8222 Prime Minister's Office Vacancy 1 - 14 November 2024

GOVERNMENT OF TONGA

PRIME MINISTER’S OFFICE

VACANCY

• Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Specialist

The Prime Minister’s Office hereby invites applicants for the following positions at the Prime Minister’s Office:

TERMS OF REFERENCE
MONITORING & EVALUATION SPECIALIST
GOVERNMENT OF TONGA
PRIME MINISTER’S OFFICE – NATIONAL PLANNING DIVISION

Monitoring and & Evaluation is weak in Tonga in terms of how the KPIs are defined and work has been underway with all Government ministries and departments to produce SMART KPIs for better M&E. This applies at all levels of planning and budgeting. Further improvement to our KPIs is also central to better define the outcomes we seek and for more consistent monitoring of progress. The lessons from TSDFI are that this is a challenging process. The government intended to establish a stronger, more focused system for monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of the progress during TSDFII and into the future. This will entail strengthening the M&E capacity within the National Planning reaching out and supporting all MDAs who also need to improve their own M&E of the sector, district, and corporate plans. This will complement the other functions of both the Ministry of Finance and Prime Minister’s Office – National Planning Division in providing outreach support on planning, budgeting, and financial management.

M&E requires more than just government participation. The National Planning Division will provide further consideration on how to build the M&E within a wider range of institutions from CSO and businesses. The objective will be to build on good practice in joint public/private partnerships for a more responsible and accountable M&E framework. It will take account of the efforts of other Pacific countries, and the challenges they have experienced. The design of such an oversight committee structure will include focus on becoming more responsive and adaptive to unexpected changes to increase the country's resilience. This will help to improve the sustainability that is essential for the TSDF to succeed.

Position Purpose

Under the overall guidance of the Chief Secretary and Secretary to Cabinet and direct supervision of Director for National Planning Division, the Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist position will be on a two-year contract basis serving to contribute to the effective implementation of the monitoring and evaluation policy, ensuring that, at the least, minimum monitoring and evaluation requirements for the TSDF II, Government Priority Agenda (GPAs) and Corporate Plans are met, and participates in the monitoring of programs and projects and conduct of thematic and crosscutting evaluations.

Monitoring

• Support in developing and implementing the programme and project’s M&E plans from results-based management perspective along with indicators, targets, means of verification and monitoring steps at output and activity level in multi-year work plans and annual work plans, and support in developing plans and monitoring the project’s risks and issues matrices in line with national and international guidelines
• Assist in ensuring that the National Planning team has quality information to assess progress towards expected results established in the annual and multi-year work plans.
• Coordinate with focal points in all Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), development partners and community staff for data collection programs and evidence gathering to feed into programme and project performance monitoring;
• Support in actively monitoring programmes and projects through field visits, remotemonitoring tools to assess progress, support in identifying bottlenecks and potential problems and take timely action to resolve issues and/or refer to relevant colleagues in the Inclusive Growth team for timely resolution
• Participate in monitoring and evaluation exercises, programme & project reviews and annual reviews, both internal and external, to assess progress and to and determine required interventions to achieve the results
• Support M&E system establishment, data management plans and maintain the programme database (MIS).

Evaluation

• Develop program and project evaluation policies and guidelines for National Planning processes
• Prepare quality evidence-based evaluation documentation, information, reports, and evidence
• Monitors and ensure the quality of the fieldwork and data management during the implementation phase, and the quality of the analysis and ease of understanding during the report writing phase.
• Support in monitoring and ensuring that a management response to the findings and recommendations of the evaluation is completed, recorded, and followed up for implementation.
• Coordinate dissemination of evaluation findings and recommendations to the stakeholders in accordance with the Government protocol.

Learnings, Reporting, and Documentation

• Develop M&E framework for the TSDF III
• Prepare progress reports, such as bi-annual reports, annual reports, project pathways, donor-specific reports (upon request), and inputs to Prime Minister’s Office reporting capturing in a comprehensive analytical manner corporate plans progress against the project Results Framework;
• Assist in ensuring that the National Planning team has quality information to assess progress towards expected results established in annual work plans.
• Assist in identifying and documenting success stories, achievements, lessons learned, risks and issues; corporate reporting requirement lessons learned, and best practices, and use the knowledge gained to feed into the ongoing as well as future programming and for developing/managing knowledge products (knowledge management).
• Assist in promoting awareness and understanding of the shared responsibility of M&E function among team members including field staff through communication, training, and learning and development activities
• Ensures alignment of new programmes/projects with the programme monitoring framework; facilitates the introduction of innovative monitoring and evaluation tools to enable data collection and analysis; maintains monitoring databases as relevant and performs regular data analysis; provides support to annual or programme-specific planning and reporting from the viewpoint of monitoring benchmarks and results.
• Ensures facilitation of knowledge building and knowledge sharing in the area of monitoring and evaluation, focusing on achievement of the following results:

i. Contribution to the development and implementation of Evaluation Knowledge Management and Learning Strategy
ii. Participation in results-oriented monitoring and evaluation training efforts
iii. Designing and carrying out M&E training workshops for national counterparts
iv. Participates as appropriate in quality assurance oversight processes to contribute to the strategic positioning of lessons learned
v. Contribute towards the development and implementation of the Communication Strategy and Action Plan.

Cross-Functional & Technical competencies

Management Competencies

• Results-based Management: Ability to manage programs and projects with a focus at improved performance and demonstrable results.
• Risk Management: Ability to identify and organize action around mitigating and proactively managing risks.
• Working with Evidence and Data: Ability to inspect, cleanse, transform and model data with the goal of discovering useful information, informing conclusions, and supporting decision-making
• Monitoring: Ability to provide Director with regular feedback on the consistency or discrepancy between planned and actual activities and programme performance and results
• Evaluation: Ability to make an independent judgement based on set criteria and benchmarks; Ability to anticipate client's upcoming needs and concerns

Digital & Innovation

• Data analysis: Ability to extract, analyze and visualize data (including Real-Time Data) to form meaningful insights and aid effective decision making
• Data collection: Being skilled in Data Sorting, Data Cleaning, Survey Administration, Presentation, and Reporting including the collection of Real-Time Data (e.g. mobile data, satellite data, sensor data).

Competencies

Expected Demonstration of Competencies

Core

• Achieve Results: Plans and monitors own work, pays attention to details, delivers quality work by deadline
• Think Innovatively: Open to creative ideas/known risks, is pragmatic problem solver, makes improvements
• Learn Continuously: Open-minded and curious, shares knowledge learns from mistakes, asks for feedback
• Adapt with Agility: Adapts to change, constructively handles ambiguity/uncertainty, and is flexible
• Act with Determination: Shows drive and motivation, able to deliver calmly in face of adversity, confident
• Engage and Partner: Demonstrates compassion/understanding towards others, forms positive relationships
• Enable Diversity and Inclusion: Appreciate/respect differences, aware of unconscious bias, confront discrimination

Cross-Functional & Technical

• Monitoring: Ability to provide managers and key stakeholders with regular feedback on the consistency or discrepancy between planned and actual activities and program performance and results
• Evaluation: Ability to make an independent judgment based on set criteria and benchmarks – Ability to anticipate client's upcoming needs and concerns.
• Working with Evidence and Data: Ability to inspect, cleanse, transform, and model data with the goal of discovering useful information, informing conclusions, and supporting decision-making

Required Skills and Experience

Education: Master’s Degree or equivalent in Economics, Public Policy or Management. A Bachelor’s degree may also be considered with 4 years of relevant work experience

Experience:

• Minimum 4 years (with Masters) or 6 years with (Bachelor’s degree) of relevant experience in international and national development issues and relevant experience in monitoring and evaluation with a background and interest in the analysis of socio-economic issues and related policy matters.
• Experience in the usage of computers and office software packages
• Experience in handling of web-based management systems.
• Communications and writing skills.
• Demonstrated experience in project management
• Fluency in English and Tongan

Contract Duration: Two (2) years

All applications are to be received no later than 4:30pm, 14th November, 2024 and address to:

Chief Secretary and Secretary to Cabinet
Prime Minister’s Office
Taufa’ahau Road
Nuku’alofa
Tonga.

The mandatory requirements to be submitted in all applications are the following documents:

i. Covering Letter
ii. Updated CV
iii. Certified Academic transcripts
iv. Reliable references

Public Servants who wish to apply must submit their applications with the endorsement ofm their respective Chief Executive Officers.

Applications can be brought to the Prime Minister’s Office reception at St. George Government Building Level 4. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

For further enquiries, please contact hr [at] pmo [dot] gov [dot] to or telephone 740-1389 or 740-1351.

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Matangi Tonga Online ref. #8222 PMO, 1 - 14 Nov 2024