Consultant - Diagnostic review on the use of methodological approaches and evaluation methods in UN evaluations – Team Leader - Req #575927

UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential. 

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone. 

And we never give up. 

For every child, HOPE

Vacancy Announcement: Consultant

 Consultancy Title: Consultant - Diagnostic review on the use of methodological approaches and evaluation methods in UN evaluations – Team Leader

Section/Division/Duty Station: Evaluation NYHQ

Duration: 1 November 2024 to 31 July 2025

Home/ Office Based: NYHQ / Remote

About UNICEF – DO NOT EDIT

If you are a committed, creative professional and are passionate about making a lasting difference for children, the world's leading children's rights organization would like to hear from you. For 70 years, UNICEF has been working on the ground in 190 countries and territories to promote children's survival, protection and development. The world's largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments. UNICEF has over 12,000 staff in more than 145 countries.

BACKGROUND

Purpose of Activity/ Assignment:

The mission of the UNICEF evaluation function is to help drive results for children by fostering evidence-informed decisionmaking. Evaluation in UNICEF supports both learning and decision-making, which in turn support better results for children. Evaluation also helps to hold UNICEF accountable for contributing to results for children, orforfailing to do so. UNICEF’S evaluation function, along with the evaluation units of many other UN agencies, are a part of the United Nations Evaluation Group (UNEG), an interagency professional network that aims to promote, strengthen and advocate for a robust, influential, independent and credible evaluation function throughout the UN system. In the past few years, as a part of these efforts to understand and promote the use of evaluative methods, the UNEG Methods Working Group has developed a compendium of methods (Issue I and II) with illustrative examples and organized dedicated learning seminars. These endeavours received very positive informal feedback, but they were not necessarily based on systematic assessment of methods currently used or misused by the UN evaluation community. We knowrelatively littleofthe extentto which standard social science methods and specific evaluative approaches were applied in UN evaluation practice- what are the common patterns in approaches used? what are some of the systematic issues related to the methodological approaches of UN evaluations?

In an effort to answer these questions, the UNEG Methods group seeks to hire consultant(s) who will carry out a diagnostic review of the different evaluation methods and approaches used across UN evaluation exercises. The overarching objective of the review will be to assess the prevalence, common patterns and trends in the use of standard social science methods (e.g., quantitative and qualitative) and specific evaluation approaches. This will provide ground for stimulating a dialogue on system-level changes required to improve quality, credibility, and utilization within individual UN agencies, funds and programmes.

 UNICEF Evaluation office is represented in the UNEG Methods Working Group through a co-chair of the WG. The 2024 Work Plan for the Group has been approved by the UNEG Heads and issued by the UNEG Secretariat. This consultancy will be co - chaired by the Senior Evaluation Specialist, Methods, Impact, Innovation and Learning, who is a co-chair of the WG

Defining Evaluation Methods and Approaches

Evaluation methods are rooted in social science disciplines and their approaches to a scientific inquiry (e.g., psychology, economics, public policy).

 The planned review willstart by establishing and delineating a universe of various methods and approaches most commonly used in the global evaluation practice. To do so, it will draw on the evaluation methods typologies from available literature. It will cover scientific multimethod and mixed method concepts, and more recent evaluation methods typologies, approaches and techniques. This will be agreed upon and finalized in collaboration with the UNEG Methods group members. Once the complete list