(Senior) Research/Monitoring & Evaluations Specialist

Organization: Aflatoun

Location: Netherlands

Job type: Full time

Salary: Between € 3431 and € 4204 per month

Comment: Inclusive of pension, health insurance, holiday allowance and national insurance contributions

Deadline:15/06/2022

The Organization

Aflatoun International is a non-profit organization, which offers social, financial & entrepreneurship education to children and young people worldwide, empowering them to make a positive change for a more equitable world. Aflatoun creates high-quality curricula for different age groups, which are contextualized to local needs and circumstances, and are implemented by over 300 partner organizations in 101 countries. Aflatoun programmes inspire children to discover their talents and put them to use, to stand up for their rights and those of their communities through active learning and problem solving. They learn how to save, how to budget, and how to set up social and financial enterprises that benefit themselves, their families and their communities. Aflatoun has been recognized globally (Brookings, Harvard, HundrEd, Million Lives Club) for its high-impact, low-cost model, which has shown to be effective in changing behaviors of participants across the globe.

By using a social franchise model, Aflatoun transfers curricular content, monitoring and evaluation tools, and training capacity to partner organisations, helping them enhance their existing expertise and create an efficient learning ecosystem. Aflatoun’s programmes follow an active-learning, participant- centered methodology, which combines social and financial education (SFE) through engaging participants, educators, government institutions and civil society organisations.

Are you an expert in social and/or financial education with a broad view that will help shape the research agenda to reach our organisation’s strategic goals? Do you have a master’s degree in education, economics, psychology, or a similar domain? Do you have experience with projects in an international context, mainly outside Europe? Would you like to work for the world’s leading organisation delivering social and financial education? Would you like to be involved in research that embraces 21st century global challenges such as urbanisation, climate change and digitalization? Would you like to work in a dynamic multi-cultural work environment? Do you currently work at an academic institute or in M&E at an international NGO? If you can answer ‘yes’ to some of these questions, then we are looking for you as our new colleague at Aflatoun International!

Key Areas of Responsibility

Primary Research

• Conduct research studies expanding evidence, organizational learning, and international advocacy;
• (Co)-author scientific papers on topics related to social and financial education;
• Synthesize research findings and work with the Communications Team to translate it into communication products (blogs, briefs, articles, and others).

Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E)

• Provide support in building and strengthening the technical M&E capacity of the Aflatoun Secretariat and the partner network;
• Support the development and maintenance of Aflatoun’s M&E tools, including reviewing, improving existing M&E tools, and developing new or adapted M&E tools tailored for specific purposes;
• Provide technical assistance on the monitoring and evaluation of Aflatoun program to partner network as well as partners in specific projects through consultation as well as capacity building events.

Project management

• Develop a research project plan and budget, manage partners, allocate tasks and billable time to team members and track costs against budget;
• Execute the research project according to the plan ensuring successful delivery of the project in compliance with donor requirements;
• Write progress reports for donors with input from stakeholders.

Proposal writing

• Provide support in developing the Research and M&E components of project proposals in coordination with resource mobilization team.

Non-technical responsibilities as Aflatoun staff

• Positively contribute to team discussions and the effective running of the organization;
• Cross-departmental collaboration, compliance with organizational values, policies, and procedures;
• Perform other duties and tasks, consistent with the skills and expertise, as required in non-routine circumstances;
• Be willing to adapt to different tasks and different cross-organizational tasks including but not limited to helping deliver Aflatoun events such as regional and global conferences.

Required Skills & Qualifications

• Advanced university degree in Economics, Social Sciences, or other relevant domains;
• Experience designing and conducting research including RCTs and implementation research;
• Experience in qualitative research is desirable;
• Experience developing M&E tools (quantitative and qualitative) for data collection;
• Familiarity with data analysis software (STATA, SPSS, R) and qualitative analysis (NVivo, others);
• Familiarity and affinity with education programs. Knowledge of Social Financial Education is desirable;
• Proven ability in collaborating closely with multilevel stakeholders; experience in managing complex projects will be considered an advantage;
• Proficiency in English and French. Additional language(s) (Arabic, Spanish) is an advantage;
• Excellent interpersonal and cross-cultural communication skills and demonstrated ability to lead and work effectively in team situations. Strong organizational skills;
• Flexible, self-motivating and able to manage multiple tasks efficiently and work under pressure with attention to detail.

Employment details

The position is for a full-time position. We offer a dynamic and pleasant multicultural working environment, with an indicative gross monthly salary range of € 3431 and € 4204 per month (inclusive of pension, health insurance, holiday allowance, and national insurance contributions) – the salary level awarded will depend on relevant work experience and educational background.

Due to the nature of Aflatoun’s work with children around the world, specific attention is drawn towards Aflatoun’s Child Protection Policy and its Policy on the Protection of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA). These two policies are required to be signed by new employees and forms part of the employment documents related to the employment contract. The applicant commits to zero tolerance towards sexual exploitation and abuse. An additional written test may be required.

Management may appoint at a lower step based on the candidate’s skills and experiences against the position’s requirements