Senior Assessment and Evaluation Advisor, USAID/Nigeria Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Support Activity (MELSA)

Social Impact (SI) is a global development management consulting firm. We provide monitoring, evaluation, strategic planning, and capacity building services to advance development effectiveness. We work across all development sectors including democracy and governance, health and education, the environment, and economic growth. Since 1997, we have worked in over 100 countries for clients such as US government agencies, bilateral donors, multilateral development banks, foundations, and nonprofits.

Proposal Objective:

The purpose of this five-year project is to support USAID/Nigeria staff and partners to implement more efficient, effective, and transparent activities by improving: (1) USAID and Implementing Partner’s (IP) capacity to achieve expected results; (2) USAID’s understanding and tracking of activity and project performance; and (3) Mission and activity ability to collaborate, learn, and adapt (CLA).

Position Description:
SI is seeking a full-time Senior Assessment and Evaluation Advisor who will be responsible for the overall management and functioning of all evaluation, assessment, survey, and special study tasks, as well as related cross-cutting tasks under this activity. This position will be based in Abuja. The Senior Assessment and Evaluation Advisor will serve as a core team member on a full-time basis throughout the five-year period of performance.

Please note: Only candidates with Nigerian citizenship will be considered.

Responsibilities:

• Oversee evaluation, analyses, and assessments throughout the life of the activity, including scope of work development, data collection, design of methodologies and protocols, data analysis and reporting writing.
• Participate as the Team Leader or senior team member on assessments and evaluations, as needed.
• Ensure the quality of deliverables/reporting of all evaluations, assessments, surveys, and special studies.
• Oversee Mid-Level MEL Specialists and consultants who participate on assessment and evaluation teams. Ensure that short- and long-term evaluation team members recruited under this contract are of a high caliber and possess the required technical expertise.
• Work with the Chief of Party (COP) and other team leads to ensure that evaluation information is shared and fully utilized through knowledge sharing and strategic learning processes to speed innovation and improve upon and bring new innovations to the Mission’s programmatic work in-country.
• Provide support, leadership, and technical expertise to overall management of the activity to ensure that the activity meets all its performance and reporting requirements.

Qualifications:

• Master’s degree in a relevant field, and a minimum of ten years of professional work experience in the design, management, and implementation of assessments, evaluations, analyses, and special studies.
• Expertise conducting MEL activities in one or more of the following technical fields: 1) Economic Growth and Environment; 2) Education; 3) Health; 4) Peace and Democratic Governance.
• Proven skills in quantitative and qualitative methodologies.
• Excellent qualitative data analysis skills including command of at least one coding software/program for qualitative data (Dedoose, NVivo, AtlasTi, etc).
• Excellent quantitative data analysis skills including good command of statistics, sampling methodologies, and statistical analysis software such as SPSS, STATA, Epi Info, among others.
• Expertise in cost-benefit analysis, econometric methodologies, or statistical systems highly preferred.
• Extensive experience drafting and finalizing evaluation reports.
• Experience providing training and mentoring for groups of various sizes and one-on-one on evaluation- related subjects.
• Previous experience supporting USAID-funded contracts desired.
• Computer literate and possess superior oral and written communication skills.
• Fluency in written and spoken English required.
• Demonstrated ability to manage high-level relationships with partner organizations and implementing partners.