*Please see the advertised positions for other levels of the UN Peacebuilding Fu...
*Please see the advertised positions for other levels of the UN Peacebuilding Fund’s Programme Support Team roster of consultants, namely:
- Junior Peacebuilding Design, Monitoring and Evaluation Officer, IICA-1: https://jobs.unops.org/Pages/ViewVacancy/VADetails.aspx?id=26350
- Peacebuilding Design, Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist, IICA-2: https://jobs.unops.org/Pages/ViewVacancy/VADetails.aspx?id=26351
- Peacebuilding Design, Monitoring and Evaluation Expert, IICA-3: https://jobs.unops.org/Pages/ViewVacancy/VADetails.aspx?id=26352
Candidates are asked to apply only to the position that best matches their level of experience and expertise.
General Background
UNOPS Sustainable Development Cluster (SDC) supports diverse partners with their peacebuilding, humanitarian and development operations. It was formed by combining the following portfolios: Grants Management Services (GMS), UN Technology Support Services (UNTSS), Development and Special Initiatives Portfolio (DSIP). It provides Services to partners' programmes that are designed, structured, and managed with a global perspective and primarily serving partners that are headquartered in New York. The SDC has a footprint of approximately 125 countries.
Since its inception in 2006, the Secretary-General’s Peacebuilding Fund (PBF) is the United Nations’ financial instrument of first resort to respond to and prevent violent conflict. The PBF invests with UN entities, governments, regional organizations, multilateral banks, national multi-donor trust funds or civil society organizations. From 2006 to 2022, the PBF has allocated nearly $1.72 billion to 67 recipient countries. The Fund works across thematic pillars and supports integrated UN responses to fill critical gaps, respond quickly and with flexibility to political opportunities, and catalyze processes and resources in a risk-tolerant fashion.
In order to provide the best quality and most timely support to UN Country Teams in PBF focus countries, in 2019 the PBF set up a surge mechanism – the PBF Programme Support Team (PST) – made up of peacebuilding Design, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (DMEL) expert consultants. As demands increased and objectives became more ambitious, in 2020 and 2022 the PBF hired additional talents to its surge mechanism. In 2023, in light of scaling up existing initiatives and launching new DMEL pilots and exercises (such as country portfolio-level Strategic Results Frameworks and evaluations, Community-Based Monitoring, Thematic Reviews and Synthesis Reviews, Cohort Evaluations and the reviews of the PBF Strategy), the PBF identified the need to expand the current 30-member roster composition and hire an additional cohort of peacebuilding DMEL experts. In support to the PST mechanism, UNOPS will recruit, on behalf of UNPBF, experts under retainer contracts on the basis of their expertise in peacebuilding monitoring and evaluation, UN programme development experience, knowledge of PBF, and thematic expertise. These experts are the backbone of the PBF PST mechanism and are deployed to the field upon demand from the field.
The team of experts helps ensure the following four attributes of the PBF:
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PBF support is timely and flexible. The experts will support the Fund with timely programme development in selected priority countries by providing additional capacities at the strategic time of priority setting and project developments, including thematic expertise.
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PBF support is catalytic. The experts will help ensure that the Fund will further expand its role as investor of first resort ensuring all its investments are catalytic. This means supporting programmes that enable peace processes to become unblocked, accelerate existing efforts, or kick-start longer-term change through country portfolio-wide approaches.
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PBF is willing to be risk-tolerant. The experts will, in close coordination with the relevant Resident Coordinators’ Offices (RCOs) and UN Country Teams (UNCTs), work to strengthen the national risk-management system through refined risk markers and streamlining mitigation strategies through all procedures.
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PBF support is adequately monitored and evaluated, ensuring downward accountability of entities implementing projects, and results-based evaluations of PBF country portfolios.