Interview and Facilitation Specialist, USAID MENA Humanitarian-Development Coherence Study in the Education Sector at Social Impact

Social Impact 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.

Project Objective:

Under the Middle East Education Research, Training and Support (MEERS) initiative, USAID has commissioned Social Impact to conduct a study on humanitarian-development coherence (HDC) in the education sector across the MENA region. HDC has been an elevated policy priority for the USG since 2016, following the World Humanitarian Summit. It is relevant to countries that suffer from chronic conflict or crisis and makes a distinction between humanitarian modalities—those that focus on the creation of parallel service delivery systems when government and local systems have been overwhelmed—and development modalities—those that focus on systemic reform and institutional capacity building in direct partnership with a national government. In the past, policy makers in both camps assumed that over time, most countries in need of humanitarian aid would eventually shift to development assistance. Many countries, however, do not follow this pattern, and rather undergo chronic crises that create a back-and-forth pattern, or else both modalities exist at the same time in the same country. Today, individual bilateral, multilateral, and nongovernmental donors support both kinds of aid, and global and local implementing partners endeavor to serve their target populations in both ways.

The objectives of this study are to gather data, evidence, analysis, and tools that USAID Missions and Bureaus can use in the following ways:

1. To inform how to sequence, layer and coordinate humanitarian aid and development assistance to achieve education sector goals.
2. To better understand the role of institutional practices and financing models in enabling or hindering coherence between humanitarian aid and development assistance organizations in the education sector.
3. To identify potential opportunities for improved coherence between humanitarian and development actors in the education and other sectors, and develop, improve, or test specific policies, processes, and tools to increase their coherence and effectiveness.

Position Description:

Social Impact is seeking an Interview and Facilitation Specialist in support of this education-sector study for USAID focused on humanitarian-development coherence. The Interview and Facilitation Specialist will be primarily responsible for conducting interviews with stakeholders relevant to this study and will also participate in producing technical reports and presentations, translating documents, and conducting qualitative data analysis. This is a fully remote, part-time consulting opportunity with a period of performance from December 2021 to April 2022.

Responsibilities:

• Participate in a literature and archival review at the outset of the study.
• Provide technical contributions to the design report and assist with the completion of project deliverables as requested.
• Support the design of data collection instruments and conduct semi-structured interviews with donor, NGO, implementing partner, and local government staff.
• Analyze qualitative data from the literature review and data collection stage.
• Contribute to writing the draft and final reports for USAID.
• Translate Arabic-language documents and interview transcripts into English.
• Communicate regularly with the Team Leader and SI HQ to ensure timely production and submission of deliverables.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in education, international development, or similar field and at least five years of relevant work experience.
• Experience conducting qualitative interviews with actors in the education, humanitarian aid, donor, and government sectors.
• Quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis experience in crisis and conflict contexts.
• Previous work experience in the MENA region.
• Prior experience working with USAID preferred.
• Oral and written fluency in English and Arabic required.