End Term Review Evaluator at United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

Duties and Responsibilities

Organizational Setting and Reporting:

• United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is the United Nations systems designated entity for addressing environmental issues at the global and regional level. Its mandate is to coordinate the development of environmental policy consensus by keeping the global environment under review and bringing emerging issues to the attention of governments and the international community for action.
• The InforMEA Initiative brings together over 20 MEA Secretariats and their hosting institutions to enhance knowledge-sharing across MEAs for the benefit of Parties and the environment community at large. It promotes harmonized voluntary standards and horizontal interoperable information systems as it steers the development and evolution of the project.
• The Information Portal on Multilateral Environmental Agreements, InforMEA, is the online home of MEAs. It seeks to do justice complexity and broad range of information available from MEAs and intends to reduce the time effort by stakeholders to obtain relevant knowledge and process available information. It is entirely committed to horizontal interoperability” of information and knowledge systems among MEAs and organizations, a key principle in the SG’s Data Policy in overcoming misaligned standards, and mixed quality data. By building a sustained and reliable shared knowledge base for better analysis and policy information it contributes to greater coherence to the implementation and enforcement of international environmental law.
• This position is in the InforMEA Phase III project of the Law Division at the Nairobi Duty Station.

Responsibilities:

• Partnership and Coordination: The End-Term Review (ETR) will assess the effectiveness and appropriateness of the implementation partnerships and approaches that were established to deliver the project and the engagement with MEAs and other international organizations.
• Monitoring, Evaluation and Risk Management: A further focus of the ETR will be on the extent to which adequate monitoring has been undertaken throughout the period. The review will assess how lessons learned have been captured and operationalized throughout the period under investigation. It will examine how effectively the project management incorporated relevant technical knowledge on good practices.
• Gender Mainstreaming: The ETR expert will assess the extent to which the project sought to strengthen the mainstreaming of gender into project implementation. The Review will weigh measures taken to this end and how successful those have been in addressing specific rights and gender-related aspects.

Specific Tasks and Responsibilities:

• Strategic Positioning, Concept and Design: The End-Term Review Evaluator will assess the concept and design of the overall scope of the InforMEA Phase III project, including an assessment of the appropriateness of the objectives, planned outputs, activities, and inputs as compared to cost-effective alternatives. Identify niche areas where UNEP can further add advantage and efficiency to the programme/project.
• The strategic positioning and design of the project will also be reviewed against the strategic questions of interest to UNEP and to which the project is believed to be able to make a substantive contribution.

The questions are structured to address two levels:

• Addressing the InforMEA Project, and the balance between its components.
• Addressing the question of strengthening the Environmental Treaties Programme and making it genuinely an umbrella programme for activities under UNEP’s Environmental Governance and Conventions branch at the Law Division.
• The End-Term Review Evaluator will also be forward-looking and explore opportunities for UNEP to position itself as the anchor for cooperation and synergies among the Multilateral Environmental Agreements.

Reporting lines:

• Under the overall supervision of the Director, UNEP Law Division, the Consultant shall report directly to and take day-to-day direction from the InforMEA III Project Manager.

Qualifications/special skills

• An advanced university degree in environmental sciences, international development or other relevant political or social sciences as well as experience in project monitoring and evaluation.
• A first degree may be accepted in lieu of a master’s degree with 9 years of experience.
• Minimum 7 years of professional experience in environmental policies, environmental governance, and Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) is required.
• Minimum 3 years of professional experience in Project Management, Monitoring and Reporting of environment-related projects is required.
• Familiarity with Knowledge and Information Management policies, practices, approaches, and systems is desirable.
• Working knowledge of the UN system and specifically the work of UNEP and MEA Secretariats is desirable.
• Proven experience of evaluating multi-donor projects and using the theory of change and result-based logical framework approach is desirable.
• Relevant training in Project Management, Monitoring and Reporting of environmental related projects is required.

Languages

Excellent written and spoken English is required for this post.

Ref:  21 August 2023