Deputy Director Evaluation

Deputy Director Evaluation, D-1, Evaluation Office, Rome, Italy

596936

Italy

Fixed Term Appointment

Closing at: 28 Nov 2026 - 09:55 AEDT

D-1

UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfil their potential. Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone. And we never give up.

For every child, dedication.

The fundamental mission of UNICEF is to promote the rights of every child, everywhere, in everything the organization does — in Programmes, in advocacy and in operations. The equity strategy, emphasizing the most disadvantaged and excluded children and families, translates this commitment to children’s rights into action. For UNICEF, equity means that all children have an opportunity to survive, develop and reach their full potential, without discrimination, bias or favoritism. To the degree that any child has an unequal chance in life — in its social, political, economic, civic and cultural dimensions — her or his rights are violated. There is growing evidence that investing in the health, education and protection of a society’s most disadvantaged citizens — addressing inequity — not only will give all children the opportunity to fulfill their potential but also will lead to sustained growth and stability of countries. This is why the focus on equity is so vital. It accelerates progress towards realizing the human rights of all children, which is the universal mandate of UNICEF, as outlined by the Convention on the Rights of the Child, while also supporting the equitable development of nations.

UNICEF is mandated by the United Nations General Assembly to advocate for the protection of children's rights, to help meet their basic needs and to expand their opportunities to reach their full potential. The UNICEF Strategic Plan, 2026-2029, marks a shift toward a stronger focus on outcome- and impact-level results for children and, toward this end, places increased emphasis on the role of evaluation as an evidence function and an oversight function.

Within this context, UNICEF’s evaluation function aims to drive results for children by fostering evidence-informed decision-making. Guided by the Revised Evaluation Policy of UNICEF (2023), evaluation in UNICEF supports both learning and accountability through evaluations of development and institutional effectiveness and humanitarian response, ultimately contributing to improved outcomes for children. It also plays a critical role in holding the organization accountable for its contributions—or lack thereof—to those outcomes.

This position is based in UNICEF’s global independent Evaluation Office in Rome, which serves as the steward of UNICEF’s evaluation function. Its Director reports to UNICEF’s Executive Board through an annual report on the evaluation function and on selected evaluations. The Evaluation Office commissions and manages independent corporate evaluations and other evaluative exercises (e.g., evaluability assessments, syntheses, reviews), usually conducted in collaboration with external consultants but increasingly, by embedding Evaluation staff in the evaluation teams. It also leads the development and implementation of evaluation policy as well as global evaluation partnerships, strategy and systems. It oversees evaluation quality assurance processes; undertakes evaluation capacity development activities within and outside the Organization; actively promotes an enabling environment for evaluation and a strong evaluation culture; and ensures transparent access to evaluation findings through strategic communication and knowledge management.

UNICEF’s evaluation function is largely decentralized. The Office works closely with senior regional evaluation advisers and multi-country evaluation specialists based in each of UNICEF’s five regions, as well as dedicated country-level evaluation focal points who provide full- or part-time support to evaluation efforts. The shared goal is, to ensure together a well-coordinated, collaborative, whole-of-organization evaluation effort and to continue to build the Organization’s community of practice. The function undertakes a diverse portfolio of independent, credible, and impartial evaluations, including corporate thematic, institutional effectiveness, humanitarian, country-led, and impact evaluations. The Evaluation function aims to deliver consistent, timely, credible and useful independent analyses that harness knowledge to help UNICEF use evaluation evidence to enhance its effectiveness and overall to deliver better results for children.

For every child, opportunity.

Under the direction, guidance and supervision of the Director of Evaluation, the Deputy Director will serve in three overarching capacities:

• The incumbent will assist the Director in ensuring the smooth and seamless overall functioning of the Evaluation Office, and of the evaluation practice throughout the Organization more broadly, by providing strategic advisory support and strengthening the linkage between the central (Evaluation Office) and decentralized evaluation function.
• The incumbent will lead on cross-cutting functions of the office: (i) creation and cultivation of strategic evaluation partnerships; (ii) oversight of the strategic communication and knowledge management activities of the evaluation function; (iii) strategic oversight of the evaluation capacity development activities; and (iv) helping to optimize other areas of complementarity and collaboration across the Evaluation Office portfolios, as well as enhancing and maintaining strategic linkages with UNICEF’s other data, research and evidence functions.
• The incumbent will also deputize for the Director, when needed, in overseeing the work of the Evaluation Office in completing planned evaluations on time, on budget, and on target, according to the UNICEF Evaluation Policy, and other standards and targets.. The incumbent will also contribute to the cultivation of a positive, respectful, motivated, mutually supportive and results-driven office environment and support strengthening of the evaluation culture and use across the organization.

How can you make a difference?

The Deputy Director Evaluation’s key functions and accountabilities include:

1. Assist the Director in ensuring the smooth and seamless overall functioning of the Evaluation Office and of the evaluation function throughout the Organization more broadly.

• Serve as a critical sounding board for the Director of Evaluation on key issues of strategic importance to the work of the Evaluation Office and the evaluation function more broadly, and advise as necessary on potential options, actions and strategies.
• Draw on strategic planning, performance monitoring, annual reporting, budget and workforce information generated through the responsible units to advise the Director on office-wide priorities, risks and management considerations.
• Assist the Director of Evaluation in strengthening the linkages between and among the central and decentralized evaluation teams in pursuit of a well-integrated, coherent global evaluation team that works optimally together to support the successful achievement of the Strategic Plan 2026-2029, and is consistent in evaluation practice.
• Explore innovative modalities to enhance the cost effectiveness and efficiency of the evaluation function in areas such as evaluation quality assurance, joint reporting, and interoperable systems through the use tools such as Generative Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and other emerging tools.
• Support the Director in reporting to and interacting with the Executive Board and other high-level fora.
• Participate in organizational strategic policy development in evaluation and related functions by contributing to the review of corporate policies, processes, strategies, guidance documents and programming responses.
• With the Director, co-chair the Global Learning Committee (GLC) and the Global Evaluation Leadership Team (GELT) and support the Director in overseeing skills mapping across the evaluation function, identifying opportunities for skill-sharing, trainings and skills development in line with a modern evaluation function.

2. Lead coordination and oversight of the cross-cutting areas of the Evaluation Office and the broader evaluation function. These include strategic partnerships, evaluation capacity development, evaluation synthesis, strategic communication and knowledge management. The responsibility is also to enhance collaboration and consistency across evaluation teams and, importantly, other UNICEF evidence functions

• Lead the development, negotiation and management of strategic partnerships sustaining the evaluation function, including but not limited to