Monitoring and Evaluation Advisor – Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA)

Position:                            Monitoring and Evaluation Advisor 

Term of Employment:    Six month

Duty Station(s):               Addis Ababa

Required Number:          One

Application deadline:     July 23, 2022

Background:

The Agricultural Transformation Institute (ATI) has been established by the Government of Ethiopia (GoE) to identify and address systemic bottlenecks to Ethiopia’s agricultural development. The Institute does this through problem-solving, implementation support, and capacity building of stakeholders involved in implementation of interventions that address the systemic bottlenecks. 

ATI has an exceptional team of highly competent and committed staff with proven track records of success in managing complex activities and achieving transformational results. Our culture is one where talented, dedicated and adaptable individuals are committed to doing their best and exhibit great results as an individual and as a member of a team. 

ATI provides a unique platform for people who want to achieve their highest potential and make a meaningful contribution in changing the country’s agricultural sector. We offer rewarding work in a young, fast-paced growing organization with passionate, committed, motivated colleagues and excellent career development and training.  We recognize our most valuable assets are our staff and are committed to providing our teams with the tools, training and mentorships necessary to achieve their career goals.

The programmatic focus of the Institute responds to a core set of needs identified by the Ministry of Agriculture and other sectors along commodity value chains. Across the programs, the ATI engages public, private, and non-governmental stakeholders to support strategic planning, manage and strengthen implementation capacity and test innovative models. Currently, ATI is tasked to coordinate the revised Agriculture and Rural Development policy agendas of the sector and such sectoral level delegation requires high level expertise in the policy areas and skillsets in coordination and networking with multiple stakeholders.

Position Summary:

The M&E Advisor serve as the technical focal person for the strategic affairs team, providing high-caliber technical input to the Ministry’s work in the area of Planning, M&E, Information Management, Project Management, Strategic Partnership, and mainstreaming of cross cutting issues. Support the Strategic Affairs executive office human capacity building initiatives to drive effective delivery across key MEL functions.

The position works with strategic affairs executive officer to provide thought partnership, guidance and support the Ministry’s effort to have efficient design and planning process, project and program management, and putting in place rigorous measurement system that demonstrates results and ensures accountability.

The Advisor will dedicate his strategic time at ATI where there are similar initiatives in terms of strengthening the sector’s M&E systems, developing comprehensive information systems or data hubs beyond the existing initiatives of the Ministry to roll out sector management information system, and mapping of sector institutions that are critical resources which are front line service providers across key sector programs.

Major Duties and Responsibilities:

•  Provide coaching and mentoring for the teams at the Ministry working on operational planning, performance monitoring and evaluation, learning and adaptation by introducing innovative ways to make the planning process evidence based and consistent with the 10 years sector development plan, and generating analytical and quality sector reports that provides insights and recommendations which would enhance data use by decision makers.
•  Contribute to the effective and efficient conduct of review meetings, learning sessions, workshop, and other consultation events.
• The advisor will have a leading role in refining the strategic data needs of the Ministry as per the major use cases to support decision. This work requires refining/developing indicators, and its data collection instruments that outlines the definition, unit of measurement, data sources, method of data collection, frequency and timing of data collection that would help to standardize and harmonize the data collection and flow horizontally across institutions and vertically across all levels of government.
• Provide input to the roll out of the sector management information system at national scale.
• Support the effort to establish effective and collaborative partnerships with relevant stakeholders engaged in agriculture and across MLE functions, including government organizations, civil society, and donors.
• Critically assess human capacity gaps that may hinder effective implementation of activities across key functions outlined in strategic affairs team.
• Support in the development and implementation of human capacity building plan as per the new restructuring and staffing in the area of planning, monitoring and evaluation, information management, project management and strategic partnership by identifying specialized training needs, identifying or developing training/guidance material; and, coordinating and/or running training sessions.
• Work with relevant teams in the ATI that have engagements in building capacity and systems for enhanced planning, monitoring and evaluation and knowledge management within the agriculture sector.
• The position reports to the executive officer for Strategic Affairs at the Ministry of Agriculture.
• Take other assignments as appropriate and assigned by the supervisor.

•  Master’s Degree in Development Economics, Agricultural Economics/ Economics, Development Studies, Monitoring and Evaluation, Statistics, or other relevant fields.
• More than 12 years with hands on experiences working on project monitoring, baseline studies, evaluation and/or impact evaluation, preferably in the field of agriculture and rural development out of which 5 years in M&E leadership/managerial position.
•  Deep understanding of the theory and application of performance evaluation as well as impact evaluation approaches.
•  Experience on meta-analysis, trend analysis and impact evaluations.
• Specific experience and skills on research design, implementation and report writing.
• Specific experiences in designing monitoring & evaluation systems based on project frameworks such as logical framework, results framework, outcome mapping.
• Practical experience with data management and analytical software such as SPSS/Stata, etc
•  Experience in independently undertaking all the phases of baselines and evaluations.
• High level of research report writing skills.
• Consultancy experience is an advantage.
• An understanding of Ethiopia’s agricultural system, with a broad perspective on how the entire system operates and how public, private, NGO and informal actors operate within the system.
• Strong analytical skills as well as good knowledge of on-going efforts to transform agriculture in Ethiopia.
• Ability to thrive in a fast-moving, start-up environment, with an emphasis on high performance, teamwork, accountability, and results.
• Highly facilitative and collaborative working style.
• Excellent analytical, problem-solving, and data gathering skills.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills.
• Strong set of personal values including integrity, honesty and desire to be of service
• Fluency in English and Amharic is essential.