The incumbent of this position reports to the Country Representative, Mexico, and is responsible for providing professional technical, expertise on planning, monitoring, reporting and knowledge management to the teams in the Mexico Country Office.
The Chief Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation is responsible for preparing, executing, managing, and implementing a variety of technical tasks to contribute to planning, monitoring implementation, oversight and reporting to ensure effectiveness and contribute to results. The incumbent is also responsible for supporting Knowledge Management and Evaluation within the Country Office.
Programme planning, monitoring and evaluation:
Budget and Contribution Management
Results-Based Management Capacity Development and Quality Assurance
Resources Mobilization and reporting
Programme planning, monitoring and evaluation:
Provide substantive technical leadership and support to the Deputy Representative Programme for the Country Programme process, including in the preparation of Strategy Notes, the Country Programme Document (CPD), the Country Programme Management Plan (CPMP) and coordination of UNICEF inputs to the UN Country Assessment, the UNSDCF and Joint Programmes, ensuring coherence with the UNICEF CPD and the emerging needs of children.
Identify problems or alternative courses of action to accelerate/ improve programme delivery.
Make professional contributions to and provide technical assistance to the planning and establishing of the major monitoring and evaluation objectives, priorities, and activities in UNICEF’s multi-year and annual Integrated, Monitoring and Evaluation plans (IMEPs), in consultation with implementing partners and other Monitoring and Evaluation colleagues.
Support the implementation of Field Offices plans including supporting them in planning, monitoring and reporting.
Undertake visits to counterparts and field offices to identify and manage risks in programme planning and implementation.
Ensure timely implementation and effective programme monitoring of UNICEF inputs (cash, supply, contracts, training, and travel) and provide technical leadership to quarterly and annual reviews and planning exercises. Undertake frequent monitoring visits to assess the effectiveness and cost-efficiency of UNICEF assistance for planning monitoring and adjustment of strategies and approaches.
Provide guidance and procedures to programme teams on all aspects of programme planning monitoring and evaluation according to UNICEF’s, policies, guidelines and operational procedures, especially those specifically developed for the Country Programme.
Ensure establishment of an effective monitoring system for regular assessment of UNICEF and partner programme performance aligned with specific targets and outcomes related to the Country Programme goals and ensure linkages between sub-national government and national monitoring systems.
Organize capacity building for an effective programme monitoring system which reflects UNICEF’s contribution and enhances and facilitates Country Programme implementation.
Prepare programme status reports required for management and donors, budget reviews, programme analysis, annual reports, etc.
Budget and Contribution Management:
Ensure that the Country Office budget is managed in line with results-based budgeting principles and standards and that grants are reported on and used in line with donor commitments.
Actively follow up with Programme sections to ensure effective and timely budget planning and expenditure, including ensuring compliance with IPSAS.
Establish systems to monitor the optimum and appropriate use of program resources (financial, human, administrative, and other assets) and verify compliance with organizational rules, regulations and procedures, donor commitments, and standards of accountability and integrity in collaboration with the operations team.
Oversee, provide guidance and supervise staff responsible for fund management with an increasing focus on results-based budgeting and spending as well as monitoring of spending against results. This includes regular interaction with Section Chiefs and Chiefs of Field Offices on various aspects of fund management, determining the resource envelope for the various programmes and overseeing that the Office achieves all the global indicators related to fund management. It also includes linking expenditures to programmes by systematically using coding expenditures in line with results-based budgeting principles.
Ensure that UNICEF’s dashboard system of performance management and reporting is well understood, updated, and applied across the office.
Manage and supervise the implementation of the Harmonized Cash Transfer (HACT) assurance activities in line with UNICEF procedures and policies.
Ensure proper use of eTools in the office and provide overall quality assurance and documentation of HACT.
Provide quality assurance on grants management, including ensuring that donor funding is spent in line with commitments; full utilization including facilitation of no-cost extension for grants and fund reversals.
Results-Based Management (RBM) Capacity Development and Quality Assurance
Ensure that the planning, monitoring, and evaluation capacities of Country Office staff and national partners – government and civil society organizations – are strengthened, enabling them to increasingly engage in and lead planning, monitoring and evaluation processes.
Promote awareness and understanding of the shared responsibility of RBM among all staff members through communication, training, learning, and development activities Office-wide.
Oversee the quality review of draft PCAs/PDs, from a RBM perspective.
In close collaboration with partners, ensure that a RBM capacity development approach for UNICEF/UN staff, national partners and institutions is developed, implemented and updated.
Actively seek partnerships with knowledge institutions, including other UN agencies, for the identification of capacity gaps and development of strategies to address these.
Resource mobilization and reporting
Support Office-level resource mobilization via monitoring of donor contributions and quality assurance of proposals for funding and donor reports.
Monitor overall fundraising levels for different outputs of the UNICEF Country Programme for informed decision making against Country Office resource mobilization initiatives.
Review and negotiate donor partnership agreements in the country, ensuring alignment with globally negotiated frameworks. Act as CO focal point for grants related program verification in coordination with related program sections and operations teams.
Quality-assurance of donor proposals to ensure competitive submissions and review of donor reports to highlight results and ensure adherence to negotiated requirements.
Maintain a central repository for the Office on donor agreements, proposals, reports and donor communication for decision making and lessons learned.
To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…
Education:
An advanced university degree (Master’s or higher) in the fields of social sciences, statistics, economics, development, planning or similar. A first University Degree in a relevant field combined with 2 additional years of professional experience may be accepted in lieu of an Advanced University Degree.
Experience:
A minimum of 8 of relevant professional experience in any of the following areas or in a combination of the following areas: programme/project planning, monitoring, evaluation, and results reporting.
The following experiences are not required but will be considered an asset:
Management of complex budgets.
A Results-Based Management (RBM) background.
Relevant experience in a UN system agency or organization.
Language:
Fluency in English is required.
A intermediate level of Spanish is required, but complete fluency is preferred. If the person hired is not fluent, he/she will have to commit to improving their English skills in the first six/twelve months of work.
