UNOPS Monitoring and Evaluation Advisor (Value for Money) 148 views

The Livelihoods and Food Security Fund (LIFT) is a multi-donor fund set up in 2009, marking its ten-year anniversary last year. LIFT aims to strengthen the resilience and sustainable livelihoods of poor households by helping people to reach their full economic potential. This is achieved through increasing incomes, improving the nutrition of women and children, and decreasing vulnerabilities to shocks, stresses and adverse trends.

LIFT is a significant actor in Myanmar’s development. To date, over 11.6 million people in 75 per cent of Myanmar’s townships have benefitted from LIFT’s programmes. From January 2019, LIFT has been guided by a new five-year strategy that puts ‘leaving no one behind’ at the centre and will in particular focus on social inclusion and cohesion, increased support to areas affected by conflict, bringing displaced people into LIFT’s development programmes and working with Government at all levels on targeted policies that achieve gains in these areas.

LIFT has received funding from altogether 15 international donors since it was established. The current donors are the UK, the European Union, Switzerland, Australia, the United States of America, Canada and Ireland. For more details, visit www.lift-fund.org.

Background to the position

Value for Money (VfM) is an important area of concern for LIFT and its donors and a key consideration in relation to measurement of aid effectiveness. VfM is concerned with ensuring that aid investments in development interventions translate into intended results in the most economical, efficient, effective and ultimately cost-effective way as possible. Since 2015, LIFT has progressively integrated VfM analysis in its measurement of program performance. Broadly, VfM assessments within LIFT have been undertaken with the following aims:

• Ensure and demonstrate that donor investments in LIFT represent good VfM
• Ensure and demonstrate LIFT investments (i.e. in projects) represent good VfM
• Generate cost-effectiveness evidence for investments that can be used to inform project planning, scale up and replication among others.

While VfM is considered important across different levels of LIFT, the primary focus has been at two levels: LIFT FMO and LIFT Programmes levels. At the FMO level, VfM analysis has mainly focused on three areas namely; operations (how LIFT ought to ensure VfM considerations are taken into account across the project cycle), results (how much LIFT spends to reach individuals/households) and LIFT funding mechanism (whether LIFT’s design as the Multi-Donor Fund offers value for money (e.g. governance structure, coordination and management among others). At the programme level VfM analysis has focused on the following elements;

• Project selection – assessing the extent to which VfM has been reflected in partner project design and its consideration during project selection
• Operations- assessing how VfM considerations have been taken into account in the project cycle and how projects are putting VfM measures into use
• Results – assessing the extent to which the funds invested in interventions have translated into the expected results (i.e. outcomes or generated positive returns)

To ensure alignment of VfM within the overall LIFT MEAL framework, LIFT is in the process of refreshing a comprehensive VfM metrics for the LIFT Strategy 2019-23 logframe indicators. This is one of the key components of the overall VfM framework that is anticipated for the LIFT programme. In order to fully and effectively operationalize this framework across the programme, LIFT recognizes the need for sustained technical support and capacity building at all levels of the programme. The M&E Advisor-VfM is expected to provide this support across the LIFT programme.

This position will be located in the LIFT FMO which is organised around the following teams: programme, M&E, communications and operations. The M&E Advisor-VfM will work with both the LIFT Programmes and M&E teams under the co- supervision of the LIFT Monitoring and Evaluation Advisor and Head of Programs.