UNICEF works in over 190 countries and territories to save children’s lives, defend their rights, and help them fulfill their potential, from early childhood through adolescence.

At UNICEF, we are committed, passionate, and proud of what we do for as long as we are needed. Promoting the rights of every child is not just a job – it is a calling.

UNICEF is a place where careers are built. We offer our staff diverse opportunities for professional and personal development that will help them reinforce a sense of purpose while serving children and communities across the world. We welcome everyone who wants to belong and grow in a diverse and passionate culture., coupled with an attractive compensation and benefits package.

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For every child, the right to education 

The UNICEF Strategic Plan, 2022–2025, sets out the organization’s vision for achieving results for children by 2030. This evaluation focuses on Goal Area 2 “Every child, including adolescents, learns and acquires skills for the future”. Within this Goal Area, Result Area 2 (Learning, skills, participation and engagement) emphases transferable skills for children, adolescents, and young people as a vehicle to achieve learning results. The UNICEF work on education is articulated in the Education Strategy Every Child Learns: UNICEF Education Strategy 2019-2030 and describes the organization’s priorities, including the work on transferable skills.

Transferable skills are also known as life skills, 21st century skills, soft skills, or socio-emotional skills allow children, adolescents, and youth to become agile, adaptive learners and citizens equipped to navigate personal, academic, social, economic challenges, and crisis-affected children. Transferable skills include foundational skills of literacy and numeracy, problem solving, negotiation, managing emotions, empathy, and communication, among others, and they work alongside knowledge and values to connect, reinforce, and develop other skills that are required for lifelong learning, such as digital skills and job-specific skills. 

This independent evaluation serves a dual purpose of accountability and learning, aligned with the mid-term implementation of UNICEF’s Global Education Strategy and the end-term of the Strategic Plan. From an accountability perspective, the evaluation will generate evidence on UNICEF’s performance in supporting the decentralized function and it will assess the conceptual foundations of UNICEF-supported transferable skills programming and the achievement of intermediate and final outcomes. From a learning perspective, the evaluation will distill UNICEF’s unique experiences, practices, and lessons across diverse contexts to inform adaptive programming and policy decisions.

How can you make a difference?

The consultant will be recruited as part of the evaluation team of the global evaluation of UNICEF work on Acquisition of Transferable Skills among young people. As a national evaluator this consultancy will support data collection for the Republic of Moldova country evaluation. This country evaluation, a sub-product of the global evaluation, aims to generate systematic evidence to the extent to which UNICEF has supported the acquisition of transferable skills that will enable children, adolescents, and young people to be responsible and productive citizens.

The country evaluation will use the overall conceptual framework and methodology of the global evaluation (adapted to the country context) to assess UNICEF-supported transferable skills programmes and the coherence of commitments made to the country. It will also examine target results, focusing on system strengthening and enabling environments to achieve outcomes, and provide forward-looking recommendations for programme improvements. Given the changes to the organization structure and new strategic priorities drafted in the new Strategic Plan 2026-2029, the objectives, evaluation questions and methodology have been revised from the original Terms of Reference.

Scope of Work

Evaluation objectives:

1. To assess the relevance of UNICEF strategic and conceptual approach to transferable skills development, including its alignment with evolving national learning and skills agendas;
2. To assess the contribution of UNICEF’s transferable skills work in meeting the learning and skills development targets set for all adolescents and young people, including marginalized groups;
3. To examine the internal coherence of UNICEF supported transferable skills programming in different contexts;
4. To assess UNICEF ability to create enabling environment for transferable skills work, as well as to identify factors that enable or hinder the national ownership, sustainability and scalability of these efforts, to improve results for all adolescents and young people.

Scope: This evaluation has been methodologically designed and aligned as a sub-product of the global Evaluation of UNICEF work on Acquisition of Transferable Skills. Building on the information collected as part of the global evaluation, the scope of this exercise is the Moldova country office's work on transferable skills between 2019 and 2025, which requires additional data collection and analysis. In addition, this evaluation will include a participatory approach to include the advice of youth groups. This country-level evaluation will benefit from comparative evidence produced through the global evaluation.

Governance arrangements: This sub-product of the global evaluation will be managed and implemented in direct coordination between the Evaluation Office manager and the Moldova Country Office evaluation focal person, as agreed with the CO evaluation focal point and supported by the Eastern Europe and Central Asia multi-country evaluation specialist. Reference Group members from the country office and the regional office have been invited to participate. The identification of a youth group and the engagement with key national stakeholders will be coordinated by the Moldova country office. The youth group will be invited to advise, particularly in the foresight phase.

Team composition requirement: The global evaluation team includes a thematic expert (education, transferable skills), a senior technical evaluator, a qualitative technical expert, and a quantitative specialist, with complementary skills, experience, and country experience considerations.  The national consultant will support the data collection phase for Moldova, including the transcription of documents and data collection tools, the scheduling of interviews with key stakeholders, the interpretation of interviews, and the contextualization of emerging findings.

Deliverables: 

 2026 ToR_Nat Indiv Consultant_Global Evaluation of Transferable Skills_VA.pdf

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have

• Master’s degree in a relevant field of social sciences, with an advantage for degrees or major emphases in education, public policy, economics, evaluation, or related evidence fields.
• Minimum of three years of professional experience in evaluation exercises, with evidence of thematic experience in education.
• Expertise with qualitative data collection and analyses, including semi-structured interviews; focus group discussions; and innovative data collection methods.
• Proven experience in or with the Moldovan education system. Understanding UNICEF’s education programmes and priorities would be a strong asset.
• Demonstrated ability to collaborate with a team at the talent and experience level required.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills in Romanian and Russian. Working knowledge of  English is required.
• Ability to travel locally is required during the data collection phase in the country.

For every Child, you demonstrate...

UNICEF’s Core Values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust and Accountability and Sustainability (CRITAS) underpin everything we do and how we do it. Get acquainted with Our Values Charter: UNICEF Values

UNICEF promotes and advocates for the protection of the rights of every child, everywhere, in everything it does and is mandated to support the realization of the rights of every child, including those most disadvantaged, and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, minority, or any other status.

UNICEF encourages applications from all qualified candidates, regardless of gender, nationality, religious or ethnic backgrounds, and from people with disabilities, including neurodivergence. We offer a wide range of benefits to our staff, including paid parental leave, breastfeeding breaks and reasonable accommodation for persons with disabilities. UNICEF provides reasonable accommodation throughout the recruitment process. If you require any accommodation, please submit your request through the accessibility email button on the UNICEF Careers webpage Accessibility | UNICEF. Should you be shortlisted, please get in touch with the recruiter directly to share further details, enabling us to make the necessary arrangements in advance.

UNICEF does not hire candidates who are married to children (persons under 18). UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination based on gender, nationality, age, race, sexual orientation, religious or ethnic background or disabilities. UNICEF is committed to promote the protection and safeguarding of all children. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks, and will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check, and selected candidates with disabilities may be requested to submit supporting documentation in relation to their disability confidentially.

UNICEF appointments are subject to medical clearance.  Issuance of a visa by the host country of the duty station is required for IP positions and will be facilitated by UNICEF. Appointments may also be subject to inoculation (vaccination) requirements, including against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid). Should you be selected for a position with UNICEF, you either must be inoculated as required or receive a medical exemption from the relevant department of the UN. Otherwise, the selection will be canceled.

Qualified candidates are invited to submit the following documents via the online recruitment portal only - TMS (Talent Management System):

• An up-to-date TMS profile and Curriculum Vitae (CV)
• Cover Letter
• Summary of suitability vis-à-vis the requirements of this TOR, as follow: (a) Master’s degree in a relevant field of social sciences, with an advantage for degrees or major emphases in education, public policy, economics, evaluation, or related evidence fields; (b) Minimum of three years of professional experience in evaluation exercises, with evidence of thematic experience in education; (c) Expertise with qualitative data collection and analyses, including semi-structured interviews; focus group discussions; and innovative data collection methods; (d) Proven experience in or with the Moldovan education system. Understanding UNICEF’s education programmes and priorities would be a strong asset. (e) Demonstrated ability to collaborate with a team at the talent and experience level required; (f) Excellent written and oral communication skills in Romanian and Russian. Working knowledge of English is required.
• Contacts of 3 References
• Financial Offer (Template:  Financial Offer_Global Evaluation of Transferable Skills.docx)

Remarks:  

As per Article 101, paragraph 3, of the Charter of the United Nations, the paramount consideration in the employment of the staff is the necessity of securing the highest standards of efficiency, competence, and integrity.

UNICEF is committed to fostering an inclusive, representative, and welcoming workforce. For this position, eligible and suitable candidates from targeted underrepresented groups are encouraged to apply.

Government employees who are considered for employment with UNICEF are normally required to resign from their government positions before taking up an assignment with UNICEF. UNICEF reserves the right to withdraw an offer of appointment, without compensation, if a visa or medical clearance is not obtained, or necessary inoculation requirements are not met, within a reasonable period for any reason. 

UNICEF does not charge a processing fee at any stage of its recruitment, selection, and hiring processes (i.e., application stage, interview stage, validation stage, or appointment and training). UNICEF will not ask for applicants’ bank account information.

Humanitarian action is a cross-cutting priority within UNICEF’s Strategic Plan. UNICEF is committed to stay and deliver in humanitarian contexts. Therefore, all staff, at all levels across all functional areas, can be called upon to be deployed to support humanitarian response, contributing to both strengthening resilience of communities and capacity of national authorities.

All UNICEF positions are advertised, and only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process. An internal candidate performing at the level of the post in the relevant functional area, or an internal/external candidate in the corresponding Talent Group, may be selected, if suitable for the post, without assessment of other candidates.

Additional information about working for UNICEF can be found here.