Senior Impact Evaluation Advisor

Macfadden, an Amentum company, is seeking a Senior Impact Evaluation Advisor to support the Office of Technical and Program Quality (TPQ) in USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA). BHA leads and coordinates the U.S. Government’s humanitarian assistance efforts overseas in response to natural disasters and complex emergencies. The Bureau also supports early recovery efforts that restore and protect basic systems and services and invests in risk reduction programs that prevent or reduce risks associated with chronic and recurrent hazards.

The Senior Impact Evaluation Advisor will provide technical leadership on BHA’s portfolio of experimental and quasi-experimental impact evaluations, ensure that impact evaluations are designed to answer policy-relevant questions using best available methods, and that evaluation findings are available and accessible to decision makers to improve future program design, inform BHA policies and strategies, and ultimately increase the effectiveness of humanitarian response, early recovery, risk reduction, and resilience programs. The Senior Impact Evaluation Advisor is a part of TPQ’s Design, Monitoring, Evaluation, and Applied Learning (DMEAL) Division, which leads BHA’s efforts to ensure high-quality programming, rigor, and innovation through strategic planning and activity design, consistent and effective performance monitoring, comprehensive and appropriate evaluation, and learning across the full spectrum of BHA responses and programming. The Senior Impact Evaluation Advisor’s day-to-day work assignments and oversight will be provided by the Monitoring and Evaluation Team Lead, with formal supervisory and evaluation functions performed by a Macfadden contract supervisor.

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

The Senior Impact Evaluation Advisor will perform the following duties and responsibilities:

Technical Assistance

Coordination and Collaboration

Capacity Building

Data Analysis

EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE:

REQUIRED SKILLS:

Ability to obtain and maintain a US Government issued Secret clearance for the duration of your employment. Only applicants who currently hold an active Secret or higher-level security clearance or who are eligible to receive a Secret security clearance will be considered for this position.

• Provide technical assistance to BHA staff and partners on the design and implementation of impact evaluations
• Lead initial Evaluability Assessments to determine the most appropriate evaluation approach for new activities, including identifying priority evaluation questions and reviewing the feasibility of different impact evaluation designs.
• Lead the drafting of Statements of Work (SOWs) for new impact evaluations.
• Review deliverables from evaluation partners, including proposals, pre-analysis plans/protocols, data collection instruments, indicator tables, data deliverables, and written reports.
• Provide technical assistance to BHA, USAID Mission, and partner staff to design and implement monitoring systems for humanitarian response, early recovery, risk reduction, and resilience programs.
• Review monitoring approaches, indicators, and evaluation methods proposed in proposals for humanitarian response, early recovery, risk reduction, and resilience programs.
• Review semi-annual and annual results reports submitted by implementing partners; identify challenges and lessons learned, synthesize and aggregate data, and prepare summary reports.
• Collaborate with external evaluation teams, implementing partners, BHA Geographic Offices, and Mission staff on the design and implementation of impact evaluations.
• Coordinate with other BHA TPQ teams on impact evaluation initiatives
• Represent BHA in engagements with other relevant bureaus on the use of impact evaluation
• Develop and conduct training on impact evaluation methods and evaluation management for BHA staff
• Develop and conduct training on impact evaluation for BHA implementing partners.
• Review data deliverables from evaluation partners (including datasets and code) to ensure that the code runs and that results can be replicated.
• Where feasible, conduct push-button replications of completed impact evaluations to ensure that the findings are replicable. Review results and flag errors for the AOR/COR of the evaluation award.
• Requires a Bachelor’s degree and 15 years of experience, a Master’s degree and 12 years of experience, or a PhD and 8 years of experience; preferably with significant study in or pertinent to the specialized field, including but not limited to, economics, public policy, agricultural economics, statistics, nutrition, sociology, and anthropology with a focus on econometrics or statistics.
• A minimum of five (5) years of practical experience in designing and implementation of impact evaluations using both experimental and quasi experimental methods.
• Proficiency with analytical software such as Stata, R, or SPSS.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced environment and consistently meet deadlines.
• Ability to pay strict attention to detail and quality.
• Strong communication and organizational skills.
• Ability to work well with others to ensure that tasks are completed well and on time.