ABOUT THE COMPANY:

UNICEF was created with a distinct purpose in mind: to work with others to overcome the obstacles that poverty, violence, disease and discrimination place in a child’s path. We advocate for measures to give children the best start in life, because proper care at the youngest age forms the strongest foundation for a person’s future

JOB SUMMARY

The incumbent will work under the general guidance and supervision of the Chief Immunization (Team Lead for Polio Eradication at UNICEF), Afghanistan, in close collaboration with the Programme Monitoring and Evaluation section and the health section. This position is based in the Afghanistan Country Office in Kabul, Afghanistan, with frequent travel to the field. The incumbent will support the following functions:

• Ensure that the UNICEF Country Office has useful, valid, and reliable information about children’s and women’s rights; the performance of UNICEF-supported programmes including their relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, and sustainability, and in emergency contexts, their coverage, coordination, and coherence.
• Assist in the establishment of a monitoring an evaluation tools which enhance partnership between GPEI partners, government, and other key players to collectively track progress on SDGs and other international commitment for children.
• Assist in the development of national capacities for monitoring, evaluation, and research, with special attention to the interest, concern and participation of government, community, and civil society stakeholders.
• Provide technical guidance, leadership, and strategic inputs, supporting the development and implementation of targeted and data driven polio program strategies.
• Provide technical assistance to field offices and polio team in the collection, analysis, and reporting of key programme performance indicators, as well as ensuring the documentations of best practices.
• Collaborate with national counterparts as well as GPEI partners including WHO, CDC, Gates Foundation to coordinate polio programme monitoring and evaluation efforts.
• Support proposal development for resource mobilization and donor reporting for resources received from polio eradication activities.

RESPONSIBILITIES

1. Integrated Monitoring, Evaluation & Research Plan (IMEP) 

• Provide technical leadership for planning and establishing research, monitoring, and evaluation objectives, priorities, and activities in UNICEF’s multi-year and annual IMEPs, in consultation with child-rights and implementing partners, with a specific focus on polio eradication efforts.
• Identify the monitoring and evaluation objectives, priorities, and activities necessary for the effective implementation of the Country Office (CO) polio programme and partner Emergency Preparedness and Response Plans.

2. Situation Monitoring and Assessment 

• With a focus on missed children and refusals, lead the development of tools and analytics to support the creation of strategies and targeted community engagement interventions aimed at reducing the number of missed children.
• In coordination with other GPEI stakeholders, support the collection of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and other key social development indicators (through MICS, KAP, and other surveys) to improve national planning and decision-making for polio eradication.
• Support GPEI partners in the establishment and management of national statistical databases (e.g., DHIS, APMIS), ensuring that key polio-related indicators are readily accessible to stakeholders. These databases can be used for Situation Analysis, Common Country Assessment, Early Warning Monitoring Systems, and Mid-Term Reviews.
• Develop a Situation Monitoring and Assessment system owned by all GPEI partners which supports the preparation of country level statistical and analytic reports on the status of polio eradication initiative in Afghanistan.
• In humanitarian response situations, provide professional support for one or more rapid assessments (inter-agency or independently if necessary) to be carried out within the first 48-72 hours, working in close collaboration with the humanitarian cluster partners.

3. Programme Performance Monitoring

• Provide technical support to ensure that polio programme performance indicators are identified and adjusted as necessary, with inputs of all concerned partners to assess progress towards expected annual and multi-year results in the context of the multi-year and annual IMEPs, the Annual Management Plan and Annual Work Plans.
• Coordinate with GPEI partners to ensure that monitoring systems are properly designed, and that data collection and analysis from field visits are coordinated and standardized across programmes to feed into to programme performance monitoring, with special attention to polio eradication.
• Drawing on monitoring and analysis of key program performance and management indicators, provide professional input to management reports, including relevant sections of the annual reports.
• Design metrics for decision making to support integrated service delivery package development and targeting.

4. Evaluation

• Technically support programme partners to formulate Terms of Reference and evaluation designs of high quality, when relevant drawing on the know-how of knowledge institutions, in compliance with the organization’s programme evaluation policies and guidelines.
• Monitor and ensure the quality of the fieldwork and data management during the implementation phase and the quality of the analysis and ease of understanding during the report writing phase.
• Disseminate evaluation findings and recommendations to the intended audiences in user-friendly methods, to ensure that effective participatory feedback is provided to community and civil society stakeholders.
• Monitor and ensure that a management response to the findings and recommendations of the evaluation is completed, recorded, and followed up for implementation.  Most specifically, ensure that evaluation recommendations are submitted to the Country Management Team and follow-up actions are recorded in CMT minutes. Submit electronic copies of all evaluations to NYHQ via the Evaluation Data Base web portal, with full accompanying documentation.

 5. M&E Capacity Building

• Promote the awareness and understanding of the shared responsibility of M& E function among all polio staff members through communication, training, learning, and development activities organization wide.
• In close collaboration with GPEI partners, ensure that an M&E capacity-building strategy for UNICEF Polio staff, national partners, and institutions exists in the context of the IMEP, or GPEI M&E plan.
• Collaborate to implement capacity-building strategies as a joint commitment with other developmental partners. Utilize a range of appropriate skills building strategies including self-learning, seminars and workshops, and practical experience in order that UNICEF and UN staff have the basic knowledge and skills to understanding and apply new M&E policies, tools, and methods to fulfill their responsibilities.
• Actively seek partnerships with knowledge institutions for the identification of capacity gaps and development of strategies to address them for polio eradication.

6. Coordination and Meeting

• Collaborate with CO PME, Regional, and HQ M&E Advisers for overall coordination of priority research, monitoring, and evaluation activities.
• Partner with the CO, Regional, and HQ Monitoring and Evaluation teams to ensure that current and accurate Polio M&E data and results are included in all reports, multi-country studies, and knowledge-sharing networks.
• Undertake lessons-learned reviews on successful and unsuccessful M&E practices and experiences at the national and sub-national levels, and ensure they are shared as appropriate.  Similarly, pay attention to M&E knowledge networks to identify innovations and lessons learned that may be relevant for the CO and GPEI partners to improve their M&E functions.

REQUIREMENTS

• Advanced university degree in Epidemiology, Statistics, Public Health, or related field.
• Eight years of relevant professional work experience (Strategic Information, Health Information Management, and Monitoring and Evaluation in the context of Public Health Emergencies)
• Experience leading health information management for outbreak response required.
• Proficiency in STATA, SPSS or any other statistical analysis tools required.
• Proficiency in R, python or other programming language preferred
• Active involvement in a humanitarian crisis response preferred.
• Experience working in a multi stakeholder environment.
• Experience designing programme evaluations.
• Experience leading teams.
• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is an asset.

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