Senior Evaluation Lead, USAID MESP - Social Impact

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 anticipated scope of the five-year project is to support USAID/Ghana 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). The anticipated start date is not yet determined.

The MESP activities will encompass the Mission’s Development Objectives:

• Strengthened responsive, democratic governance
• Sustainable and broadly shared economic growth
• Equitable improvements in health status
• Improved reading performance in primary school

Position Description:

SI is seeking a full-time Senior Evaluation Lead 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 Ghana. The Evaluation Lead will serve as a core team member on a full-time basis throughout the five-year period of performance.

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

Responsibilities:

• Oversee evaluation, analyses, and assessments throughout the life of the activity, including data collection, design of evaluation methodologies and participatory data collection methods and protocols, as well as data quality verification techniques.
• Responsible for the design, quality, and final deliverables of all evaluations reports and any evaluations, assessments, surveys, and studies including the testing of the development hypotheses, where feasible. This will include the design of the evaluation methodology and participatory data collection methods and protocols for both performance and impact evaluations.
• Ensure that short- and long-term evaluation team members recruited under this contract are of a high caliber and possess the required technical expertise.
• Provide leadership and guidance on the overall Evaluation effort, and in conjunction with the Collaboration, Learning, and Adaptation (CLA) Lead, help support the Mission’s IPs as learning and adaptive partners for all USAID’s assistance efforts in Ghana.
• Work with Chief of Party (COP), Senior Monitoring and Verification Lead, and Senior CLA Lead, ensuring 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.
• Support the USAID/Ghana’s staff in accessing strategic learning tools, as well as in providing guidance and support to the activity’s evaluation services component including but not limited to knowledge mobilization and knowledge management mechanisms.
• 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 seven years professional work experience in the design, management, and implementation of evaluations including impact and performance, analyses, and assessments.
• Proven skills in evaluation design, methods, quantitative, and qualitative methodologies and analysis.
• Excellent quantitative data analysis skills including good command of statistics, sampling methodologies, and statistical analysis software such as SPSS, STATA, Epi Info, among others.
• Excellent qualitative data analysis skills including command of at least one coding software/program for qualitative data (Dedoose, NVivo, AtlasTi, etc).
• 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.

Come join our energetic and innovative team!  We offer you the opportunity to play a leading role in the growth of our company, work as part of a creative and committed team, and make a difference in the well-being of our world.