Job: EVALUATION TEAM LEADER: EVALUATION OF UNDP SUPPORT TO LIVELIHOODS AND ECONOMIC RECOVERY PROGRAMMING

Location : Home-based with travel to selected countries

Application Deadline : 18-Oct-13

Type of Contract : Individual Contract

Post Level : International Consultant

Languages Required : English French

Starting Date : (date when the selected candidate is expected to start) 30-Oct-2013

Expected Duration of Assignment : 40 days spread over 3 months

Background

Since the turn of the century, more than 40 countries have suffered violent conflicts resulting in over 25 million internally displaced persons and an estimated additional 12 million refugees. Since 2000, there have been over 2800 natural disasters affecting Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceania. Conflict, disaster, and epidemics also derail development. While some of these have roots in global events or processes, it can exacerbate and affect people's livelihoods. Governments, the international community and local Civil Society Organizations are at the forefront of supporting the recovery of both conflict and disaster affected women and men throughout the world. The UN system has played a major role in humanitarian assistance and early recovery of those affected by the crisis. UNDP's approach of early recovery and economic revitalization approaches intended to bridge the gap between humanitarian, stabilization and development phases by transforming quick-wins and rapid interventions into long-term gains and building foundations for existing structures and strategies. A number of evaluations (ADRs and outcome evaluations) of UNDP's post-crisis or 'early recovery' livelihoods work have however indicated that, while UNDP programmes often provide immediate beneficiary-levels impacts, in many instances these benefits have not been sustainable and contribute little to medium-term income improvements or durable capacities.

Overview of UNDP's Past Interventions in Livelihoods and Early Recovery (2007-2012) Since the adoption of the 2008-2013 UNDP Strategic Plan, UNDP strived to ensure that its rapid response assistance to the national and local emergency employment and enterprise recovery efforts benefit the most affected and vulnerable population. At the same time, UNDP needed to ensure that these interventions are sustainable and support the achievement of the overall goal of stabilizing livelihoods and improving the social and economic conditions required for the long-term development. The achievement of these goals and objectives is challenged by the specific contexts and complexities of operating in the crisis and post-crisis environment. In addition to the Strategic Plan 2008-2013 UNDP has been guided in its livelihoods programming in crisis and post-crisis contexts by the UN Policy for Post-Conflict Employment Creation, Income Generation and Reintegration. UNDP has adopted the three track approach of the UN policy and adapted it also in post-disaster settings. Livelihoods stabilization, falling under the first track of the approach, has been a critical element of UNDP's overall work on Early Recovery. During the period 2008-2012 UNDP Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery (BCPR) supported with financial contributions and/or technical advisory services various early recovery livelihoods initiatives at country level. BCPR tracked results of programmes supported mainly under Output five of its Multi Year Results Framework (MYRF). Future UNDP's Strategy for Livelihoods and Early Recovery (2013-2017) Under the new UNDP Strategic Plan (2013-2017), UNDP aims to assist programme countries to design and implement development pathways that can tackle the connected issues of poverty, inequality and exclusion while transforming productive capacities, avoiding the irreversible depletion of social and natural capital and lowering risks arising from shocks, with the aim to help improve the resource endowments of the poor and boost their prospects for employment and livelihoods. This will demand leadership, advice on ‘big picture' reforms, capacity-building, action to boost employment and livelihoods and greater attention to effective risk management.' The focus of livelihoods and employment interventions as outlined under Outcome 6 of the new Strategic Plan will be on supporting early recovery and to ensure the achievement of rapid return to sustainable development pathways in post-conflict and post-disaster settings and by ensuring that growth and development are inclusive and sustainable, incorporating productive capacities that create employment and livelihoods for the poor and excluded. Building resilience in all interventions under the new Strategic Plan is a key priority for UNDP, including through greater employment and livelihoods, more equitable access to natural resources, and better protection against economic and environmental shocks. In the area of Early Recovery, UNDP aims to focus on two additional issues that are absolutely crucial going forward: effective recovery from conflict-induced crises in those cases where prevention has fallen short; and a much stronger ability to prepare for and deal with the consequences of natural disasters, especially as they are exacerbated by climate change. The inclusion of these two issues within the same area of work reflects primarily the unifying theme of recovery from a range of crises. Through its focus on early economic revitalization, UNDP will help create improved conditions for stability and sustainability. This will demand, on the one hand, assistance for better planning and coordination of early recovery and transition, ensuring that local planning processes are inclusive of and accountable to displaced populations, women and other excluded groups. On the other hand, progress on the ground will rely upon measures for early local economic recovery, employment and livelihoods stabilization and creation, reintegration (particularly of IDPs and returning refugees) and restoration of basic infrastructure at local level (such as community infrastructure rehabilitation and debris management).

Duties and Responsibilities

Purpose and scope of the Evaluation

The purpose of this evaluation is to assess the impact, results, achievements, challenges and lessons learned from implementation of UNDP's livelihoods and economic recovery interventions in early recovery settings during the period from 2008 to 2012. It is expected that the evaluation findings will assist UNDP in further refining appropriate strategies, policies and programme approaches to strengthen UNDP's livelihoods and economic recovery programming in crisis and post-crisis settings. The evaluation findings and recommendations will be taken into account in:

• Developing policy and programme tools to strengthen UNDP's role in livelihoods and economic recovery through an Early Recovery approach in disasters and conflict triggered crisis contexts in line with the outcomes and outputs of the UNDP Strategic Plan 2014-2017;
• Developing UNDP policy and programme tools aimed at bridging Early Recovery interventions on economic livelihoods in crisis and post-crisis contexts with long-term development programming and resilience building;
• Designing capacity-building initiatives in support of livelihoods and early economic recovery interventions aimed at reducing poverty, preventing a relapse into conflict or exacerbation of disasters in programme countries;
• Informing relevant baselines on relevant outputs and outcomes of the UNDP Strategic Plan 2014-2017.

The evaluation will review the UNDP assistance provided on livelihoods interventions, including those falling under Early Recovery in crisis and post-crisis settings for the last 5 years (2008-2012) in disasters and/or conflict triggered crises. The evaluation will review experiences in 12 countries (indicatively): The Evaluation Team leader will undertake 3 country visits and 3 country desk studies. The Evaluation Specialist will undertake 2 country visits and 4 case studies. The actual number of countries and the ratio of country visits and desk studies might be slightly modified.

The evaluation will specifically:

• Document the effectiveness, efficiency, sustainability, relevance and impact of UNDP programming in the area of livelihoods from 2008-2012;
• Document global lessons-learned, on livelihoods and early/economic recovery/revitalization including through one case study per selected country, including the identification of UNDP ER signature products, tools, and resources available and being used at country level;
• Support the development of a baseline to effectively measure and capture the progress and results for the implementation of future livelihoods and economic recovery programming and assess how improvements can be made based on the work in the last five years, including stronger monitoring frameworks to better generate evidence of the impact of UNDP interventions on beneficiaries' livelihoods and income over the medium and longer terms;
• Provide strategic as well as programme level recommendations for improvement in programme delivery and impact in support of future livelihoods & economic recovery programming in an ER context.

Evaluation Questions

The evaluation will be conducted based on the assessment of the theory of change, effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability of livelihoods and economic recovery in early recovery settings (from now on early recovery livelihoods) programmes within the framework of guiding questions as outlined below: Effectiveness

• Have the expected results of the early recovery livelihoods interventions been achieved and sustained, and what were the supporting or impeding factors?
• Were the social, political and economic recovery approaches, resources, models and conceptual frameworks relevant to achieve intended outcomes and outputs?
• Were UNDP's comparative advantages perceived/interpreted well to contribute to livelihoods and economic recovery and were these reflected in the division of responsibilities in implementing relevant interventions?
• Have appropriate linkages been pursued with other programmes supported by development partners, such as poverty reduction, environment, governance, etc.?
• Have early recovery livelihoods interventions been designed and implemented with appropriate inter-agency consultations?
• What has been the general effect (both positive and negative) of the early recovery livelihoods interventions on the economy and people's well-being, including those of women and youth?
• How the beneficiaries selected and what were the challenges associated with the process, if any?
• Have the beneficiaries (including women and youth) of the early recovery livelihoods interventions been able to recover their livelihoods from shocks triggered by the crisis?
• Have the beneficiaries (including women and youth) of the early recovery and livelihoods interventions been able to usefully apply acquired knowledge and skills to further develop/improve their livelihoods?
• To what extent these interventions promoted the rights of women and girls and increased women's access to and control over development resources and benefits?
• Were there clear monitoring frameworks to assess the impact of interventions on income and other livelihoods improvements, which were able to provide clear evidence of economic benefits and results?
• Have programmes also contributed beyond economic benefits, such as social cohesion, empowerment of youth and women etc?
• Have you focused on host community programming in your interventions? What were some of the cross cutting issues of a UNDP response?
• Have the programmes, where relevant, contributed to the reintegration of IDPs and returnees?
• Have programmes been implemented on a scale that allowed for the expected impact?
• Have opportunities for scale-up been available and used?
• If the ER cluster has been activated, what kind of impact did this have on the UNDP early recovery livelihoods portfolio? If not, why?

Efficiency:

• Have the resources (funds, human resources, time, etc.) of early recovery livelihoods interventions been efficiently used to achieve the relevant outputs and outcomes?
• How were the trade-offs been 'quick wins'/'rapid interventions' and 'effective' and 'sustainable' livelihoods impact balanced or addressed?
• Did the choice of implementation modalities impact on results in terms of ownership and capacity development
• Have the early recovery livelihoods interventions been implemented within intended deadlines and cost estimates?
• What were the strengths and weaknesses of the approaches and strategies utilised by the early recovery livelihoods interventions?
• Were there any unanticipated events, opportunities or constraints in the peace process or disaster response, political leadership and local economic growth that contributed to improvement in livelihoods and economic recovery of the targeted communities?
• Have associated risks on livelihoods and economic recovery at the national and local level been anticipated and addressed?
• What measures were taken to assure the quality of development results and management practices, both in relation to process and products, and to partnership strategies in early recovery livelihoods interventions? Given the increased importance of RBM under the new SP, what would be the challenges/issues on M&E, and recommendations to measure the impact of ER interventions moving forward, including useful tools?
• What monitoring and evaluation procedures were applied by UNDP and partners to ensure greater accountability of early recovery livelihoods programming and their integration in other development initiatives?
• How was the contribution of early recovery livelihoods programming efforts to peace building and conflict prevention monitored?
• What was the level of preparedness of readiness of the UNDP COs and partners, existing early recovery livelihoods programmes and related staffing, as well as those of the affected country before the crisis/disaster?
• Were the interventions effectively communicated to affected populations, beneficiaries, government, partners, donors and internally within UNDP?

Sustainability:

• To what extent was sustainability considerations (economically as well as environmentally) taken into account in the design, implementation, results definition and monitoring of early recovery livelihoods interventions?
• Were exit strategies appropriately defined and implemented, and what steps have been taken to ensure sustainability of results to support inclusive livelihoods and economic recovery?
• Have income gains of beneficiaries or other measures of livelihood improvements been sustainable in the medium and longer terms'? How do we know? How was this measured and assessed?
• How did the development of partnerships at the global, regional and national level contribute to sustainability of the results on national and community based livelihoods and economic recovery?

Relevance

• Has UNDP been able to help design early recovery livelihoods interventions within local and national recovery and other development strategies?
• Have early recovery livelihoods interventions responded to the needs and priorities identified directly by communities, as well as by governments and UN and other developmental partners, such as the World Bank, and were the ER activities aligned with local/national recovery/development programmes?
• Has UNDP been able to address the national and local capacity development agenda in designing and implementing early recovery livelihoods interventions?

Methodology

The Evaluation Team, comprised of an Evaluation Team Leader and an Evaluation Specialist, will be recruited through UNDP's recruitment procedure for international consultants. The consultants should be independent from any organizations that have been involved in designing, executing or advising any aspect of interventions that are the subject of this evaluation. The Evaluation Team Leader will have the overall responsibility for managing the team work in order to produce required deliverables (such as the evaluation findings, reports, briefings and presentations) and will assure the necessary coordination, quality, and coherence in the work of the evaluation team. The Evaluation Team will work under the direct supervision of the Team Leader of the Livelihoods and Economic Recovery Group and Evaluation Specialist in UNDP /BCPR New York Headquarters. At the onset of the evaluation, the Evaluation Reference Group will be formed to ensure that the evaluation is managed in a participatory manner utilizing the knowledge and experiences of all relevant stakeholders within UNDP. The Reference Group will be involved in all key stages of the evaluation (e.g. review of the inception report, draft evaluation report, and discussions on the findings of the final evaluation report and next steps, etc.) The following will be the approach adopted in conducting the evaluation: Initial briefings/ discussions with BCPR/LRG and M&E Team based in New York and Data collection: In view of the complexity of the evaluation, the consultants will seek to obtain data from a range of sources, including desk reviews and document analyses, surveys and questionnaires, stakeholder consultations, interviews and focus group discussions at UNDP Headquarters and in a range of programme countries, UN agencies, international organizations, and other relevant institutions. The rationale for using a range of data sources (data, perceptions, evidence) is to triangulate findings in a situation where much of the data is qualitative, and its interpretation thus critically dependent on the evaluators' judgment. Triangulation provides an important tool in filtering evidence by using different data sources to inform the analysis of specific issues. The evaluators will provide empirical evidence to support all conclusions and recommendations, and the evidence will be validated from multiple sources. Where possible and appropriate, the evaluation should seek to obtain evidence as to what might or might not have occurred in the absence of these interventions.Desk reviews: The Evaluation team will conduct a desk review of relevant project documents and related documentation such as routine monitoring reports, project progress reports, and relevant review and evaluation reports, other analytical studies. The desk review will enable the consultants to: i) examine the quality of results baselines and indicators established for the projects; ii) assess the adequacy of the response strategies as reflected in the results framework; iii) review the quality of project baselines and indicators as well as existing monitoring mechanisms and resources (financial and human), and iv) conduct an assessment of progress towards results and/or impact as reflected in available progress and evaluation reports. The Evaluation Consultants will conduct phone discussions with the relevant programme teams and colleagues at the country level, including BCPR/LRG colleagues to collect additional data and confirm the initial findings. Country visits: The in-country evaluations will require extensive review of existing documentation with particular attention to evaluations and studies, consultations with senior and operational managers and field staff, as well as consultations/interviews with a sample of beneficiaries. This will also include review of existing UNDP programme evaluations and assessments, studies, research and evaluations conducted by other development partners, and other relevant documentation. The Evaluation Consultants will conduct individual country visits to validate the documentary data against actual results on the ground. The focus will be to triangulate information from documents and interviews by gathering objective data on key achievements and areas for improvement. At the end of each country visit, the Evaluation Consultants are expected to present initial findings to the concerned country offices for validation of factual information and findings. Finalizing reports: The finale stage of the evaluation will include finalization of the evaluation report, presentation of its findings to the Evaluation Reference Group and dissemination of lessons learned through existing UNDP mechanisms. The report should specifically highlight key lessons learned and good practices that could be replicated in future programs.Evaluation DeliverablesThe evaluation consultants will produce the following deliverables: At the end of the first week of the assignment and based on a discussion with HQ representatives, the Evaluation consultants will submit the Inception Report describing the overall understanding of what is being evaluated, the methodological/analytical framework for the evaluation and the proposed schedule of tasks, activities and deliverables, with clear responsibilities for each team member. The inception report should also include the evaluation matrix, demonstrating how each of the evaluation questions will be answered by way: proposed methods, sources of data and data collection procedures. Desk studies: Following the completion of the desk studies of the selected countries, the consultant will share draft country notes and share with key partners, country office management, and BCPR HQ. At the end of each country mission: The evaluation consultant will prepare a draft country note and share with key partners, country office management and BCPR headquarters. Two weeks after the completion of all country visits and studies: The evaluation consultant will produce a draft evaluation report, with additional annexes and a power point presentation for use by UNDP and sharing with UN agencies and partners. Evaluation brief and presentation: Within two weeks following the acceptance of the final evaluation report, the evaluation consultant will develop an Evaluation Brief and a Power Point Presentation, providing a concise synthesis of key findings, lessons learned and recommendations for presentation and dissemination among key stakeholders and partners.

Competencies

Functional Competencies:

• Leadership and strategic management skills with an excellent understanding of international development issues and knowledge of the UN system;
• Knowledge of the UN system, in particular UNDP programming;
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, in a multi-cultural setting;
• Objectivity and ability to analyze large multi-country data sets in short period;
• Excellent interpersonal skills and experience working collaboratively in small and large teams with tight deadlines.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Master's degree (or equivalent) in economics, agriculture, business development or other relevant field.

Experience:

• At least 10 years of relevant international development experience with proven experience in designing/implementing/evaluating livelihoods and economic recovery programmes;
• Significant experience in monitoring and evaluation, including hands-on experience in designing and undertaking evaluations of development interventions;
• M&E skills and experience in emergency settings and familiarity with CPR related M&E issues (i.e. conflict and gender analysis, conflict sensitivity, ‘do no harm' principles);
• Experience in data collection, including use of excel and/or other statistical software for data analysis;
• A solid research background in the social sciences with a strong emphasis on crisis prevention;
• Familiarity with the UN supported humanitarian action and immediate response programming;
• Preferably some experience with UNDP programming processes, especially at the country and regional levels.

Language requirements:

• Fluency in English and French is required with good verbal and written skills.

Other requirements:

• The applicant should submit a financial proposal that specifies a total lump sum amount based on the information provided in this vacancy announcement;
• Payments are based upon output, i.e. upon delivery of the services specified;
• The proposal should include a breakdown of the lump sum amount (including travel, per diems, and daily consultancy fee per number of anticipated working days;
• The following documents should be included as one uploaded document in PDF format;
• Letter of Interest and Availability;
• Curriculum Vitae;
• Short note on why you consider yourself most suitable for the work along with a brief methodology (of maximum 2 pages) on how you will approach and complete the assignment;
• Financial Proposal.

UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence.

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