share knowledge and contribute to UN Women practice areas
- Develops substantive knowledge of one or more Practice Areas
- Promotes a learning environment in the office
- Provides helpful feedback and advice to others in the office
- Actively works towards continuing personal learning and development in one or more practice areas, acts on learning plan and applies
newly acquired skills
Development and Operational Effectiveness:
- Ability to perform a variety of specialized activities related to HR management, including performance evaluation, learning and
reporting.
- Strong IT skills
- Ability to provide input to business processes re-engineering, implementation of new system.
Leadership and Self-Management:
- Focuses on result for the client
- Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude
- Demonstrates strong oral and written communication skills
- Remains calm, in control and good humored even under pressure
- Demonstrates openness to change and ability to manage complexities
- Responds positively to critical feedback and differing points of view
Required Skills and Experience
Education:
Advanced university degree in evaluation, social science or related field, or combination of first level degree with relevant experience;
Experience:
- Minimum of 7 years professional experience in evaluation;
- Experience working on gender equality and human rights;
- Background in international relations, proven knowledge of gender equality analytical work and programming, knowledge of current
development issues;
- Proven field work experience;
- Experience related UN Women’s mandate and activities is an asset.
Language Requirements:
- Fluency in English.
- Working knowledge in any other UN official language an asset.
Deadline: 7 May 2012
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