Vacancy Announcement Details

The Office of Evaluation (OEV) is an independent evaluation function within WFP. The Evaluation Policy, Charter, and Corporate Evaluation Strategy together constitute the governance framework for the WFP evaluation function within the wider oversight arrangements established by the Executive Board.

As per the updated WFP Evaluation Policy (2022-2030), impact evaluations are managed by OEV at the request of country offices. They measure changes in development outcomes of interest for a target population that can be attributed to a specific programme or policy through a credible counterfactual. They are usually undertaken during programme implementation over a multi-year period. Impact evaluations are not presented to the Executive Board. Impact evaluations are commissioned by OEV in line with corporate evidence priorities through impact evaluation “windows”. These windows are portfolios of impact evaluations in specific priority evidence areas, agreed with WFP management, that will be updated over time as the organization’s evidence priorities change. 

The WFP Impact Evaluation Strategy (2019-2026) has four main objectives, to:

1. Contribute to the evidence base for achieving global goals;
2. Deliver operationally relevant and useful Impact Evaluations;
3. Maximise Impact Evaluation responsiveness to rapidly evolving contexts; 
4. Harness the best tools and technologies for Impact Evaluation.

OEV is responsible for delivering and supporting the quality of all WFP impact evaluations as per its quality assurance and assessment procedures and building organisational capacity to deliver them.

THE ROLE

Your role will be to provide independent impact evaluation evidence, assessing the performance and results of policies, programmes and activities of WFP for accountability and learning to inform future direction. Reporting to the Director of Evaluation, you are expected to take the lead on impact evaluations in WFP, managing the Impact Evaluation Unit and overseeing planning and delivery of high-quality impact evaluations in WFP.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES (not all-inclusive)

• Lead the development and implementation of the impact evaluation workstream of the Office of Evaluation work-plan, providing functional supervision and/or line management to other staff working on that stream; provide coaching and guidance to staff to ensure appropriate development and enable high performance, and/or second level quality assurance on a particular type(s) of evaluation.
• Lead implementation of the impact evaluation strategy and follow-up on recommendations to related reviews.
• Drawing from good practice, oversee development and use of quality support tools for WFP impact evaluations, as well as post-hoc quality assurance processes, as part of a coherent Impact Evaluation Quality Assurance System (IEQAS) which meets high professional and academic standards in line with norms and standards and codes of conduct for evaluation in the UN system to ensure the production of independent, credible impact evidence and recommendations for future directions.
• Oversee and support WFP impact evaluation capacity development throughout the organization.
• Oversee and provide second-level quality assurance and guidance for impact evaluations managed by the impact evaluation unit.
• Manage high profile and/or highly complex impact evaluation processes and budgets directly, from preparation and design through to completion, meeting IEQAS requirements and ensuring the production of independent, credible evidence and recommendations for future directions.
• Engage stakeholder groups, both internal and external to WFP, appropriately in the evaluation process.
• Identify, build and manage partnerships with external organizations specializing in impact evaluation.
• Oversee OEV’s impact evaluation budgeting, financial reporting, and management information systems.
• Coordinate function-wide governance mechanisms for impact evaluation; oversee coordination and participate in window-level and individual impact evaluation-level governance mechanisms.
• Ensure engagement & coordination with other OEV units and the regional bureaux.
• Promote WFP’s evaluation culture of accountability and learning through analyzing evidence and lessons; preparing syntheses and summaries of evaluation findings and recommendations and presenting these, tailoring messages to specific audiences and platforms, and working with internal and external stakeholders to enhance learning from and use of evaluation evidence in policy, programme and project design. 
• Contribute to strengthening use of evaluative evidence through preparation and dissemination of innovative evidence products. 
• Lead specific evaluation expertise group(s) to enable sharing of experience and development of good practice.
• Represent the Office of Evaluation as required in inter-agency forums on monitoring and evaluation issues and in professional bodies and networks, developing strategic relationships, as appropriate, to enhance WFP performance and results.
• Effectively mainstream cross-cutting issues (equity, gender, inclusion of persons with disability, human rights, humanitarian principles, protection, accountability to affected population) into WFP evaluation processes and support the organization in mainstreaming these approaches in programme design and implementation to help ensure that the most vulnerable benefit from WFP services.
• Other as required.

Full details available at on the WFP website. Application deadline is 25 April 2022.