Developmental Evaluator

Project Background

The five-year (2019 – 2024) Feed the Future Policy LINK project will strengthen the capacity of local actors and institutions to lead and manage the agricultural transformation process and contribute effectively and collectively to improved, broad-based food security policy outcomes.

Specifically, the program aims to strengthen food security policy systems by investing in and reinforcing productive human and social capital and developing strategic partnerships that help bring these innovations and capacity investments to scale in order to achieve a critical mass of local actors with the ability and opportunity to effect positive policy change through collective action.

Policy LINK’s general approach is grounded in facilitative leadership and collaborative governance, which emphasize engaging stakeholders from civil society and public and private sectors in consensus-oriented decision making, collaborative problem solving, and adaptive learning.

Policy LINK in Bangladesh

The USAID/Policy LINK Bangladesh Policy Activity has a five-year term with the overall objective of contributing to the policy formulation, analysis, reform, and implementation in the country by bringing in voices from a wide range of inclusive stakeholder groups and creating the opportunity for greater agricultural development. The Activity plans to work with existing coalitions/platforms to support them on agricultural policy issues, gaps, and challenges across the four focused policy pillars (seed, social safety net, food safety and nutrition sectors) for policy enactment and/or formulation. The heart of this challenge is that non-state and government actors do not come together easily or frequently enough to share research and learning, debate evidence, and devise joint actions to tackle the multisectoral aspects of food insecurity and advance the policy making process.

To first understand the environment, the Policy Activity has already conducted Policy Mapping and Systems Mapping. The Policy Mapping is to investigate the major policy issues emerging from the four policy pillars that the Activity focuses on. The intent behind this effort is to enhance our own knowledge to enable us to hold better informed discussions with stakeholders actively engaged in these areas. At the same time, the Systems Mapping exercise has been conducted in parallel to identify coalitions, platforms, organizations, and individuals who are important drivers in these four policy areas. The Systems Mapping includes regional stakeholders (within the four regions that the Policy Activity works in – USAID Feed the Future Zone of Influence (Jashore, Barisal, Khulna) and Zone of Resilience (Cox’s Bazar, Bandarban), as well as national agencies. Now in Year 2, the activity is currently conducting an Institutional Architecture Assessment (IAA) to determine the strengths and opportunities within the agriculture systems that impact these four policy areas.

The next major undertaking that the Policy Activity will focus on will be to integrate a Developmental Evaluation throughout its work.

Position Objectives

Policy LINK’s learning strategy is modeled after the developmental evaluation approach, which uses evaluative thinking and tools to drive continuous adaptations to interventions. Developmental evaluations are methodologically agnostic and utilization-focused. They adjust as the project changes and deliver contextualized and emergent findings on an ongoing basis to inform learning and adapting across and within teams. Facilitated learning and the translation of evidence into action are significant components of the developmental evaluation approach as well. These efforts will be supported by knowledge sharing and collaborative adaptive management across policy systems actors, including but not limited to the quarterly knowledge-sharing event for Feed the Future implementing partners.

The Policy LINK Bangladesh Developmental Evaluator’s role is to support continuous data collection and the collaborative interpretation of data, as well as to facilitate adaptations. These supports will be based on a co-designed set of learning questions aimed at improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the Policy LINK Bangladesh interventions, Feed the Future implementing partners, and other DE stakeholders throughout the period of performance. The Developmental Evaluator will be embedded in the Policy LINK Bangladesh team, and will design and carry out the developmental evaluation on a day-to-day basis—collecting and analyzing data and working with evaluation stakeholders to co-create and execute adaptations based on the evidence.

The Policy LINK Bangladesh Developmental Evaluator will continually reinforce Policy LINK’s agreed-upon core purpose and principles, and ensure all decision-making is rooted in those purpose and principles. They will contribute to foster a learning environment in which personal and team growth is supported, with a shared understanding that the “team” always comes before the “individual.”

Responsibilities

The Policy LINK Bangladesh Developmental Evaluator will have overall responsibility for the design and implementation of the DE and for ensuring its quality. The Evaluator will be responsible for the following:

• Facilitate Acculturation Workshop(s) for DE stakeholders, which will help to collaboratively conceptualize and develop the DE design and approach (learning framework, methodology, work plans, reporting, etc.);
• Develop a living work plan for the evaluation, including an initial set of utilization-focused deliverables (which may change over time, depending on the needs of the program);
• Identify, manage, and implement DE-specific evaluative and data collection needs aligned with the DE Questions;
• Provide quality assurance of all deliverables, including regular intermediate report logs (that track details of DE and document all events that occur — i.e., planned, unplanned, and associated outcomes) and the final report of the evaluation;
• Conduct data verification and other quality assurance activities on the DE data and database;
• Conduct analysis of the DE data collected and present engaging, use-focused feedback regularly to program staff and key partners and facilitate uptake of recommendations and associated adaption tracking;
• Facilitate regular meetings with program leadership, relevant stakeholders at all levels, and monitoring and evaluation staff as needed to collect data and facilitate adaptation;
• Design, test, and disseminate CLAME tools in relation to the DE, adaptive management practices, and other relevant needs identified emergently over the course of the DE implementation;
• Manage consultants in Bangladesh for short-term data collection or analysis DE needs if applicable;
• Track and communicate high-quality information to stakeholders to inform timely and data-driven decision-making; regularly record decision-making, program changes, and/or changes in the environment in a report log;
• Support Policy System Actors, Policy LINK and USAID in the development and dissemination of thought leadership and learning content from the DE, including the preparation of responses and products;
• Participate in regular project management planning meetings and provide analytical feedback and support to inform technical decisions;
• Work with the technical teams and the global MEL team to identify appropriate learning questions and outcomes of interest for the activity; and,
• Facilitate and/or provide M&E training to the project staff and partners as may be necessary.

Reporting

The Policy LINK Bangladesh Developmental Evaluator will report to the Project-Level Developmental Evaluator as part of Policy LINK’s global MEL team, but will be fully embedded and engage on a day-to-day basis with the Policy LINK Bangladesh Team, particularly with the team of the CLA Director.

Qualifications

This position is open only for Bangladeshi nationals.

Education

• A Master’s degree in a discipline that demonstrates complementarity to the scope of requirements (e.g. social science, organizational theory/behavior/communications, international development, or related focus).

Required Experience

• 10+ years of relevant work experience especially conducting evaluations, providing MEL support to a donor-funded project, and facilitating data-driven adaptations.
• Evaluation experience in Resilience, Food Security, Policy Processes, Agriculture, International Development, and/or related field;
• Extensive technical knowledge, skills, and expertise in evaluation design, concepts, and approaches, and evaluating complexity in particular;
• Multifaceted facilitation skills, including with multicultural audiences, particularly related to programmatic and organizational learning;
• Familiarity with USAID’s organizational structure, program cycle, and operating context;
• Familiarity with Developmental Evaluation, including skills such as:
• Active engagement and respect for local stakeholders and partners, ethical research (maintains confidentiality and anonymity when required), flexibility, energy, humility, willingness to learn on the go, and proactive conflict management;
• Strong analytical skills to support both qualitative and quantitative research;
• Excellent oral and written communication and report-writing skills in English;
• Keen attention to detail, especially related to documenting data and associated processes; and
• Leadership and strategic thinking skills;
• Active listening, proactive learning, and time management skills, with readiness to be in a learning role; and,
• Previous experience and comfort with working for multiple stakeholders with competing priorities/interests.