Livelihood Expert, USAID Upoma Activity

Management Systems International (MSI), a Tetra Tech Company, is a Washington, D.C. metro area management consultancy with a 40-year history of delivering results for our clients. Our expertise is in the fields of monitoring and evaluation; democracy and governance; peace and stability; rule of law and accountability; education; gender and inclusion; strategic communications; and leadership and organizational development. MSI has implemented projects in 90 countries around the world such as Colombia, Indonesia, Jordan, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Syria and Ukraine, and works domestically. We support clients ranging from the U.S. Government (e.g., the U.S. Agency for International Development, U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Departments of State and Labor, and the Millennium Challenge Corporation) to large bilateral and multilateral donors (e.g., the World Bank and the United Nations Development Program). We also work with national and local governments, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), think tanks, foundations and universities. For more information, please visit our website at www.msiworldwide.com.

Project Summary:

MSI is a partner of EnCompass LLC in the implementation of the USAID Upoma Activity which is a central Mission-wide platform that provides a range of analytical and advisory services in support of the Mission’s design, performance monitoring, evaluation, and operational learning and adapting efforts. The activity will play a significant role in achieving the successful implementation of the Mission’s: 1) Country Development Cooperation Strategy (CDCS) 2020 - 2025), 2) Performance Management Plan (PMP), and 3) the Collaboration, Learning, and Adapting agenda. The Platform is conducting a performance evaluation of the USAID/Performance Evaluation of Bandarban Agriculture and Nutrition Initiative (BANI) to assess the performance achieved in its’ implementation. Specifically, the evaluation team will examine and assess to what extent the initiative has achieved BANI’s overall goal: to reduce the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic mitigation measures, such as restrictions on movement, on incomes and nutrition in Bandarban by increasing agricultural production and improving nutrition of poor and extremely poor populations to strengthen gender equitable food security in five selected upazilas of the Bandarban District delivered by the project.

**Please note: Only Bangladeshi nationals are eligible for this position**

Position Summary:

The Livelihood Expert will support the evaluation in all phases. The Livelihood Expert will have an understanding of cultural sensitivity, particularly when interacting with a range of stakeholders. The purpose of the Livelihood Expert is to support the integration of livelihood-related aspects into all aspects of the evaluation including data analysis, key evaluation findings and evidence-based recommendations. The Livelihood Expert will have a strong understanding of market facilitation and income generation and the connection between market actors and local financial institutions within the Bangladeshi context. The Livelihood Expert will be expected to be in Dhaka, Bangladesh for the initial uptake as well as travel within the five upazilas of Bandarban district in the activity zone for a period of up to three weeks. This is a Short-Term Technical (STTA) position that reports to the Evaluation Team Leader. The expected period of performance will run from October 2024 to March 2025, and the estimated level of effort is 42 working days.

Responsibilities:

• Support the integration of livelihoods-related aspects into the tools and evaluation findings and recommendations by examining the relevance, viability, and sustainability of business development models at the local level.
• Provide analysis of how business development services including marketing and technical assistance.
• Analyze BANI Activity interventions on market facilitation, local business advisors, market committees, aggregation points, and point management committees as well as entrepreneurs and smallholder producers for income generation.
• Support the planning, data collection, analysis, and report writing and presentation processes.
• Support the development of high-quality reports and timely submission of all deliverables.
• Undertake Key Stakeholder Interviews, Focus Group Discussions (FGDs), and implement agreed-upon survey questions.
• Synthesize and analyze findings from qualitative and quantitative data.
• Contribute to a weekly progress report throughout the implementation of the evaluation.
• Synthesize and evaluate the processed information from Key Stakeholder Interviews, FGDs, and surveys, which will be provided by the team members shortly following each Key Stakeholder Interviews and FGD, allowing the Evaluation Team Leader to begin to formulate findings even before data collection is complete.
• Contribute to the enumerator training.
• Participate in qualitative interview coding with the use of the established codebook.
• Contribute to the overall data analysis plan to include quantitative and qualitative strands.
• Produce detailed interview notes after each interview and weekly progress reports during data collection phase.
• Assist with data collection and analysis in collaboration with the other evaluation team members to produce the evaluation report.
• Make contributions as necessary to the findings and conclusions table.
• Contribute to the presentation of the evaluation initial findings to USAID as well as a mission-wide presentation of recommendations.
• Contribute to the final report by incorporating gender and social inclusion analysis and findings and integrating comments as needed.
• Contribute to the development of presentation of findings for USAID.
• Contribute to revisions process in order to finalize the expected deliverables, such as work plan, final report, and in/out-brief plan/meetings, in a timely manner.
• Perform any other tasks or activities necessary for the success of the evaluation.