Stretch Assignment: Monitoring & Evaluation Specialist NOC/P3, Conakry Guinea (4 months)

Guinea is a lower-middle-income country facing significant challenges in child development and deprivation. According to the latest Human Development Index (HDI) report, Guinea has a Human Development Index of 0.480, ranking 178th out of 191 countries in 2023, reflecting its ongoing struggle with poverty and social development challenges. Since 1984, UNICEF has worked with the government and various partners, including UN agencies, NGOs, and community-based organizations, to improve conditions for children. 

The population of Guinea is projected to be around 15.2 million in 2025, with 63.4% living in rural areas and women comprising approximately 50.3% of the population. The annual growth rate remains steady at about 2.8%. Children under the age of 18 account for roughly 51% of the population, underscoring the critical need for child-focused interventions in areas such as health, education, and protection (World Population Review). 

The vision of the 2024-2028 country programme is: "A Guinea where children, especially adolescent girls and children from the most vulnerable families in the most disadvantaged geographical areas, have equitable opportunities for sustainable access to essential social services and quality social protection, and can reach their full potential, including in a context of climate-related vulnerabilities and emergencies". 

Currently, Guinea faces several humanitarian and emergency situations with multiple health crises, including outbreaks of diseases such as poliovirus, diphtheria, yellow fever, and Lassa fever. The country is particularly vulnerable to health shocks due to weak healthcare infrastructure. In addition, the country faces regularly natural disasters, such as flooding, which displace populations, damage infrastructure, and exacerbate the already challenging humanitarian conditions. These ongoing challenges necessitate continued support and local resilience-building measures to mitigate their impact on the population. 

The UNICEF Guinea office is looking for committed and creative professionals to make a lasting difference for Guinean children. 

The purpose of this assignment is to ensure that the UNICEF Guinea Country Office has useful, valid and reliable information on:

• the situation of children’s and women’s rights.
• the performance of UNICEF-supported programmes including their relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, and sustainability, and in emergency contexts, their coverage, coordination and coherence.

To work within the UN country team to support UNCT goals for delivering valid and reliable information on the attainment of the MDGs and other goals, and on the performance of UN-supported programmes.

To assist in the establishment of monitoring an evaluation tool which enhances partnership between the UNCT, government and other key players to collectively track progress on MDGs and other international commitment for children.

To assist in the development of national capacities for monitoring, evaluation and research, with special attention to the interest, concern and participation of government, community, and civil society stakeholders. The details of 

1. Integrated Monitoring, Evaluation & Research Plan (IMEP) 
2. Situation Monitoring and Assessment 
3. Programme Performance Monitoring 
4. Evaluation
5. M&E Capacity Building
6. Coordination and Networking 

1. Integrated Monitoring, Evaluation & Research Plan (IMEP) 

Ensure that the Country Office and national partners use a well-prioritized and realistic plan of research, monitoring and evaluation activities that will provide the most relevant and strategic information to manage the Country Programme, including tracking and assessing UNICEF’s distinct contribution. 

• Make professional contributions to and provide technical assistance for the planning and establishing the major research, monitoring and evaluation objectives, priorities, and activities in UNICEF’s multi-year and annual IMEPs, in consultation with child-rights and implementing partners.
• Likewise, support the development of UNDAF M&E Plans from a sound results-based programming process.
• Identify the M&E objectives, priorities, and activities required for effective CO and partner Emergency Preparedness and Response Plans
• In humanitarian response situations, within the first month, draft and recommend a simple one-month data-collection plan to cover key data gaps as required for the initial emergency response, working in close collaboration with the humanitarian clusters’ partners.    
• After the initial humanitarian response, support management of the medium-term response with a revised IMEP

1. Situation Monitoring and Assessment 

Ensure that the Country Office and national partners have timely and accurate measurements of change in conditions in the country or region, including monitoring socio-economic trends and the country’s wider policy, economic or institutional context, to facilitate planning and to draw conclusions about the impact of programmes or policies.

• In coordination with other stakeholders, support the collection of Millennium Development Goal (MDG) and other key social development indicators (through MICS or other surveys) to improve national planning.
• Support partners in the establishment and management of national statistical databases (e.g., DevInfo), ensuring that key indicators are readily accessible by key stakeholders. Potential uses include Situation Analysis, Common Country Assessment, Early Warning Monitoring Systems, and Mid-Term Reviews. 
• Develop a collectively Situation Monitoring and Assessment system owned by all key partners which supports the preparation of country level statistical and analytic reports on the status of children’s and women’s rights issues; and which allows when opportunities emerge to influence developmental and social policies, to include technical support to global reporting obligations including national reports on progress toward the MDGs, and toward CRC and CEDAW fulfilment.
• In humanitarian response situations, provide professional support for one or more rapid assessments (inter-agency or independently if necessary) to be carried out within the first 48-72 hours, working in close collaboration with the humanitarian clusters’ partners.

1. Programme Performance Monitoring 

Ensure that the Country Office has quality information to assess progress towards expected results established in annual work plans.

• Provide technical support to ensure that a set of programme performance indicators is identified and adjusted as necessary, with input from all concerned partners in the context of the multi-year and annual IMEPs, the Annual Management Plan and Annual Work Plans, as outlined in the Programme Policy and Procedures Manual). 
• Coordinate with partners to ensure that monitoring systems are properly designed, and that data collection and analysis from field visits are coordinated and standardized across programmes to feed into programme performance monitoring, with special attention to humanitarian response.
• Drawing on monitoring and analysis of key program performance and management indicators, provide professional input to management reports, including relevant sections of the annual reports.

1. Evaluation

Ensure that UNICEF-supported evaluations are designed and implemented to established UN quality standards, and the results are disseminated in a timely fashion to stakeholders in order to improve programme performance and contribute to wider learning.

• Technically support programme partners to formulate Terms of Reference and evaluation designs of high quality, when relevant drawing on the know-how of knowledge institutions, in compliance with the organization’s programme evaluation policies and guidelines.
• Monitor and ensure the quality of the field work and data management during the implementation phase, and the quality of the analysis and ease of understanding during the report writing phase.
• Disseminate evaluation findings and recommendations to the intended audience in user-friendly methods.  To ensure that effective participatory feedback is provided to community and civil society stakeholders.
• Monitor and ensure that a management response to the findings and recommendations of the evaluation is completed, recorded, and followed up for implementation.  Most specifically, ensure that evaluation recommendations are submitted to the Country Management Team and follow-up actions recorded in CMT minutes. Submit electronic copies of all evaluations to NYHQ via the Evaluation Data Base web portal, with full accompanying documentation.

1. M&E Capacity Building

Ensure that the monitoring and evaluation capacities of Country Office staff and national partners – government and civil society – are strengthened enabling them to increasingly engage in and lead monitoring and evaluation processes.

 Duties & Tasks

• Promote awareness and understanding of the shared responsibility of M& E function among all staff members through communication, training, learning and development activities organization wide.
•  In close collaboration with partners, ensure that an M&E capacity building strategy for UNICEF/UN staff national partners and institutions exists in the context of the IMEP, or UNDAF M&E plan.  Pay particular attention so the capacity needs of national partners such as professional evaluation associations will be strengthened by involvement in evaluation processes and possibly through specific capacity building initiatives.
• Collaborate to implement capacity building strategies as a joint commitment with other developmental partners. Utilize a range of appropriate skills building strategies including self-learning, seminars and workshops and practical experience in order that UNICEF and UN staff have the basic knowledge and skills in understanding and applying new M&E policies, tools, and methods to fulfil their responsibilities. Similarly, design and implement strategies suited to the skills needs of national partners.
• Actively seek partnerships with knowledge institutions for the identification of capacity gaps and development of strategies to address them.

1. Coordination and Networking 

Ensure that the UNICEF office is effectively linked to wider UNICEF M&E developments in a way that both contributes to and benefits from organizational learning on effective M&E management.

• Collaborate with Regional M&E Advisers and HQ Evaluation Office for overall coordination of priority research, monitoring and evaluation activities, especially those of regional scope requiring the coordinated effort of multiple countries.
•  Partner with the Regional Monitoring and Evaluation Adviser to ensure that current and accurate M&E data and results are included in regional reports, multi-country studies, and knowledge sharing networks.
• Undertake lessons-learned reviews on successful and unsuccessful M&E practices and experience at the national level and ensure they are shared as appropriate.  Similarly, pay attention to M&E knowledge networks to identify innovations and lessons learned that may be relevant for the CO and partners to improve their M&E function.

Advanced university degree in social sciences, statistics, planning development, planning.  

Experience:

 Professional work experience in programme development and implementation including monitoring and evaluation activities as follows:

• Minimum Five years of relevant professional work experience. Developing country work experience (for IP) or field work experience (for NO)
• At least one instance of exposure to emergency programming, including preparedness planning. Active involvement in a humanitarian crisis response programme preferred.

Fluency in French and good knowledge of English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is an asset

 Core Values

• Care
• Respect
• Integrity
• Trust
• Accountability
• Sustainability

Core Competencies

• Builds and maintains partnerships  
• Demonstrates self-awareness and ethical awareness  
• Drive to achieve results for impact  
• Innovates and embraces change  
• Manages ambiguity and complexity  
• Thinks and acts strategically  
• Works collaboratively with others 
• Nurtures, Leads and Manages people 

This opportunity is open to UNICEF staff members with Fixed-term or Permanent or Continuing appointment with UNICEF that runs through the duration of the assignment.

Guinea Country Office will pay for economy class travel. The candidate will receive 100% of Conakry DSA rate for the first four (4) weeks and 50% for the remaining duration of the assignment. Staff member selected for this stretch assignment will continue to receive salary and emoluments from the releasing office during the assignment

Discuss this stretch assignment with your supervisor and obtain the Representative’s agreement for your application to be submitted, as part of your learning and development plan for the year. The agreement of your Representative is a pre-requisite for this stretch assignment. ​

If selected for this opportunity, the selected staff member will remain in their current position and will be temporarily placed with UNICEF Guinea for the duration of the support mission. At the end of the stretch assignment, the staff member will return to his/her respective position. Thus, no changes will be made to the current status of staff member at UNICEF.

Interested candidates are requested to submit their application by 25 May 2026 to the following link : Internal Vacancies (sharepoint.com) with required documents cited below:

Attach to your application's email the following documents:

• An updated CV
• Updated UNICEF profile,
• Last two PERs
• A cover letter outlining your motivation for applying
• Approval from the supervisor and Head of Office

A desk review will be used for the selection of suitable candidates with informal discussion. 

Advertised: 15 May 2026 Greenwich Standard Time
Applications close: 25 May 2026 Greenwich Standard Time

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