Organizational Setting
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that leads international efforts to defeat hunger. Our goal is to achieve food security for all and make sure that people have regular access to enough high-quality food to lead active, healthy lives. With 195 members (194 countries and the European Union), FAO works in more than 130 countries worldwide.
FAO implements a wide portfolio of projects, programmes, and initiatives across multiple sectors. These include animal production and health, fisheries, food and nutrition, food systems and safety, forestry, social protection, inclusive rural development, information management systems / data systems for monitoring and decision making, land and water, plant production and protection, and others. FAO has a growing portfolio of work in the development and humanitarian (emergency and resilience) sectors.
FAO evaluates the strategic alignment, implementation, efficacy and efficiency of its portfolio of work through its independent Office
of Evaluation (OED), which is led by the Director of OED who reports to the Director-General and the FAO Programme Committee. OED evaluates FAO strategies, initiatives, programmes, and projects at global, regional, and national levels. OED seeks to generate credible and useful evidence and insights to inform decisions, support oversight, and help FAO achieve its mission. In so doing, OED advances knowledge and provides results accountability to both the Director-General and Member Nations. OED also participates in system-wide evaluation initiatives, thereby contributing to assessments of development and humanitarian effectiveness by the UN system.
OED values candidates who are highly motivated to excel and want to join OED colleagues in generating transformative knowledge for FAO, its Member Nations, and others working in the fields in which FAO operates to achieve its mission of ending hunger.
The position is located in the Office of Evaluation (OED) at FAO headquarters in Rome, Italy.
Reporting Lines
The Senior Evaluation Officer reports to the Deputy Director, OED.
Technical Focus
Leadership in (a) promoting policy, strategy and planning activities for the office to foster high quality work; (b) leading evaluations and conducting quality assurance reviews of evaluations; and (c) mentoring personnel.
Key Results
- Supporting the Deputy Director/Director in designing and executing process/system changes, especially using technology and data science.
- Designs and conducts complex evaluations of outcomes and impacts focused on specific themes, strategies, or clusters of projects or initiatives, such as the evaluation of specific sustainable development goals, priority programme areas, or thematic areas of technical focus.
- Provides quality assurance to enhance the quality of OED evaluations.
- Represents OED in meetings with donors, Members and in national and international events.
- Mentors junior evaluation personnel.
Key Functions
• Develops new or enhances existing strategies, processes and guidance to streamline the work of OED, optimize decisions and resource allocation, and monitors the portfolio of work, building efficiencies and promoting work effectiveness.
• Provides technical leadership in complex research and evaluations:
o Designs and leads rigorous thematic, strategic and programme (cluster) evaluations.
o Applies and enforces in others rigorous analytic thinking in leading/conducting analyses (qualitative and quantitative) and preparing dissemination materials (reports, papers and journal articles, presentations, and so on).
o Participates actively and productively in multidisciplinary evaluation teams, often with internal and external partners.
o Provides substantive leadership and expertise in at least one area of FAO's work such as agriculture, agrifood systems, climate change, nutrition, water, social protection and other areas in development and emergency settings and one cross-cutting theme or accelerator of change per FAO's Strategic Framework, such as private sector engagement, data and technologies, and innovations.
• Provides quality assurance across the portfolio of evaluations:
o Reviews evaluation outputs and provides detailed feedback (such as evaluation designs and reports).
o Assesses evaluation outputs to provide approval (for release or publication, payments to partners, and so on).
• Maintains technical leadership:
o Keeps abreast of methodological developments in evaluation.
• Performs other duties as required.
CANDIDATES WILL BE ASSESSED AGAINST THE FOLLOWING
Minimum Requirements
- Advanced university degree in a social science (such as economics international studies/development, political science, public policy, sociology), data science or statistics.
- A career focused on evaluation with at least ten years of experience conducting rigorous thematic and strategic evaluations.
- Working knowledge (proficiency - level C) of English and intermediate knowledge (intermediate proficiency - level B) of another official FAO language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, or Spanish).
Competencies
- Results Focus
- Leading, Engaging and Empowering
- Strong Communications Skills
- Partnering and Advocating
- Knowledge Sharing and Continuous Improvement
- Strategic Thinking
Technical/Functional Skills
- Ph.D. is highly desirable.
- Understanding and knowledge of FAO's portfolio of work is considered a strong asset.
- Extensive and relevant expertise developing or enhancing processes, systems, or procedures to streamline office functions, as demonstrated through a brief description of at least one process, system, or procedure developed or enhanced (file to upload #1: submit a brief description in a separate Word of PDF file).
- Extensive and relevant of technical expertise in leading and conducting rigorous evaluations (that is, evaluations using designs that are well aligned with the evaluation questions) (file to upload #2: evaluation as an example).
- Extensive and relevant of work experience conducting evaluations in substantive fields related to FAO's mission (agriculture, agrifood systems, climate change, nutrition, water, social protection and other areas in development and emergency settings) as demonstrated through your CV (file to upload #3).
- Proven ability to deliver clear and concise reports and presentations (in particular to leadership) as demonstrated through a writing sample of evaluation conducted (file to upload #2 or additional), (2) a presentation based on that writing sample (file to upload #4), and (3) a brief justification for the writing sample selected (upload #5).
- Candidates considered qualified may be asked to participate in a test and deliver a presentation on a topic to be provided.
- Work experience in more than one location in which FAO works or area of work (such as agriculture and environment) is essential, as demonstrated through experience listed in the CV (upload #3).