Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist at Ministry of Education

Job Description

Republic of Zambia

Ministry of Education
REQUEST FOR EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST
CONSULTING SERVICES – Individual Consultant Selection (Open; National)
COUNTRY: ZAMBIA
NAME OF PROJECT: GIRLS’ EDUCATION AND WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT AND LIVELIHOODS FOR HUMAN CAPITAL PROJECT Credit No: P181391
Assignment Title: Selection of Individual Consultants
Reference No.: MCDSS/SWL/C/2024

The Government of the Republic of Zambia has prioritized social protection as a mechanism to address poverty and vulnerability in the country. This prioritization is demonstrated through increased budgetary allocations, particularly to unconditional social assistance delivered through the Social Cash Transfer (SCT) program. The support for social assistance was furthered through the promotion of human capital initiatives using a “cash plus” approach primarily through the Girls’ Education and Women’s Empowerment and Livelihood (GEWEL) project by providing secondary school girls opportunities to complete their schooling. This was done through the Supporting Women’s Livelihoods (SWL) component of the GEWEL project.

The Project Development Objective (PDO) of GEWEL 2 is “to promote human capital development and productivity among poor and vulnerable girls and women, while strengthening adaptive social protection delivery systems”.

The human capital development aspect of the PDO will be measured through results in three interrelated areas: (a) the SCT as the foundational national social assistance program as an enabler for human capital development, with complementary activities aimed at (b) enhanced educational attainment at the upper primary and secondary school level by vulnerable adolescent girls and (c) improved nutrition outcomes among poor children and women in selected districts. Productivity will be measured through activities aimed at increasing earnings and economic inclusion of adult women to build climate adaptation and shock resilience, while strengthened adaptive SP systems. GEWEL 2 is comprised of four components to achieve the PDO, to be implemented over a four- year period from 2025 to 2028. These are: (a) Foundational Social Cash Transfer (SCT) and Nutrition; (b) Supporting Women’s Livelihoods and Beyond (SWL), (c) Supporting Women’s Livelihoods for Climate-Smart Productive Inclusion (SWL); and (d) Institutional Strengthening and Systems Building for Cash ‘Plus’ Delivery (ISSB).

The SWL component will target poor and vulnerable girls from SCT households to access upper primary (4-6) and secondary schools (7-12) in a cash ‘plus’ approach and provide the girls with financial support to school related costs and fees, while also scaling other support services, to increase access to school, improve retention, progression, and transition to tertiary and/or work.

The Government of the Republic of Zambia has therefore, received financing from the World Bank toward the cost of the Project under Girls’ Education and Women’s Empowerment and Livelihoods for Human Capital Project – Supporting Women’s Livelihoods (SWL) and Beyond, and intends to apply part of the proceeds for consulting services as below.

MONITORING AND EVALUATION SPECIALIST (01)

Job Summary

The Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist (M&E) is responsible for designing, implementing, and monitoring and evaluation systems to assess the performance and impact of the SWL. He/she will act as key advisor, helping the SWL project team and Ministry Management to learn from their experiences, improve the project and demonstrate its impact.

Duties and Responsibilities

Develop and implement a robust monitoring and evaluation system that will ensure tracking of project results at different levels (outputs, outcomes and impact);
Develop/Adopt an integrated database of all projects activities and ensure accountability through regular data updates, data integrity and working in collaboration with the SWL IT Team;
Work with SWL project officers to ensure the timely collection of relevant and appropriate data needed for an effective monitoring and evaluation system;
Review existing data collection tools for the current project and make relevant suggestions;
Incorporate field and technical team feedback to ensure the continuous improvement of data management systems within SWL-MIS;
Maintain and update the overall project indicator tracker based on submissions from the project officers.
Develop and revise existing M&E plans for all GEWEL 2 project activities and ensure the same is followed up during implementation,
Carry out data quality assessments, regularly monitoring on agreed indicators to guide decision making
Provide alert to the respective SWL project officers on corrective actions required to avoid delays in implementation, including flagging operational issues and risks requiring timely actions;
Collate/prepare regional reports related to internal reporting such as the quarterly and annual reports,
Coordinate with the World Bank M&E counterpart and GEWEL task team;
Ensure that the project office learns from all final evaluations of completed projects activities for decision making and improvement of project designs;
Lead and/or coordinate all project assessments, evaluations and performance evaluation tasks including planning and reporting on the same;
Assist in the development of TOR for external surveys and consultant recruitments/ selection;
Coordinate the review of all survey reports prepared to ensure quality and accurate reporting.
Provide relevant evidence for learning from projects;
Share learning and provide constructive comments to colleagues in order to ensure project quality,
Ensure Sex, Age, Disability Disaggregated Data (SADD). Accountability and Gender standards are consistently adhered in project delivery;
Build capacity of staff through training to ensure adoption of new data monitoring tools and quality of data collected;
Keep abreast of new approaches and tools on M&E, and provide training to SWL staff as requested.
Enable staff to monitor and evaluate their own efforts, gather relevant data and produce required progress reports.

Qualification, Experience and Key Attributes:

Masters or Bachelor’s Degree in Statistics, Monitoring & Evaluation, Demography, Population Studies;
At least 5 years’ experience in a position of monitoring and evaluation of social programs, with strong preference for experience on social protection and education programs;
At least 3 years of experience working on monitoring and evaluation of World Bank funded projects;
Demonstrated experience in data processing and management of large scale surveys;
Demonstrated experience of statistical packages and/ or data analysis software (e.g. SPSS, Excel, STATA) and advanced computer skills (word-processing, spreadsheets, and databases) are a must;
Strong experience in conducting research studies including leading evaluation from design and formulation to implementation, analysis and presentation of results and recommendations; Good oral and written communication skills in English;
Must be result focused and be able to work under pressure and tight deadlines;
Excellent interpersonal skills and the ability to work well within a multi-cultural team environment;
Strong analytical skills,
Experience in project implementation on large scale national projects of not less than 50 districts.
Experience in project implementation using a Management Information System;

REPORTING LINE:

The Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist will be reporting to the Project Manager

Duration

The assignment is expected to last for an initial period of two years, with the possibility of renewal based on performance and project needs.

Performance Evaluation

Annual performance evaluations will be conducted at the end of each year using established key performance indicators (KPIs) based on targets as set out in the AWPB, Project document and Individual workplans. The consultant will be expected to meet the performance standards as agreed. Failure to meet these standards may result in performance improvement plans or other disciplinary action.

Procurement method

The Consultant will be hired and contracted as per the “Individual Consultant (IC) ” Selection method of World Bank Procurement Regulation (PR), September 2023.

Performance Evaluation

Annual performance evaluations will be conducted at the end of each year using established key performance indicators (KPIs) based on targets as set out in the AWPB, Project document and Individual work plans. The consultant will be expected to meet the performance standards as agreed. Failure to meet these standards may result in performance improvement plans or other disciplinary action.

Procurement method

The Consultant will be hired and contracted as per the “Individual Consultant (IC)” Selection method of World Bank Procurement Regulation (PR), September 2023.

The Ministry of Education through the GEWEL 2-SWL and Beyond, now invites eligible “Consultants” to indicate their interest in providing the Services. Interested Consultants should provide information demonstrating that they have the required qualifications and relevant experience to perform the Services. The shortlisting criteria are: Educational qualification. experience (general & specific) and knowledge in project management of World bank projects.

The Consultants will be selected through the Open Competitive Selection of Individual Consultants’ method in accordance with World Bank’s “Procurement Regulations, Revised September, 2023 (“Procurement Regulations”).

The attention of interested Consultants is drawn in particular to:

(i) Section III, paragraphs, 3.14, 3.16, and 3.17 of the Procurement Regulations setting forth the World Bank’s policy on Conflict of Interest, and

(ii) Section III, paragraphs, 3.21-3.24 of the Procurement Regulations setting forth the World
Bank’s policy on Eligibility, including the specific pre-requisite conditions to be met for
the eligibility, on exceptional basis, of Government officials and civil servants of the Borrower’s country under consulting contracts in the Borrower’s country.

Individuals who are currently working as consultants on another World Bank-financed project may also compete in this selection process, but if they are selected they will be required before signing the proposed contract to provide documentary evidence of having satisfactorily complied with their existing contract’s requirements with respect to early termination of the contract by the consultant, including advance notice period, to avoid disruption in implementation of that project.

Further information can be obtained at the address below during office hours [i.e. 08:00 to 17:00 hours].

Expressions of interest must be delivered in hard copy to the address on or before 22 November 2024 17:00 hours to the address below.

The Permanent Secretary- Administration

Ministry of Education

89 Corner of Chimanga & Mogadishu Roads

P.O. Box 50093,

LUSAKA-ZAMBIA