Monitoring and Evaluation Senior Specialist

POSITION INFORMATION

• VA No.: UNDP/LBN/VA26/151
• Position Title: Monitoring and Evaluation Senior Specialist
• Duty Station: Home based (online), with no field visits required
• Duration: 5 months (without exceeding 8 working days per month)
• Vacancy Date of Issue: 26 August 2026
• Vacancy Closure Date: 02 September 2026
• National or International consultancy: National consultancy

To review the full Terms of Reference (TOR), please follow link:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1A3RQK-myHFUJB2vfOXwoiSp4Le1JR1Jh/view

BACKGROUND

The Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) Through Advancing Women-Led Enterprises in Lebanon is a new project funded by the Government of Canada for a period of 3.5 years. The project aims to support gender-responsive job creation and help generate economic opportunities for women-led micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) across various productive sectors with high growth potential. Through this objective, the project will foster the economic security, stability, and prosperity of women entrepreneurs and women-led MSMEs in Lebanon.

The project includes three main components:

Component 1: Ensuring that government institutions are more responsive to women’s needs through processes that are more conducive to doing business.

Component 2: Ensuring that women-led MSMEs have access to the financial resources required to grow and remain sustainable.

Component 3: Ensuring that women-led MSMEs receive the technical support needed to increase their access to local and international markets.

The project was developed in response to the multiple crises that have affected Lebanon, particularly the financial crisis, which has hindered the ability of MSMEs in general, and women-led MSMEs in particular, to access the financing needed for growth. With the collapse of the banking system and the resulting depletion of financing sources, access to finance is considered one of the greatest impediments preventing MSMEs, particularly women-led MSMEs, from developing and taking their businesses to the next level. This has compounded the barriers already faced by women entrepreneurs, including stringent collateral requirements, high interest rates, complex documentation processes, suboptimal financial literacy, and a lack of market information.

Through the WEE project, UNDP Lebanon is implementing a comprehensive approach to foster women’s equal access to the resources, tools, and economic opportunities needed to conduct business more effectively. At the same time, the project seeks to ensure that public and private institutions are more responsive to women’s needs and can provide them with the necessary tools, systems, and opportunities to become the main drivers of their economic success and empowerment. The project is being implemented in partnership with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), which is responsible for implementing the third component related to market access.

Since the project’s inception in 2024, UNDP has successfully implemented a range of activities and interventions across its three components. Implementation is guided by a comprehensive Project Monitoring Framework (PMF), structured around the project’s intended outcomes and outputs.

As implementation has progressed and interventions have expanded across the different components and implementing partners, including UNDP and UNIDO, a need has emerged to further strengthen and harmonize the project’s monitoring and evaluation (M&E) approach. In particular, there is a need to enhance consistency between UNDP and UNIDO monitoring systems and tools and to conduct outcome-monitoring exercises that capture the direct results of key activities, including the disbursement of low-value grants and loans and the support provided through the National Trade Help Desks. These priorities, together with relevant recommendations from the project’s mid-term evaluation, provide the basis for engaging specialized M&E expertise to strengthen the project’s overall results measurement, learning, and reporting.

SCOPE OF WORK, RESPONSIBILITIES AND DESCRIPTION OF THE PROPOSED ANALYTICAL WORK

Based on the above, UNDP is seeking the services of an experienced Monitoring and Evaluation Senior Specialist to strengthen and operationalize the project’s monitoring, evaluation, and data management systems in line with the recommendations of the project’s mid-term evaluation, conducted in the first quarter of 2026. The appointed consultant will be responsible for conducting two outcome-monitoring tasks, which will serve as practical applications of the strengthened M&E system.

Under the supervision of the Project Manager and in close coordination with the Gender Specialist, the M&E Senior Specialist will be responsible for the following:

• Reviewing the monitoring and evaluation framework: Review the existing Project Monitoring Framework (PMF), including the current indicators, monitoring tools, data collection methodologies, and reporting mechanisms implemented by UNDP and UNIDO. Based on this review, determine the framework for the assignment and harmonize monitoring approaches between UNDP and UNIDO across the project components. The consultant will also assess the adequacy of the project indicators to ensure they are outcome-oriented, sex-disaggregated, and aligned with Leave No One Behind (LNOB) principles.
• Developing a socioeconomic outcome-monitoring framework to capture the short-term changes resulting from low-value grants and loans disbursed to women-led enterprises and developing the related data collection tools: Develop and implement a comprehensive socioeconomic outcome-monitoring methodology to measure the contribution of the low-value grants, loans, and technical assistance provided by UNDP and UNIDO to women-owned and women-led MSMEs. The consultant will design comprehensive data collection tools or survey questionnaires and develop an analytical framework to assess the results of the grants in relation to business growth, employment generation, women’s economic empowerment, business resilience, market access, and financial sustainability. The framework should also incorporate an analysis of the effects of the 2026 conflict on supported MSMEs, enabling the project to distinguish between the impact of the grants and the external disruptions affecting business performance and recovery. The UNDP team will support the consultant in disseminating the survey or questionnaire and coordinating the necessary follow-up with respondents to facilitate data collection. The consultant will be responsible for ensuring that the proposed data collection methods are practical and appropriate and that robust quality assurance procedures are applied throughout the data collection process. This will ensure the accuracy, consistency, completeness, and reliability of the data used for project monitoring, assessment, and reporting. Developing a yearly outcome-monitoring assessment of the Trade Help Desk services: Develop a comprehensive outcome-monitoring framework, including data collection tools, to assess the annual results of the National Trade Help Desk services for SMEs during 2025–2026. The National Trade Help Desk was established in May 2025 at the Ministry of Economy and Trade, with satellite offices in three regional chambers of commerce. It aims to provide guidance and tailored legal and trade advisory services to businesses, particularly those led by women, to support their business operations.The objective of the monitoring exercise is to capture the practical medium- to long-term results of the Help Desk services on business operations. The assessment should also include recommendations for the future enhancement of its services. The M&E Senior Specialist will be provided with a detailed tracking sheet containing all socioeconomic indicators collected from businesses, the progress reports developed by the regional chambers, and the post-service satisfaction surveys completed by SMEs. The consultant is also expected to conduct consultations with the coordinators of the four chambers and is encouraged to hold one focus group discussion with a selected group of beneficiaries.
• Submitting a final M&E strengthening report and recommendations for future activities: Prepare a final Monitoring and Evaluation Strengthening Report summarizing the key findings from the two outcome-monitoring tasks, including the direct results of the disbursed low-value grants and the support provided through the National Trade Help Desks. The final report should also include practical recommendations to strengthen the project’s monitoring and evaluation framework, enhance data verification and quality assurance processes, and improve the integration of Leave No One Behind (LNOB) principles into future activities implemented under this project and beyond.

EXPECTED DELIVERABLES

The consultant is expected to complete the above tasks and activities within a total period not exceeding five months, with a maximum of eight working days per month.

INSTITUTIONAL ARRANGEMENTS

1. The consultant will work under the overall guidance of the WEE Project Manager.
2. The title rights, copyrights, and all other rights of whatsoever nature in any material produced under the provisions of this Terms of Reference will be vested exclusively in UNDP. UNDP will have full ownership of the activity and its final product. Accordingly, any public mention of the activity, including through social media, should clearly acknowledge UNDP’s ownership. In addition, any public appearance related to the activity should be coordinated with and approved by UNDP.
3. UNDP will be responsible for providing the consultant with all necessary project-related materials in a timely, thorough, and transparent manner. UNDP will also be responsible for providing the necessary clarifications and facilitating the work.
4. The consultant shall rely on their own means of communication and shall commute between their place of residence and the duty station at their own expense.

DURATION OF WORK

The assigned duration of this consultancy is five months, with a maximum of eight working days per month.

The assignment is expected to commence on 1 October 2026 and be completed by 1 February 2027.

The time required to review, comment on, and approve deliverables and outputs is five working days.

DUTY STATION

The assignment will be home-based and conducted online, with no field visits required.

STANDARD MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

• Education: At least a Master's degree in economics, development studies, public policy, public administration or another closely related discipline is required
• Experience: At least 10 years of professional experience in monitoring and evaluation, results-based management, outcome monitoring, research, data analysis, or program evaluation within development programs and projects.
• Language: Fluency in Arabic and English.

“The Personnel will be covered with Health insurance and Personal accident insurance; the fees shall be deducted from personnel's monthly payment”.