Evaluation Team Leader, 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 third-country nationals and U.S. nationals are eligible for this position**

Position Summary:

The Evaluation Team Leader will provide overall leadership for the team, and will finalize the evaluation design, coordinate activities, arrange periodic meetings, consolidate individual input from team members, and coordinate the process of assembling the findings and recommendations into a high-quality document. The Leader will manage the evaluation team to perform with demonstrated cultural sensitivity, particularly when interacting with a range of stakeholders. The Leader will oversee the design of data collection tools, conduct key informant interviews (KIIs) with USAID and Implementing Partner (IP) staff, undertake data analysis prepare and present key evaluation findings and evidence-based recommendations to the USAID/Bangladesh team and the major stakeholders. The Upoma team will review all draft deliverables prior to submission to USAID/Bangladesh. The Leader will be expected to travel to Dhaka, Bangladesh 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 will report to the MSI’s Technical Director. The expected period of performance will run from October 2024 to March 2024, and the estimated level of effort is 50 working days.

Responsibilities:

• Lead evaluation, The Inc sampling strategy, stakeholders to be interviewed, and data collection tools.
• Review documents provided by USAID and other stakeholders, using this information will inform the development of the Inception Report.
• Prepare a synthesis of the results of the literature review and determine how this information will inform the Inception Report.
• Develop an Inception Report including methodology, sampling strategy, data collection tools (surveys, interview guides, and discussion guides) for the different stakeholders identified, a list of KIIs to be conducted, location and composition of focus group discussions, and detailed implementation plan in Gantt chart format, within two weeks of onboarding, with input from the local team members, following and refining as needed the mixed-methods methodology described in the approved Technical Proposal (prepared by the USAID Upoma Activity) to address the evaluation learning questions.
• Facilitate a virtual Kick-off Meeting with USAID and the IPs prior to arrival in Dhaka.
• Participate in an in-brief meeting with USAID upon arrival in Dhaka.
• Orient the team on the evaluation purpose and methodology.
• Distribute the work among the evaluation team members and coordinate the contributions of the various experts involved in the evaluation, under the supervision of MSI’s Technical Director and with the support of the designated Upoma Task Manager.
• Provide motivation and technical backstopping to the team, as required, to ensure that each team member completes their assigned tasks in a timely manner according to the approved implementation schedule.
• Maintain a Level of Effort (LOE) tracker and manage the evaluation cost, in close collaboration with MSI’s Project Management Team, to ensure that the evaluation is completed within the approved budget.
• Submit a weekly progress report throughout the implementation of the evaluation.
• Receive, review, and analyze the processed information from KIIs, FGDs and surveys, which will be provided by the team members shortly following each KII and FGD, and begin to formulate findings even before data collection is complete.
• Contribute to the enumerator training and the development of the codebook for qualitative interview coding.
• Develop overall data analysis plan to include both quantitative and qualitative strands.
• Identify and conduct interviews with relevant stakeholders and organizations.
• Produce detailed interview notes after each interview and weekly progress reports during data collection phase.
• Manage the process of exploiting and analyzing the data collected, in collaboration with the other evaluation team members, to produce the evaluation report.
• Guide the development of the findings and conclusions table.
• Present evaluation initial findings to USAID.  
• Coordinate a mission-wide presentation of recommendations.
• Serve as lead writer for the final report, integrating comments as needed.
• Develop and deliver PowerPoint presentation of findings for USAID.
• Manage the revisions process in order to finalize the expected deliverables including 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.