Intern: Monitoring & Evaluation (Quantitative Analysis)

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WFP seeks candidates of the highest integrity and professionalism who share our humanitarian principles.

Selection of staff is made on a competitive basis, and we are committed to promoting diversity and gender balance.

ABOUT WFP

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is the world's largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger worldwide. The mission of WFP is to end global hunger. Every day, WFP works worldwide to ensure that no child goes to bed hungry and that the poorest and most vulnerable, particularly women and children, can access the nutritious food they need.  In emergencies, WFP gets food to where it is needed, saving the lives of victims of war, civil conflict and natural disasters. After an emergency, WFP uses food to help communities rebuild their shattered lives. Present in nearly 80 countries, the organization has the global footprint, deep field presence and local knowledge and relationships necessary to provide access to nutritious food and contribute to the lasting solutions, especially in many of the world’s most remote and fragile areas.

We manage an operating budget of approximately $5.9 billion each year, distributing 12.6 billion rations to those most in need. We reach an average of 80 million people with food assistance in around 80 countries each year. WFP has operations in Twelve countries across the Southern Africa region (Namibia, Eswatini, Lesotho, DR Congo, Congo Brazzaville, Malawi, Zambia, Tanzania, Mozambique, Madagascar, Zimbabwe, and Angola). The operations in each country are carried out within the framework of 4 or 5 year Country Strategic Plan.

WFP is implementing food security and nutrition activities relevant for each country context, aligned to appropriate national development priorities as well as to the WFP Strategic plan and associated  corporate strategic objectives.[1] The total needs based budget for WFP across the southern Africa region was about US$ 700 million in 2018.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE OF THE ASSIGNMENT

Within the framework of the corporate evaluation policy, the WFP Southern Africa Region Bureau (RB) has developed a Regional Evaluation Strategy (RES 2018-2021) to guide the Regional Bureau and Country Offices (COs) in making better use of evaluation as a tool to:

1. demonstrate WFP results and contributions towards achieving agenda 2030;
2. generate and manage knowledge to learn and keep improving results for the people we serve;
3. enhance partnerships and collaborations with stakeholders including UN agencies, Government institutions, NGOs and other civil society actors;
4. be accountable to the people we serve and to the people that provide us resources.

The RES has two goals namely:

Goal 1: Evidence from evaluations is used to inform design and implementation decisions and development of future strategies, leading to institutional effectiveness and efficiency on one hand, and to better results for the people WFP serves on the other;

Goal 2: Donors, Governments, private sector and other key stakeholders support WFP’s work because they see evidence of WFP contribution to national priorities and agenda 2030.

These goals will be achieved through achievement of two objectives:

(a) Delivering credible Decentralised evaluations that adequately cover WFP programme of work across the region,

(b) Making evidence from evaluations visible to and easily accessible by internal and external stakeholders.

The purpose of this assignment is to support achievement of the goals of the RES by supporting rigorous evaluation designs that make use of existing data to credibly evaluate WFP work, and making use of all additional data collected during evaluations to present evaluation findings in a credible and useful manner. To do so, the assignment involves critically assessing quality of existing data in line with M&E frameworks including baselines, monitoring data and data from past evaluations. Such data is then analyzed along the key indicators of interest to inform the design of evaluation and/or to provide further evidence after completion of evaluations.

DUTIES, RESPONSIBILITIES AND REPORTING LINES

Under the overall guidance of the Regional Evaluation Officer (REO), and day-to-day supervision of the evaluation officer, the intern will perform the following duties:

1. Support in Structuring existing logical frameworks for subjects of evaluations in ways that enable updating with existing performance data as part of preparation for evaluation

2. Populate the updated logical frameworks with the latest data values from baseline reports, monitoring reports, government and other partner reports etc.

3. Support analysis of data based on updated logical frameworks

4.  Checking final drafts of evaluation terms of reference to ensure that the implications of the data analysis done in items 1 and 2 above have been reflected and have informed the overall proposed design of the evaluation

5. Support in review of evaluation designs, methodology and data analysis plans

6. Support in reviewing draft evaluation reports, focusing on how the evaluators have used the analysis plan in the approved inception report to present the findings, make conclusions and recommendations

7. Support in reviewing completed evaluations and associated data sets to identify the extent to which collected data has been used in answering evaluation questions

8. Contribute to development of communication and dissemination products for completed evaluations, which includes 2-pagers, posters, infographics, graphs etc

9. Support in populating the Data Points Catalogues and assist in ensuring that Evaluation contributes to the vision of a “Data driven WFP” across Southern Africa

10. Perform any other tasks that are allocated

11. Coordination and team work: attend team meetings and provide update on ongoing pieces of work. Prepare a weekly progress reports for ongoing tasks and bring out any issues affecting progress. Shares ideas or suggestions regarding work by other team members

12. Knowledge sharing: After completion of a significant piece of work as part of the team working on quantitative aspects of evaluation work, contribute to preparation of a knowledge assets which is a “how to” 2-pager that can be used in future in performing similar or related tasks

DELIVERABLES AT THE END OF THE CONTRACT

1.           Updated logical frameworks

2.           Populated logical frameworks and summary on data gaps and other data issues

3.           Summary data analysis including tables, graphs and other information products as appropriate

4.           Inputs on the draft evaluation terms of reference, consolidated in a comments matrix

5.           Comments on draft inception reports summarised in comments matrix

6.           Comments on draft evaluation reports summarised in comments matrix

7.           Summary of analysis showing extent to which data has been used in presenting evaluation findings, making conclusions and recommendations

8.           Draft proposals for further analysis in line with the conclusions and recommendations included in the final evaluation reports

9.           Inputs to draft communications and dissemination products

10.         Meetings attended

11.         Weekly progress report

12.         Inputs to knowledge assets

QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE REQUIRED

Education:

At Post-graduate level (Diploma or Masters) in Monitoring and Evaluation and/or project management either in the final year of study working on a study project as a requirement to complete the course OR completed not more than 12 months ago. The study must have included a strong quantitative element including research methods, research/evaluation design and data analysis

 Knowledge & Skills:       

•            Must be conversant with research designs methods, quantitative data analysis methods and systems/software such as SPSS, STATA etc; and comfortable handling large amounts of data.

•            Knowledge of emerging technology in data analysis and visualisation such as Tableau would be desirable [otherwise ability to learn these technologies quickly]

•            Quick to learn, able to take initiative with minimal supervision;

•            Confidence in trying new things, not afraid to make mistakes and learn from them;

•            Analytical, with ability to handle data and convert it into useful information transparently, with ability to document data analysis processes and explain to others;

•            Ability to read and assimilate a large amount of information within a short time;

•            Ability to draft clear and succinct reports and other products based on data analysis  and transparent interpretation of such data, putting them into specific contexts

•            Strong communication skills (oral and written) including ability to present ideas and generate feedback from a variety of audience;

•            Ability to work in a multi-cultural environment, respecting and upholding core values of the organisation;

•            Self-confidence and creative

Languages:        

Fluency in English is a requirement. Any knowledge of another United Nations language particularly French and Portuguese would be an added advantage.

4Ps CORE ORGANISATIONAL CAPABILITIES

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

• Interns receive a monthly stipend from WFP up to the maximum amount of US$1000 per month depending on the duty station of assignment. 
• WFP is not responsible for living expenses, arrangements for accommodation, necessary visas and related costs.
• Depending on the duty station of assignment, WFP will reimburse travel ticket for candidates who are nationals of developing countries and are pursuing their studies in their home country.
• WFP will recognize candidates’ educational credentials from recognised institutions that have been certified by competent international or national authorities such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) or Ministries of Education;

DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS

31 May 2019

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Female applicants and qualified applicants from developing countries are especially encouraged to apply

WFP has zero tolerance for discrimination and does not discriminate on the basis of HIV/AIDS status.

No appointment under any kind of contract will be offered to members of the UN Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ), International Civil Service Commission (ICSC), FAO Finance Committee, WFP External Auditor, WFP Audit Committee, Joint Inspection Unit (JIU) and other similar bodies within the United Nations system with oversight responsibilities over WFP, both during their service and within three years of ceasing that service.