Organizational Setting

The Office of Evaluation (OED) of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is about to launch the independent final evaluation of the project “Integrated natural resources management in drought-prone and salt-affected agricultural production landscapes in Central Asia and Turkey” (CACILM-2).
CACILM-2 is a five-year intervention of the FAO and the Global Environment Facility (GEF) in the Central Asia and Turkey. The project main goal is to scale up integrated natural resources management (INRM) in drought prone and salt affected agricultural production landscapes in the Central Asian countries and Turkey. This is done through scaling up of sustainable management practices that minimize pressures and negative impacts on natural resources that reduce risks and vulnerability and, enhance capacity of rural communities to cope with or adapt to drought and salinity. Adoption of integrated landscape management approaches and INRM practices should help stabilize and even reverse trends of soil salinization, reduce erosion, improve water capture and retention, increase the sequestration of carbon, and reduce loss of agrobiodiversity, thereby reducing the desertification trend in terms of extent and severity. The project, with a total duration of 7 years (NTE 16 October 2024), is structured as a program with one multi-country component addressing shared priorities at multi-county level (Component 1), two components at national level ensuring national implementation in selected production landscapes/land use systems (Component 2 and Component 3), and one M&E component (Component 4).
The final evaluation of the CACILM-2 serves a doble purpose of accountability and learning. It will assess program results, their value relevant to target beneficiaries, national needs and priorities as well as document important lessons for potential scaling, replication or follow-on projects in the region that may use similar approaches, target beneficiaries, tools and program design elements. Stakeholders include the Governments of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Turkey and other relevant divisions involved, such as the FAO Sub-regional Office for Central Asia, and direct beneficiaries.

Reporting Lines

The incumbent will work under the overall responsibility of the appointed evaluation officer, the direct supervision of the Evaluation Manager, and in collaboration with the team members. She/he shall have had no prior or current involvement in the formulation or implementation of the project and be independent from the participating institutions.

Technical Focus

OED is looking for specialists with expertise in evaluation and at least one of the following technical areas:
•    Policy support and institutional strengthening in the agricultural sector
•    Natural resource management (including integrated landscape management)
•    Rural development
•    Agri-food systems

Tasks and responsibilities

•    Design the overall evaluation approach, in consultation with the evaluation manager, and implementing it throughout the evaluation process.
•    Lead the evaluation team’s work, in coordination with the evaluation manager, and ensure that the evaluation final deliverables fully comply with the overall Terms of Reference (ToR) of the final evaluation.
•    Draft the final evaluation report, drawing upon all team members written contributions from country studies, identifying overall findings, conclusions, and recommendations.
•    Carry out the assessment of project activities in selected project target countries with the support of the identified national consultants.
•    Lead the inception phase of the evaluation, including:

o    Draft the protocols for data collection and analysis.
o    Draft an Inception report (with contributions from the other team members) and address the comments received from the Evaluation Manager.

•    Conduct and coordinate the data collection and analysis of the evaluation; and
•    Lead the reporting phase, including:

o    Draft the main evaluation report and relevant country briefs, in collaboration with the other evaluation team members.

CANDIDATES WILL BE ASSESSED AGAINST THE FOLLOWING

Minimum Requirements

•    Advanced university degree in international development, rural development, economics, agricultural economics, environmental sciences and similar.
•    Minimum 10 years of relevant work experience in international development cooperation and aid effectiveness.
•    At least 10 years of cumulative experience in conducting evaluations with UN Agencies or similar institutions.
•    Working knowledge of English (level C).

FAO Core Competencies

•    Results Focus
•    Teamwork
•    Communication
•    Building Effective Relationships
•    Knowledge Sharing and Continuous Improvement

Technical/Functional Skills

•    Proven technical experience in leading evaluations of development programs using mixed methods approaches
•    Extensive experience and proven track record in policy influence and governance support
•    Familiarity with priorities and principles of sustainable land management (SLM) and relevant international best-practices
•    Demonstrated experience with Logical Framework Analysis, Theory of Change, evaluation methodologies and approaches
•    Familiarity with the use of geographic information systems (GIS) technology and geospatial analysis in evaluation
•    Familiarity with data manipulation techniques
•    Knowledge of climate-related issues in the CA context
•    Experience in implementing and or evaluation Global Environment Facility (GEF) projects
•    Strong ability to receive and integrate feedback

Selection Criteria 

•    Evidence of ability to produce high-quality (rigorous, mixed-methods, evidence-based) evaluation reports, through previously authored or co-authored evaluation report/s that are accessible on the internet or via e-mail
•    Knowledge of the approaches to and issues faced on the evaluation of environmental projects (experience in evaluating GEF funded projects will be an advantage)
•    Understanding of social inclusion issues including women’s empowerment/gender equality, human rights, poverty, youth, and disabilities in development work, and how these areas are addressed in project or programme evaluations
•    Regional and/or in-country evaluation experience (previous evaluation experience in Turkey or Central Asia will be an
advantage)
•    Ability to work effectively as a lead consultant in project or programme evaluations (proven experience as an effective
team leader will be an advantage)
•    Relevant experience of working and/or of conducting evaluations in Central Asian countries.