As a member of the UN Resident Coordinator’s Office (RCO) and the Peacebuilding Fund Secretariat for Somalia, the Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Officer is under the overall supervision of the Head of the RCO and the direct supervision of the Peacebuilding Fund Coordinator (PBF Coordinator). The M&E Officer will support the Peacebuilding Fund Coordinator in overseeing the implementation of the Peacebuilding Priority Plan and ensuring due monitoring and evaluation of the Peacebuilding Fund portfolio in Somalia together with recipient UN organizations and government counterparts. The M&E Officer will work closely with the Strategic Planning and Monitoring Officer in the RCO in support of corporate reporting requirements for the UN in Somalia, as well as with the National Project Officer responsible for administrative and financial issues, and the Communication Officer.
Somalia is on a positive trajectory. Significant progress on the peacebuilding and State-building agenda has been achieved over the past decade, most notably through the formation of all federal member states, the reestablishment of state institutions, and democratization. At the same time, the remaining challenges are manifold. Progress in the political and security fields must yield peace dividends for the population, including access to basic services such as health, education, and justice. The onus is now on the federal member states to further the reconciliation and decentralization processes at the district level to ensure the inclusivity and effectiveness of their institutions. In that process, the international community has a critical role to play to support government-led stabilization efforts which will enable state and district authorities to establish their presence and improve the capacity and legitimacy vis-à-vis their constituents. However, nascent regional and local authorities are scrambling to find resources to fulfil essential administrative tasks and provide basic services. Socio-economic developments are not keeping up with general progress on state formation process, which could undermine the fragile gains made. For the citizens to buy into the State-building process they will need to experience a tangible positive difference in their lives, which means that a) the government will need to be associated with an improvement in the quality of life of the citizens and b) the government system itself needs to be service-oriented, transparent, accountable and predictable in its functioning. It is predominantly through these two elements that the peace dividend materializes.
The Peacebuilding Fund portfolio in Somalia currently consists of 14 projects with a combined value of approximately 35 million USD. The portfolio is aligned with the overarching policy frameworks for Somalia, including the National Development Plan (2017-2019) and the UN Strategic Framework (2017-2020). A Peacebuilding Priority Plan (2016-2019) sets out the specific peacebuilding priorities for the Fund’s investment in Somalia, namely: 1) government structures and institutions at federal, regional, district and community levels are strengthened, more accountable, transparent and better able to respond to the needs of marginalized and vulnerable populations; 2) populations experience positive changes through access to justice, sustainable livelihoods and basic services.
The urgency to bring tangible peace dividends to the populations living in newly recovered areas and to rebuild the state-citizen link in that process has prompted the Peacebuilding Fund to support the UN Resident Coordinator’s Office with an injection of technical capacity in order to assist the UN, the Federal Government of Somalia and the federal member states to develop project proposals, coordinate implementation of the Peacebuilding Priority Plan, and monitor and evaluate the portfolio of investments. |
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