Monitoring and Quality Assurance Specialist

Launched in September 2010, the purpose of the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement is to catalyse collective action and create an enabling environment to end malnutrition in all its forms. With 61 SUN Countries and four Indian States at the helm, the SUN Movement represents an unprecedented country-led effort to bring together stakeholders – from governments, national and global civil society organisations, businesses, the UN system, researchers and scientists across different sectors – and provide them with a collaborative space to convene, mobilise, share, learn, advocate, align and coordinate actions and approaches to improve nutrition.

SUN countries, supported by all stakeholders in the Movement, are committed to creating an enabling environment for scaling up nutrition by strengthening four strategic processes as set out in the SUN Movement Strategy and Roadmap 2016-2020: expanding and sustaining an enabling political environment; prioritising effective actions that contribute to good nutrition; implementing actions aligned with national common results frameworks; and effectively using, and significantly increasing, financial resources for nutrition. The SUN Movement Coordinator, UN Assistant Secretary General, oversees the day-to-day implementation of the Strategy and Roadmap, leads the SUN Movement Secretariat and represents the SUN Movement globally. 

Since 2012, the SUN Movement Secretariat has developed as a small coordinating mechanism. It has a catalytic role, and seeks to link together countries and networks in the SUN Movement to ensure that countries receive the support they need, to improve actions and achieve nutrition objectives in a coordinated and coherent way.  It also ensures that the Movement’s progress is tracked efficiently and communicated clearly. The Secretariat is headed by the Director of the Secretariat who is responsible for ensuring that the Secretariat catalyses, facilitates and supports effective action across the overall SUN Movement. It is located in Geneva.

The SUN Movement Pooled Fund was established in 2017 with the aim to strengthen the capacity of non-governmental systems in SUN Countries. The Pooled Fund is a catalytic and innovative source of grants to support multi-stakeholder platforms in SUN Movement countries, in order to increase the effectiveness and impact of national efforts to end malnutrition in all its forms. The Pooled Fund grants also focus on promoting engagement of additional relevant actors in the implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of multi-sectoral and multi-stakeholder national plans for nutrition. To date, alliances of civil society organizations from 38 countries have received grants from the SUN Movement Pooled Fund to contribute to end malnutrition in all its forms addressing country-specific needs. The Pooled Fund has planned to cover more countries and partners in 2019 and 2020.

Purpose and Scope of Assignment

UNOPS Geneva Office is the legal and administrative host of the SUN Movement Secretariat. As part of these hosting arrangements UNOPS is also fund manager of the SUN Movement Pooled Fund. The team supporting the SUN Movement Pooled Fund is composed of one Pooled Fund Coordinator, one Monitoring & Evaluation Specialist, one Grants Analyst and one Grants Management Officer. This team works in close collaboration and synchronization with the work undertaken by the SUN Movement Secretariat. The SUN Movement Coordinator oversees the work of the Pooled Fund and provides strategic guidance.

In order to expand the Pooled Fund’s capacity at decentralized levels, three regional Monitoring and Quality Assurance Specialists are being recruited. The proposed Monitoring & Quality Assurance Specialist(s) will work under the supervision of the UNOPS Geneva Office’s Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist and in collaboration with the Pooled Fund Coordinator and the Country Liaison Team at the SUN Movement Secretariat and the Grants Management Officers at UNOPS.

The postholder will be responsible for the implementation and maintenance of a functional monitoring, quality assurance and reporting system for the Pooled Fund Project at decentralized levels. S/he will be assigned to provide support to the Pooled Fund grantees covering 12 to 15 countries in the regions.  S/he will directly work with the Pooled Fund grantees, project partners and stakeholders in all aspects related to project monitoring, quality assurance and reporting functions.

S/he will also support in-country SUN stakeholders to effectively collaborate and scale up their actions for nutrition. S/he will monitor and report on the progress of national and subnational SUN stakeholder collaboration - including how this can become more effective and what steps are needed to achieve this.

He/she will be a proactive, opportunistic and flexible colleague, fostering cross-team collaboration and encouraging innovative solutions to the challenges faced by SUN Countries. With strong communication skills – both oral and written – the postholder will build and maintain effective understanding and support productive exchanges. S/he will use a knowledge management system to ensure that stories, progresses, challenges, lessons learned from the grass-root level in SUN Countries are documented reaches to serve other SUN players.

Like all in the SUN Movement, the Monitoring & Quality Assurance Specialist(s) must always be vigilant that the SUN Movement’s principles are upheld everywhere and at all times.

S/he will work in close collaboration with Geneva based Pooled Fund team members and s/he will be expected to join weekly (or more frequently) meetings and report on progress on a regular basis.  S/he will be required to undertake frequent field visits (field missions will be up to 50% of the assignment). In addition, s/he will be required to support the Country Liaison Team and other members of the SUN Movement Secretariat as and when needed.

Implementation and maintenance of a functional monitoring and reporting system:

• Support to implement and maintain a functional monitoring, evaluation and reporting system for the SUN Movement Pooled Fund in assigned countries.
• Serve as a primary M&E contact point to the assigned Pooled Fund Grantees to support them in developing and implementing result-based M&E system in line with the SUN Movement Pooled Fund Global M&E Framework. Ensure that each grantee has functional result-based M&E system for the Pooled Fund Project.
• Collect and maintain the M&E database assuring quality of incoming data, and make M&E information readily available for use.
• Ensure that all the grantees submit structured progress reports in timely and regular manner with quality and disaggregated data and evidences.
• Review the reports and information received from the grantees, provide adequate feedback and carry out follow up actions through appropriate methods including emails, skype/WebEx, telephone calls, site visits among others.
• Conduct monthly status update calls with the grantees, and share minutes/findings with the Pooled Fund team, the SUN Movement Secretariat and grantees on time.

• Regularly assess the implementation status of grants as well as progress by SUN stakeholders in each given country: advise the grantees, the Pooled Fund Team and the SUN Movement Secretariat on course corrections, document and report back on the status of national and subnational SUN stakeholder’s collaboration, and highlight where in-country capability needs to developed and/or strengthened.
• Prepare monthly, periodic, and ad hoc programmatic progress updates for UNOPS, SUN Movement Secretariat and other key partners.
• Assess grantees’ capacity on M&E – especially at sub-national level - and build their capacity as required so that the grantees can effectively develop and implement an M&E system for their Pooled Fund Project.

Perform quality assurance functions:

• Develop tailor-made quality assurance tools (covering both programmatic and financial aspects) suitable to the grant recipient country/regional context.
• Perform strong quality assurance functions to ensure that all the planned project activities and outputs agreed between UNOPS and the grantees on the project agreements are delivered on time maintaining quality and ensuring value for money (VfM).
• Conduct field missions to the grant’s recipient countries to carryout direct programmatic and financial data verification as well as programmatic spot checks, and assess project progress, risk, challenges and lessons.
• Review the drafts of key research reports, training modules, SUN national networks (civil society, business) Strategy Plans, workshop proceedings, IEC materials, etc. produced by the grantees, and provide constructive feedback to improve quality and clarity of those products.

Partnership facilitation, policy advice and knowledge management:

• Serve as an initial contact point to the Pooled Fund Project in the field to identify and address day-to-day issues related to the project in consultation with the Pooled Fund team at the SUN Movement Secretariat and contribute to address them in a proactive manner.
• Support the Country Liaison Team at the SUN Movement Secretariat by providing country information and intelligence, including - if required - through the preparation of visits by the SUN Movement Coordinator to SUN Countries.
• Identify and inform the Country Liaison Team about the existence of regional bodies, nutrition hubs/initiatives, intergovernmental bodies, etc. in the region that could strengthen country efforts to reduce malnutrition.
• Assist the SUN Movement Secretariat Pooled Fund team and UNOPS in the identification of potential implementation problems and bottlenecks and addressing them in a constructive manner.
• Contribute to the overall SUN Movement Secretariat knowledge management through systemic documenting of best practices and lessons learned from the field and share them in a timely manner. 
• Any other tasks assigned by the supervisor.

Monitoring and Progress Controls

• A work plan will be formulated and agreed with the line manager, with clearly defined outputs, milestones and reporting requirements.
• Once recruited, specialists will start with an onboarding programme on the SUN Movement.
• Successfully meeting deadlines based on work plan
• Setting personal development objectives within Performance Evaluation Review

• Master’s degree in Social science, Business administrations, Economics, Development studies, Statistics or any other relevant field.
• A Bachelor’s Degree with a relevant combination of academic qualifications and two years of additional experience relevant to the above duties and responsibilities may be accepted in lieu of the master’s university degree.

• A minimum of 5 years of experience in programme/project monitoring and evaluation, or management of development projects/programmes. Or a Bachelor’s Degree in same disciplines with 7 years of similar experience may be considered as equivalent. 
• Experience of providing M&E support to partners/grantees is required
• Experience of performing quality assurance, spot checks and financial verifications of development projects is highly desirable
• Experience of working with donors or multi-donor funds is desirable.

• Fluency in written and spoken English is required.
• Knowledge of another official UN language or a local language is an asset.

Contract type: ICA Contract level: LICA-10 (Specialist)
Contract duration: Ongoing ICA – ‘Open-ended, subject to organizational requirements, availability of funds and satisfactory performance.’

• Please note that the closing date is midnight Copenhagen time
• Applications received after the closing date will not be considered.
• Only those candidates that are short-listed for interviews will be notified.
• Qualified female candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.
• UNOPS seeks to reasonably accommodate candidates with special needs, upon request.
• Work life harmonization - UNOPS values its people and recognizes the importance of balancing professional and personal demands. We have a progressive policy on work-life harmonization and offer several flexible working options. This policy applies to UNOPS personnel on all contract types
• UNOPS seeks to reasonably accommodate candidates with special needs, upon request.
• For staff positions only, UNOPS reserves the right to appoint a candidate at a lower level than the advertised level of the post
• The incumbent is responsible to abide by security policies, administrative instructions, plans and procedures of the UN Security Management System and that of UNOPS.  

It is the policy of UNOPS to conduct background checks on all potential recruits/interns. Recruitment/internship in UNOPS is contingent on the results of such checks.

UNOPS is an operational arm of the United Nations, supporting the successful implementation of its partners’ peacebuilding, humanitarian and development projects around the world. Our mission is to help people build better lives and countries achieve sustainable development.

UNOPS areas of expertise cover infrastructure, procurement, project management, financial management and human resources.

Working with us

UNOPS offers short- and long-term work opportunities in diverse and challenging environments across the globe. We are looking for creative, results-focused professionals with skills in a range of disciplines.

Diversity

With over 4,000 UNOPS personnel and approximately 7,000 personnel recruited on behalf of UNOPS partners spread across 80 countries, our workforce represents a wide range of nationalities and cultures. We promote a balanced, diverse workforce — a strength that helps us better understand and address our partners’ needs, and continually strive to improve our gender balance through initiatives and policies that encourage recruitment of qualified female candidates.

Work life harmonization

UNOPS values its people and recognizes the importance of balancing professional and personal demands.