The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) is one of the world's leading research partners in finding solutions for hunger, malnutrition, and poverty. Our award-winning research for development (R4D) addresses the development needs of tropical countries. We work with partners to enhance crop quality and productivity, reduce producer and consumer risks, and generate wealth from agriculture. We are a nonprofit organization founded in 1967, governed by a Board of Trustees, and supported by several countries. Our mission is to enhance food security and improve livelihoods in Africa through research for development (R4D). We use the R4D model in setting a research course that addresses major development problems in Africa rather than simply contributing to scientific knowledge. It has proven to be an effective mechanism for agricultural research development. We and our partners have delivered about 70% of the international research impact in sun-Saharan Africa in the last three decades.
Position Responsibilities
Institutional MEL Leadership (40%)
- Develop Institutional MEL framework and related infrastructure that supports data collection and analysis across the institute (programs, projects, etc), with a higher focus on data related to the institute’s KPIs.
- Collaborate with the impact assessment team to streamline methodologies for measuring results. Collate/aggregate impact assessment results to provide a broad picture of IITA’s progress toward its KPIs.
- Review progress on achieving institutional objectives and provide IITA Management with information about important lessons learned and replicable practices.
- Lead the alignment of IITA's Institutional Performance Indicators and the CGIAR System Level Strategic Outcomes for overall performance and contributions of IITA to the CGIAR.
- Lead the integration of results-based management into all programs and projects interventions, ensuring appropriate results frameworks are developed to support monitoring activities.
- Lead the generation of verifiable information for strategic decision-making by aggregating data from all reporting levels.
- Introduce processes for simple quality and verifiable data generation in order to document scaling pathways and resulting outputs and outcomes.
- Represent IITA on the CGIAR MEL groups, and regional MEL communities of practice and maintain/develop MEL-related collaborative relationships with strategic partners on behalf of IITA.
- Coordinate the institute-wide MEL Community of Practice (MEL COP) that includes MEL professionals and focal persons of projects both at HQ and in hubs.
- Collaborate with other research support units to implement knowledge management systems that provide up-to-date information on institutional performance and operational effectiveness. Also, identify and minimize existing M&E procedures leading to duplicated efforts to save IITA's resources.
- Provide leadership for increasing appreciation of the need for quality MEL across the Institute, as well as increase confidence within the Unit by mentoring and appreciation of its personnel.
- Develop staff capacity in maintaining data quality standards and conduct data quality audits of all sources of M&E data that are reported and support the use of appropriate software systems within the hubs, country offices, and programs/projects as well as linkage to the institution-wide software system.
- Prepare, publish, and share communication materials documenting research outcomes and impacts and lessons learned across IITA, One CGIAR Initiatives and projects.
- Perform any other job-related tasks as may be assigned by the supervisors.
Hub/Program/Project Level M&E (30%)
- Lead the mapping of programs and projects to IITA KPIs across the hubs for appropriate alignment and reporting.
- Provide strategic guidance for the implementation of MEL including institutionalization and automation of M&E processes across all IITA hubs, projects, programs.
- Provide support to Hub MEL teams to generate verifiable information to support the hub strategic plans and to make strategic decision-making.
- Support program/project teams in the development and implementation of MEL systems that satisfy institutional and donor standards, which include:
- MEL plans with clearly defined results framework (addressing institutional and donor needs) and reflecting causal models.
- Procedures for collection, collation, analysis, reporting, and use of data for decision-making.
- Monitoring, documentation, and learning approaches that are integrated, aligned, and mainstreamed into project activities and coordinated with stakeholders.
- Plans for evaluation studies on outcome and impact-level achievements.
- Guide the hub MEL teams to review progress on achieving the hub objectives (per the hub strategies) and provide hub teams with information about important lessons learned and replicable practices.
- Lead the implementation of knowledge management systems across the hubs that provide up-to-date information on hub and institutional performance, and operational effectiveness.
- Collaborate with the impact assessment team to provide support for the assessment of project and programs impacts.
Science of scaling Leadership (30%)
- Provide guidance in identifying and assembling key components of the science of scaling in collaboration with the R4D and P4D Directorate. Such will include a compendium of innovations being scaled, the different scaling pathways, the stakeholder engagement process, etc.
- Align the Science of scaling framework to programs, projects and overall IITA scaling strategy.
- Guide the design and development of a framework (e.g., research questions regarding the effectiveness of different scaling pathways being used) to implement the Science of Scaling across IITA projects and programs in collaboration with the P4D Directorate.
- Mainstream the Science of scaling framework in the overall MEL activities of projects, programs and overall institutional MEL framework.
- Lead the design, development and use of appropriate data collection tools and processes to implement the Science of scaling across IITA.
- Synthesize the data and learnings from implementing the Science of scaling framework to support the overall IITA KPIs and as inputs into the P4D strategic plan.
- Develop staff capacity to conduct MEL to support the science of scaling across hubs, country offices, and programs/projects.
Requirements
Educational Qualifications
- The candidate should hold at least an advanced degree (MSc/PhD) from a reputable university in agricultural sciences, monitoring and evaluation or any other social sciences.
Core Competencies
- At least 15 years of relevant work experience.
- Excellent track record in developing M&E frameworks at Institution and project levels.
- Proven leadership skills and providing guidance to a team of staff across projects.
- Demonstrated record on documenting and sharing technology uptake and lessons learned in the process.
- Excellent communication skills evidence by capacity to prepare and deliver clear and concise presentations.
- Work experience within multicultural teams and international organizations or companies and highly knowledgeable of Africa’s social, agricultural, and rural development and economic development issues, questions, and challenges.
- Fluency in English or French language with a working knowledge of the other.
Method of Application
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