Policy LINK Ethiopia, Collaborating, Learning, and Adapting (CLA) Specialist

Project Background

The Feed the Future Policy LINK project will strengthen the capacity of local actors and institutions to enable them to efficiently 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 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 Ethiopia

The Champions for Food Security (C4FS) Activity is duly focused on implementing policy systems strengthening and lowlands resilience work in Ethiopia. The Activity supports the Government of Ethiopia (GoE) and other development actors in their aspiration to transform Ethiopia through facilitating an inclusive policy development process and enhancing collaboration and coordination of resilience partners in lowlands. Specifically, the C4FS Activity will facilitate the transition towards a new multiple stakeholders driven paradigm infused with greater use of evidence in development decision-making, inclusion, collaboration, and coordination.

C4FS will strengthen the capacities of Ministry of Agriculture to engage stakeholders traditionally excluded from decision-making, including academia, financial institutions, the judiciary, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and private sector representatives from the national, regional, and local levels. C4FS will also reinforce the capacity of the Ministry of Irrigation and Lowlands to coordinate collaboration effectively and efficiently at the federal, regional, and woreda levels among development partners implementing resilience activities in lowland pastoral areas.

Job Purpose

USAID defines Collaborating, Learning, and Adapting (CLA) as a set of systematic and intentional practices that help improve development effectiveness. On behalf of USAID, C4FS will provide backbone support to the Ministry of Irrigation and Lowlands and the Ministry of Agriculture in leading the establishment of a national multi-stakeholder coordination and collaboration platform for resilience activities in select woredas in Afar, Somali, Oromia Pastoral Areas, and South Omo Zone of the SNNPR. C4FS interventions to support the national platform must be well coordinated with stakeholders, grounded in a strong evidence base, and iteratively adapted to remain relevant throughout implementation. C4FS helps to ensure that collaboration is happening with the right partners at the right time to promote synergy over stove-piping.

C4FS needs to facilitate a learning agenda and process by helping to ensure that the stakeholders of the national platform are asking the most important questions and finding answers that are relevant to decision making. C4FS must ensure that stakeholders in the national platform are using the information that we gather through collaboration and learning activities to make better decisions and adjust as necessary. C4FS is expected to support the development of an organizational environment that supports collaborating, learning, and adapting efforts.

The CLA Specialist will be based in Addis Ababa but will support activities at the national, regional, and woreda levels.

Job Duties and Responsibilities

Within the above context, the CLA Specialist is expected to work in activity teams and particularly support the resilience-focused activity teams in each region and at the federal level to implement and track progress on the work plan. Specific duties and responsibilities include:

• Design and implement a sound action plan that ensures effective collaboration, learning and adaptation.
• Works closely with resilience activity team and partners to analyze results, generate observations, and develop lessons learned to inform project management and increase effectiveness of project activities.
• Supports the Country Buy-in Lead in maintaining a culture of CLA that is fostering learning, innovations, and performance information feedback loops.
•  Leads the internal management debriefs, pause-and-reflect sessions, and stakeholder meetings.
•  Contributes to reporting writing and supports capacity building and technical assistance activities for C4FS staff and external stakeholders in the utilization and management of monitoring and impact assessment tools.
• Leads the collection, analysis, documentation, dissemination, and use of best practices and lessons learned to drive adaptive management processes.
•  Supports the design and implementation of internal and external knowledge exchange and learning events to improve peer-to-peer learning, knowledge sharing and application.
•  Cultivates meaningful and strategic relationships with key partners and relevant stakeholders to promote effective coordination, collaboration, and dissemination of program learning.
•  Supports the qualitative and quantitative program impact surveys to ensure that project goals are met and that all information required for submission to donor is collected in a valid, reliable, and timely manner.
•  Performs any other duties assigned by the Resilience Lead in the course of evolving project implementation needs.

Supervision and Reporting

•  The CLA Specialist will report to the Resilience Lead. The CLA Specialist will not have any direct reports.

Performance Criteria

• C4FS is a performance-based project, highly dependent on individuals and team core competencies. Each staff member will participate in an annual evaluation and receive feedback.

Contract Name: USAID/Feed the Future Policy LINK Ethiopia – Champions for Food Security (C4FS) Activity

Status: Long Term Technical Assistance

Start Date: As soon as possible

Supervisor: Resilience Lead

Qualifications:

• University degree in political science, business administration, sociology, in monitoring and evaluation, development studies, research methods, quantitative or qualitative analysis, economics, statistics, or relevant field is required; master’s degree is desired.
•  Minimum 7 years of experience managing the MEL and/or CLA component of a donor-funded project, USAID preferred.
•  Experience supporting CLA in a multistakeholder environment that includes Government of Ethiopia at federal, regional, and woreda levels, donors, Implementing Partners, Private Sector, and other non-state actors.
•  Demonstrated analytical and assessment skills (including primary research and mixed methods analysis) including report writing.
• Dynamic personality with demonstrated creativity and a willingness to learn.
•  Excellent communications skills (verbal and written).
• Demonstrated experience providing support to the Government of Ethiopia institutions at the federal, regional, or woreda levels.
• Strong computer skills (MS Office suite) required.
• English proficiency and Amharic language fluency required.
•  Proven experience in quantitative and qualitative research methods, survey design and implementation, and statistical data analysis is required.
•  Demonstrated experience building the capacities of staff and partners in research methods and design preferred.