Project Associate, Monitoring & Evaluation Vacancy-Job Ref: JKNGUNDP/1408/202387

Project Associate, Monitoring & Evaluation Vacancy-Job Ref: JKNGUNDP/1408/202387

Maiduguri (Nigeria)

JOB DESCRIPTION
Background

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion are core principles at UNDP: we value diversity as an expression of the multiplicity of nations and cultures where we operate, we foster inclusion as a way of ensuring all personnel are empowered to contribute to our mission, and we ensure equity and fairness in all our actions. Taking a ‘leave no one behind’ approach to our diversity efforts means increasing representation of underserved populations. People who identify as belonging to marginalized or excluded populations are strongly encouraged to apply. Learn more about working at UNDP including our values and inspiring stories.

UNDP does not tolerate sexual exploitation and abuse, any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment, and discrimination. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks.

The insurgency driven conflict in the Lake Chad Basin, including Northeast of Nigeria has been longstanding and has caused undesirable consequences in terms of loss of lives, created multi-tiered intergenerational grievances, destroyed socio-cultural and socio-economic systems, and remains a threat to immediate, medium and long-term transformation of the affected territories in Nigeria, including Borno, Adamawa and Yobe States. Borno has seen a significantly higher impact and the insurgency there has gone through a variety of phases and is marked by cycles that are connected with several factors.

By September 2021, the insurgency in Northeast of Nigeria had taken an unprecedented turn leading to large number of individuals exiting the conflict and presenting themselves to security authorities, largely in Borno State, but also in neighboring countries. Moreover, sustaining this momentum of exits presents challenges to effective process of handling and treatment of the individuals led by government authorities and ensuring their reintegration into communities amidst an ongoing conflict, an internal displacement situation and significant intergenerational grievances stemming from the longstanding conflict.

As a response to the mass exits, in November 2021, the State Government of Borno, passed a “Policy on Community-Based Reconciliation and Reintegration” premised on the Vision for long term transformation of the State to contribute to peace and stability. This is a multi-pronged process, featuring State and Federal Government cooperation’s (Including with Military and Security Institutions) in receiving, processing, managing the caseload of those in the hands of authorities. The policy presents several mutually reinforcing directions for a State-driven process namely: a) a locally-driven political process; b) screening, profiling deradicalization and rehabilitation; c) a community-oriented reintegration process and d) reconciliation, healing and the long-term transformation plan and regional priorities under the Regional Stabilization Strategy for the Lake Chad Basin.

UNDP is supporting the Federal and State Government to make operational these approaches through various channels aligned with implementation of the Regional Stabilization Facility – Nigeria window, which is operating in some of the locations that have been identified for reintegration. Thus, at the same time supporting alignment with the national/international principles and UNDP policy orientations for effective implementation of community-based reconciliation and reintegration. To this background, the UNDP seeks to recruit a Project Associate M&E to support across the various programs in the NE Sub-office.
Under the overall guidance and supervision of the Project Manager, the Project Associate M&E works to enhance the development and effectiveness of UNDP by strengthening accountability and oversight. Specifically, the Project Associate M&E will focus on enhancing the effectiveness of UNDP programme in North-East Nigeria Sub-Office through the implementation of monitoring and evaluation systems, policies and strategies across programmes and projects; management of risk through designing and implementing risk management mechanism, support effective management of audits (planning, implementation and follow up) and quality assurance of project management processes.

The Project Associate M&E, will work in close collaboration with the Programme and Partnership Support Team, Program Units, Project teams and Operations Unit. She/he will also work with implementing partners and counterparts about the management of evaluations and audit exercises

The Project Associate M&E will work closely with all projects’ personnel and UNDP CO and SO teams to ensure relevant requirements are fulfilled in a timely manner with required quality, following the highest standards in line with UNDP guidelines and procedures.

The incumbent will accelerate gender equality and women’s empowerment within all implementations and promote UNDP’s mandate as a gender-responsive organization with zero tolerance to any kind of discriminatory and abusive behaviour, including sexual harassment, sexual exploitation and abuse.

Duties and Responsibilities

Support the implementation of monitoring and evaluation systems, policies and strategies for the RSC unit projects and other projects
Consolidates reports from PBF/RSC partner agencies
Assist the effective management of audits and risks;
Support quality assurance.
Provide administrative support to feed balanced scorecards and reports;
Support facilitation of knowledge building and knowledge sharing.
Support programme and projects formulation and implementation.
Support the implementation of monitoring and evaluation systems, policies and strategies for the RSC unit and Sub-Office focusing on achievement of the following results:

Support the planning process of monitoring activities and follow up its implementation. Prepares project operational and administrative reports by collecting, selecting, reviewing and maintaining a wide range of information. Verify that all projects are monitored accordingly to the monitoring plan. Inform deviations of planned activities and identify needs of reprogramming;
Provide technical assistance for quality assurance of the implementation of the monitoring process, results framework and management arrangements of projects to guarantee a result based management approach. Assist in the provision of guidance/inputs at the design stage of projects;
Collection and analysis of aggregated data of projects outcomes;
Support in Annual (AWP) and Integrated work planning (IWP) and reporting (ROAR) processes
Support the development of instruments to ensure a high quality of monitoring activities. Participation in results-oriented monitoring and evaluation training efforts in the Sub-Office;
Preparation of reports and submission of documents to the Government, UN Agencies and UNDP by collecting and selecting relevant data from documents, legislation extracts, specialized publications and websites. Drafts preliminary presentation of information.
Provide inputs in the formulation of Terms of Reference for outcome evaluations. Assist the revision of TORs for specific project/thematic/sectorial evaluation missions and/or desk evaluations/reviews, participation’s in consultant and evaluation team selection and technical feedback on evaluations.
Provide assistance in the process of carrying out evaluations (review of reports, participation in meetings, participation in the management and/or organization of seminars, meetings and other special events).
Consolidates reports from PBF / RSC partner agencies focusing on achievement of the following results::

Collect the data from PBF/other RSC partners and provide inputs on periodic progress reports;
Analyse the data and information to support monthly progress reports on major activities;
Consolidates minutes from meetings and sharing with partners
Collates reports from PBF partners and harmonizes into a standard report,
Assistance in preparation/reviews of project-related documents and quarterly/annual project reviews and ongoing monitoring, drafts standard correspondence and presentations on the projects/programme
Assist the effective management of audits and risks focusing on achievement of the following results:

Assess risk areas and work with project staff to minimize risk exposure levels;
Follow up of the implementation of the Audit Plans.
Identification and analysis of audit recommendations and outlining – together with the Programme Unit, develop plan of action for projects to follow-up on the implementation of such recommendations.
Support quality assurance focusing on achievement of the following results:

Support the development of systems to foster improvements in the application of internal control and in the maintenance of compliance standards.
Advise project staff and implementing partners regarding control systems, assess their effectiveness and general operational compliance with UNDP rules, regulations, and policies
Provide quality assurance support on partner agreements, project reports and office publications;
Provide support in the conduct of project quality assessment (Design, implementation, and closure) as per UNDP corporate requirement.
Provide administrative support to feed balanced scorecards and reports focusing on achievement of the following results:

Follow up on performance indicators/ success criteria, targets and milestones;
Provide inputs, information and statistics for quarterly, annual and other reports;
Assist in the provision of credible data for utilization in meetings with the Government and project authorities.
Facilitation of knowledge building and knowledge sharing in the Sub-Office focusing on achievement of the following results:

Organize trainings for the operations/projects staff on programme;
Synthesis lessons learnt and best practices.
Contribute to knowledge networks and communities of practice.
Provides effective support to Programme and projects formulation and implementation focusing on achievement of the following results:

Support preparation of background information for PBF, support project documentation preparation, work plans, budgets, proposals on implementation arrangements in line with the UNDP Results Management Userguide (RMG) requirements and GEF practices and guidelines.
Maintain and keep (original) donor and partner-related documentation of the project (e.g. correspondence, donor reports).
Assist in coordination of project activities with consultants, drafts terms of reference for the consultants.
Provide both internal and external clients (including Country Offices) with timely and adequate support/ information on programme and project activities
Support to operational and financial closure of projects, facilitating of payments and general support to implementation of Project

COMPETENCIES

Core

Achieve Results:

LEVEL 1: Plans and monitors own work, pays attention to details, delivers quality work by deadline

Think Innovatively:

LEVEL 1: Open to creative ideas/known risks, is pragmatic problem solver, makes improvements

Learn Continuously:

LEVEL 1: Open minded and curious, shares knowledge, learns from mistakes, asks for feedback

Adapt with Agility:

LEVEL 1: Adapts to change, constructively handles ambiguity/uncertainty, is flexible

Act with Determination:

LEVEL 1: Shows drive and motivation, able to deliver calmly in face of adversity, confident

Engage and Partner:

LEVEL 1: Demonstrates compassion/understanding towards others, forms positive relationships

Enable Diversity and Inclusion:

LEVEL 1: Appreciate/respect differences, aware of unconscious bias, confront discrimination

Cross-Functional & Technical

Business Management

Working with Evidence and Data

Ability to inspect, cleanse, transform and model data with the goal of discovering useful information, informing conclusions, and supporting decision-making
Digital Awareness and Literacy

Ability and inclination to rapidly adopt new technologies, either through skillfully grasping their usage or through understanding their impact and empowering others to use them as needed.
Customer Satisfaction/Client Management

Ability to respond timely and appropriately with a sense of urgency, provide consistent solutions, and deliver timely and quality results and/or solutions to fulfill and understand the real customers’ needs.
Provide inputs to the development of customer service strategy.
Look for ways to add value beyond clients’ immediate requests.
Ability to anticipate client’s upcoming needs and concerns.
Communication

Ability to communicate in a clear, concise and unambiguous manner both through written and verbal communication; to tailor messages and choose communication methods depending on the audience.
Ability to manage communications internally and externally, through media, social media, and other appropriate channels.
Monitoring

Ability to provide managers and key stakeholders with regular feedback on the consistency or discrepancy between planned and actual activities and programme performance and results.
Technical – Finance

Budget management

Ability to support budgetary aspects of work planning process, drawing and management of team budgets

Technical – _Procurement

Procurement management

The ability to acquire goods, services or works from an outside external source

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

Secondary Education is required.
University Degree in Business or Public Administration, Economics, Monitoring and Evaluation, Political Sciences, Social Sciences or related field will be given due consideration, but it is not a requirement.

Experience:

Minimum 6-years (with secondary education) or 3 years (with bachelor’s degree or its equivalent) of professional working experience in Monitoring and Evaluation or development work at the national or international level;
Desirables:

Experience in monitoring projects with a development approach is preferable but not mandatory.
Experience in providing training on results measurement systems is preferable but not mandatory
Good analytical thinking and problem-solving skills.
Able to work effectively in a team and in an international environment.
Excellent interpersonal skills with an ability to communicate and engage with project stakeholders
Experience working with international organizations, developing country governments, donor agencies and / or NGOs and other civil society groups involved in various sectors of international development

Required Language(s)

Fluency in English is required.

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