Long-Term Agreement (LTA) for Individual Consultants for the Provision of Quality Assurance Services for Desk-based Evaluations at UNICEF

Responsibilities of the Consultant

• As mentioned in section 4, individual consultants will be expected to review evaluation products by providing constructive comments and rating against each outlined criterion, include specific comments/queries in the document and be available for a 30min follow-up calls in case of needed clarifications. Each evaluation product will be the object of at least one (1) up to three (3) reviews, in case of unsatisfactory rating. Herebelow, a description of major tasks expected from the individual consultants:
• Review of draft Evaluation ToRs : the consultants will be tasked to review and ensure that ToRs are in line with UNEG standards and are sufficiently exhaustive to i) understand the requested scope of work,
• align with the integration of Equity, Gender, Human Rights and Disability inclusion standards and policies.
• Review of Inception Reports(IR): the consultants will be tasked to review and ensure that they are in line with GEROS and UNEG standards and i) are methodologically sound to enable the evaluation to meet the utilization needs and meet Equity, Gender, Human Rights and Disability inclusion standards ii) are duly taking into account ethical considerations, including child and youth-friendly aspects and ii) are fulfilling basic requirements for ethical approval submission.
• Review of mature Draft Evaluation Reports (DER) : the consultants will be tasked to review the reports to ensure that they are satisfactorily meeting GEROS requirements and any other corporate requirements (such as the report structure, the branding, etc..) and suggest any improvements to ensure that the best achievable rating can be obtained, whilst meeting the initial evaluation objectives ( in terms of content and information needs)

Responsibilities of UNICEF

• UNICEF will ensure supervision of consultants through a minimum of two calls per year to identify any need for improvements and communicate any intervening adjustments made on templates, as a result of the annual analysis or any organizational changes resulting from the 2023 Evaluation Policy and Global Evaluation Report Oversight System (GEROS).
• UNICEF will share all necessary guidelines, documentation and templates to support the consultants in their Quality Assurance duties.

DELIVERABLES

• Completed Review Matrix for Terms of Reference (up to a maximum of three reviews per evaluation)
• Completed Review Matrix for Inception Reports (up to a maximum of three reviews per evaluation)
• Completed Review Matrix for Draft Evaluation Reports (up to a maximum of three reviews per evaluation)
• For ESARO, the total number of evaluation products to be reviewed for this LTA is expected to be consistent with the total number of evaluations that are planned each year – approximately 20 evaluations (each requiring a minimum of one review and a maximum of three reviews) per year. This will be shared across the roster of consultants participating in the LTA.
• Noting that other UNICEF offices will also have access to the facility and may establish their own contracts against the regional LTAs, this will trigger a higher number of reviews per consultant.
• The LTA holder will carry out reviews in a maximum of three (3) working days for a ToR, and a maximum of five (5) working days for an inception or mature draft report and send it to the requester, copying the designated ESA Regional Focal Point as the contract manager. CO or RO Requester may request an optional 30-minute follow-up meeting in order to discuss and clarify the nature of comments shared by the reviewer, as needed.
• The duration of the LTA is 36 months from the LTA agreement date (expected to be in March/April 2025). The selected consultants will work remotely, using their own equipment.

LTA holders are required to meet the following requirements:

• Advanced university degree (Master’s) in Evaluation, or another discipline relevant to the work of UNICEF with strong background in evaluation.
• Eight years or more of experience in managing, designing and/or implementing evaluation and research projects with/for UN agencies (particularly with UNICEF) or other international partners,
• covering a wide range of qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods and/or
• covering experimental, quasi- and non-experimental evaluation designs, using participatory, case study, longitudinal as well as rapid approaches. Experience with impact evaluations is considered as an advantage.
• At least 3 years’ experience and capacity in providing quality and/ or oversight of evaluation and research processes and outputs such as ToRs, as well as inception and mature draft reports, preferably with UN agencies. This is a requirement.
• Core expertise and a deep understanding of evaluation quality and ethical issues in UNICEF areas of interventions, and more particularly for evaluations involving children, adolescents and youth as well vulnerable groups of population, including people living with disabilities.
• A proven track record in specific sectoral areas of interest to the UNICEF Mandate (child protection, HIV- AIDS, education, health, nutrition, water and sanitation, social inclusion, adolescence, social policy, Communication for Development, climate change, innovations, gender equality) within development and humanitarian contexts.
• Familiarity with UN agencies’ evaluation quality and ethical standards for ToRs, Inception reports and evaluation reports. Experience with applying UNICEF Quality Standards will be an added advantage.