Evaluation Officer

The World Bank - The Independent Evaluation Group
Washington, DC - United States
S: Competitive

The Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) is the organizational unit in the World Bank Group (WBG) providing evaluation and feedback on the development effectiveness of Bank Group activities in client countries. IEG is independent of WBG management and reports directly to the Board of Executive Directors, with day-to-day oversight by the Board's Committee on Development Effectiveness (CODE).

IEG's mission is to improve development results through excellence in evaluation. IEG is directly responsible for assessing programs and activities; making recommendations to help improve the Bank Group's development effectiveness; appraising the Bank Group's self-evaluation and development risk management systems; cooperating with the evaluation heads of other international financial institutions and development assistance agencies; and assisting developing countries to build effective monitoring and evaluation capacities, systems and associations. IEG also aims to improving Bank Group's work by identifying and disseminating the lessons learned from experience.

The role and visibility of IEG has grown in recent years and is expected to expand further as the Bank Group, and the broader development community, continue to stress the importance of development effectiveness, evaluation, and monitoring for results. The management of IEG is committed to ensuring the highest level of quality, relevance, professionalism, and integrity in IEG's evaluation activities and to attracting top-quality staff to that end.

IEG's Human Development and Economic Management Department (IEGHE) is responsible for leading the evaluation of World Bank programs, projects and analytic and advisory products as well as country strategies, corporate evaluations, and a large share of sector and thematic evaluations across the World Bank Group. Specifically, IEG's Human Development and Economic Management Department is responsible for:

• Project, Program, and Analytical and Advisory Activity Evaluation: undertaking evaluations and validations of self-evaluations of investment projects, development policy operations, and analytical and advisory activities of the WBG that involve public sector clients and partners; this includes IBRD/IDA and trust fund financed projects, programs, analytical and advisory activities;

• Country Evaluation: evaluations and validations of country strategies, and analytical work underpinning those strategies, including Systematic Country Diagnostics;

• Corporate and Process Evaluation: Reports on WBG activities, policies, and process-related issues;

• Sector and Thematic Evaluation: evaluating the impact and effectiveness of sector and thematic strategies and programs of the WBG that have a public sector focus. This includes WB activities as well as joint WBG activities with focus on public sector policies and instruments; and

• Learning from Evaluation Results: disseminating the results and following up the recommendations of IEG evaluations to help improve the impact and effectiveness of WBG strategies and activities, and to foster evaluation capacity in the WBG, the development community, and WBG's member countries.

In the past two years, IEG has adopted a strategic plan to improve the integration of gender into its evaluation work. The main objective of this plan is to identify viable approaches that can be used to systematically integrate gender into the evaluation of strategies and operations so that gender-relevant results can be assessed and documented.

The World Bank Group is committed to achieving diversity in terms of gender, nationality, culture and educational background. Individuals with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated in the strictest confidence.

Note: If the selected candidate is a current Bank Group staff member with a Regular or Open-Ended appointment, s/he will retain his/her Regular or Open-Ended appointment. All others will be offered a 2 year term appointment.

Duties and Accountabilities

With limited oversight, the Economist/Evaluation Officer will contribute directly to IEG evaluations. This work will include planning and conducting evaluations or portions of evaluations, overseeing contributions from consultants, contributing to budget and team oversight, and commenting on the work of others. Specifically, the Economist will contribute to develop evaluation approaches and conduct evaluations in the areas of gender, inclusion, poverty, and shared prosperity, working across IEG units to ensure buy in and consistency of approaches. The Economist will also contribute to IEG at the corporate level, suggesting strategic directions and specific evaluation topics (especially in areas related to gender, inclusion, poverty and shared prosperity), and will liaise with Bank counterparts and relevant external stakeholders. Under the direction of the Unit Manager, the Economist will have the following primary responsibilities:

1.Contribute to the development of approaches and methods to better integrate gender in evaluation. In this context, the Evaluation Officer will, among others, contribute to design, test, and finalize guidelines, develop training for evaluators, improve dissemination of approaches and relevant material, contribute to organize workshops and events, and participate in networking with relevant stakeholders.

2. Participate in large sector and thematic evaluations, as well as learning products, assessing the development effectiveness of World Bank assistance in public sector interventions. In particular, the selected candidate is expected to contribute to bring a focus on social inclusion and shared prosperity in IEG evaluations and learning products. The current learning product of immediate relevance is the report on the impact of community driven development interventions on women's empowerment. Examples of the Evaluation Officer's contribution include preparation background notes, field work, drafting and revision of chapters, oversight of the work of staff and consultants, and dissemination.

3.Conduct project-level evaluations, including Implementation Completion and Results Report (ICR) Reviews and Project Performance Assessment Reports (PPARs). The Evaluation Officer should have sufficient familiarity and experience with Bank operations and Bank project completion reports to conduct rigorous and independent evaluations, and offer useful lessons.
Set and uphold high standards of quality for various evaluations, contributing as appropriate to departmental, group and cross-sectoral activities designed to help IEG pursue its mission, including development of evaluation and validation methods, as well as corporate responsibilities to peer review, disseminate, and contribute in other forms to the development of IEG products.

Job summary