Learning and Scaling Lead, Nigeria

The UNOPS Global Portfolios Office (GPO) brings together diverse expertise to help partners deliver impact worldwide. With hubs in New York, Geneva, and Vienna, and expert teams operating globally, GPO leads multi-regional initiatives that advance sustainable development, climate action, and peacebuilding - including in some of the world’s most challenging environments. By leveraging our collective expertise and global networks, GPO supports UNOPS’ strategic priorities and the Sustainable Development Goals across more than 130 countries. We work closely with major global partners - including governments, international financial institutions, and UN agencies - to deliver a wide range of services, such as project management, fund management, hosting services, and HR support.

From Geneva, UNOPS facilitates the achievement of the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), working with governments, other United Nations (UN) agencies and partners by providing quality servces, integrated solutions and management support through strategic, cost-effective and results-oriented approches. This includes supporting platforms and hosting high-profile, flagship initiatives and funds focusing on health, nutrition, water and sanitation, sustainable cities, environment, energy, climate and trade. UNOPS is a recognized resource for the UN system in Geneva – from fund management and oversight and advisory services, to providing hosting solutions to a range of global initiatives, as well as operational support to partner organizations.

From Geneva, UNOPS facilitates the achievement of the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), working with governments, other United Nations (UN) agencies and partners by providing quality servces, integrated solutions and management support through strategic, cost-effective and results-oriented approches. This includes supporting platforms and hosting high-profile, flagship initiatives and funds focusing on health, nutrition, water and sanitation, sustainable cities, environment, energy, climate and trade. UNOPS is a recognized resource for the UN system in Geneva – from fund management and oversight and advisory services, to providing hosting solutions to a range of global initiatives, as well as operational support to partner organizations.

About the Region

The UNOPS Global Portfolios Office (GPO) brings together diverse expertise to help partners deliver impact worldwide. With hubs in New York, Geneva, and Vienna, and expert teams operating globally, GPO leads multi-regional initiatives that advance sustainable development, climate action, and peacebuilding - including in some of the world’s most challenging environments. By leveraging our collective expertise and global networks, GPO supports UNOPS’ strategic priorities and the Sustainable Development Goals across more than 130 countries. We work closely with major global partners - including governments, international financial institutions, and UN agencies - to deliver a wide range of services, such as project management, fund management, hosting services, and HR support.

About the Country Office

From Geneva, UNOPS facilitates the achievement of the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), working with governments, other United Nations (UN) agencies and partners by providing quality services, integrated solutions and management support through strategic, cost-effective and results-oriented approaches. This includes supporting platforms and hosting high-profile, flagship initiatives and funds focusing on health, nutrition, water and sanitation, sustainable cities, environment, energy, climate and trade. UNOPS is a recognized resource for the UN system in Geneva – from fund management and oversight and advisory services, to providing hosting solutions to a range of global initiatives, as well as operational support to partner organizations.

About the Country/Multi-Country Office

Education is one of the most powerful drivers of progress, yet seven out of ten children in low- and middle-income countries cannot read with understanding by age 10. Meanwhile, half of education programmes show no measurable impact on learning or employment. Global spending on education is falling short by an estimated $100 billion each year. Traditional approaches have not delivered the transformation required to meet Sustainable Development Goal 4. The Education Outcomes Fund (EOF) was created to address these challenges — by shifting how education is funded, how success is measured, and how systems are held accountable. We are part of a global movement to turn education financing into real learning and employment outcomes, especially for the most disadvantaged children and youth.

Job Specific Context

The Education Outcomes Fund (EOF) is a global initiative transforming how education and skills are financed and delivered. We partner with governments, donors, investors, and implementers to make education systems more effective, equitable, and accountable.

The Education Outcomes Fund (EOF), in partnership with the Lagos State Government, the Federal Ministry of Education (FME), the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, and UBS Optimus Foundation, has launched the Learning and Education Access Fund (LEAF) Nigeria programme. LEAF is one of the largest outcomes-based education programmes globally and aims to improve access to and quality of basic education for up to 200,000 children in Lagos State.

The programme has two complementary objectives:

• Enrol and retain out-of-school children (OOSC) aged 6–14 into mainstream education through community outreach, school-readiness interventions, accelerated learning support, and sustained retention efforts.

• Improve learning environments in selected schools through interventions focused on teaching quality, school leadership, safeguarding, inclusion, foundational literacy and numeracy, data-driven school improvement, and community engagement.

The programme uses an Outcomes-Based Financing (OBF) model whereby payments to implementing partners are linked to independently verified results. Programme outcomes include school placement, school retention, learning gains, and effective utilisation of programme.

The Learning and Scaling Lead will support the Country Lead to develop and implement a learning, scaling, and evidence synthesis agenda that translates programme evidence into operational insights and actionable policy recommendations.

The Learning and Scaling Lead will undertake the following responsibilities:

Design a Learning, Scaling and Evidence Synthesis Agenda

• Support the Country Lead to design the Learning, Scaling and Evidence Synthesis Agenda by including contributing to defining learning priorities, research questions, decision cycles and validation mechanisms.

• Contribute to the development of tools and systems to track progress against learning and scaling milestones.

• Recommend and help set-up tools to standardize reporting and data collection, to enable real‑time evidence sharing across program partners.

• Design and support the programme’s knowledge management architecture, including repositories, reporting templates, documentation standards, and evidence-sharing workflows, to ensure that learning and evidence are systematically captured, stored, and accessible across partners

Program Learning and Evidence Generation

• Collect data and generate evidence on what works throughout program delivery and surface lessons learned.

• Facilitating cross-partner knowledge exchange, such as by convening peer-learning workshops and documenting emerging insights, challenges and adaptive practices shared by implementing partners and pre-financers.

• Coordinate drafting reports that consolidate cross-partner evidence into actionable recommendations for EOF strategic decision-making and for government planning, funding strategies and policies, both during and after implementation.

• Lead the dissemination of key evidence and learnings through sector-wide dialogues and help identify opportunities for coordination across related initiatives.

• Support the collection and analysis of data on how outcomes-based contracts influence organizational practices and system collaboration.

• Lead the development and quality assurance of knowledge products, including learning briefs, policy notes, implementation insights, case studies, slide decks, donor-ready summaries, and sector-facing publications, ensuring consistency, clarity, and relevance for different audiences.

Program Scale-Up and and Sustainability

• Contribute to draft policy briefs, learning notes, and strategic recommendations.

• Support the Country Lead to interpret and apply evidence in planning and decision-making processes.

• Contribute evidence inputs to national policy discussions and technical working groups.

• Support dissemination of findings through national and regional platforms.

Capacity Development

1. Build the capacity of government counterparts on OBF; use of data and evidence in routine decision-making moving the system towards learning outcomes

2. Design and facilitate learning forums and peer-learning exchanges.

3. Convene stakeholders from government, civil society, donors, research institutions, and implementing partners.

4. Capture and disseminate lessons learned across districts and implementation sites.

Required

• Bachelor’s degree in International Development, Public Policy, Education, Economics, Political Science, or similar.

Desired

• Master’s degree in International Development, Public Policy, Education, or similar is an asset and may be accepted in lieu of part of the experience.

Required

• Minimum of 7 years experience in education, skills-for-employment, development and/or policy programs.

• Experience working with national and/or sub-national governments, preferably within the education, skills-for-employment or broader development sectors.

• Experince in education and/or skills-for-employment policy and systems strengthening, including pathways for program scale-up and sustainability, or other closely related experience.

Desired

• Experience with innovative financing mechanisms (particularly outcomes funds), performance management frameworks or large donor-funded programs is an asset.

• Experience should ideally include evidence generation, policy analysis, system reform or scaling innovative practices

• Proven track record of producing high-quality analytical reports, policy briefs and evidence-based recommendations.
  

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