Objective 1: The primary objective of the assignment is to provide support to ensure high quality coverage surveys are completed in the targeted catchment areas within the targeted catchment areas of 4 regions of Somalia with quantitative reports finalized no later than November 30 th .

• You will assume overall responsibility for implementation of the coverage survey, including coaching of IRC nutrition managers, daily supervision of coverage survey teams and daily data collection quality assurance
• You will work closely with the Somalia team to put in place actions that move forward the preparatory work in order to start data collection according to the timeline (mid-October).
• You will finalize the sampling framework for the coverage survey
• You will operate within the local approval agreements coordinated by IRC Somalia
• You will train enumerators and supervisors including pretesting the questionnaire
• Manage team movements and communicate effectively with the Somalia MEAL Manager, Nutrition Specialist and GiveWell MEAL Advisor,
• You will provide the raw data to be analyzed by the IRC statistician

The consultant will report to the Coverage Nutrition Specialist for the project. The IRC retains ownership of the data and will be provided to the IRC by the consultant. The consultant does not have permission to use the data in any way outside of the purposes of this consultancy.

Deliverables

• Implementation and supervision strategy
• Sampling frameworks completed and the methods fully prepared in advance of training
• Relevant authority approvals achieved for all 4 regions
• Data analysis and cleaning with preliminary results by mid-November
• Drafted full reports by November 30
• Prepare a presentation for the validation workshop in Somalia

Requirements

Qualifications

• You have a n advanced degree in Statistics, Public Health, Nutrition or a related field
• You have at least 3 to 5 years’ experience in conducting population-based surveys, with preference given to coverage survey methodologies (e.g. SQUEAC)
• You have previous experience in Somalia
• You have working knowledge of the Nutrition AIM working group and/or FSNAU in Somalia
• You have significant experience in the community-based management of acute malnutrition
• You have excellent analytical/ statistical skills and demonstrated experience working in STATA and or R.
• You exhibit strong interpersonal and communication skills.
• You have strong organizational skills and are focused on producing results by the deadline
• You are fluent in written and spoken English, proficiency in Somali is an advantage.
• You have the ability to cope with stress and manage with patience and flexibility to meet tight deadlines
• Willingness to trave to Somalia (if possible and travel permission is granted), otherwise strong internet connection to work remotely within the Somali time zone
• You will follow IRC’s COVID-19 travel policies

Responsibilities

M&E strategy and systems

• Work with the STA, Education Technical Advisors (TAs), measurement team members, and selected country programs to assess education M&E, data, systems, and skills, and develop and implement a plan to strengthen foundational M&E and data management in education across IRC country programs, through a combination of direct support and capacity-building (see following section);
• Work with the STA and Education TAs to design use cases for program and implementation data - identify the most important strategic and implementation decisions that require program data;
• Identify incentives, skills, structures, and systems required to collect, store, analyze and visualize program and implementation data;
• With field staff and technical unit team members, develop simple, user-friendly tools to collect, store, analyze and visualize data;
• Support routine, organization-wide M&E workstreams such as regular updates to Theories of Change, core indicators, and IT system roll-outs;
• Participate in improving internal processes to strengthen data capture and management.

Capacity-building and learning

• Develop and roll out tools to strengthen the capacity of field staff to be able to collect and use data for ongoing decision-making in their programs, including tool adaptation and contextualization;
• Increase data savvy among the Education TAs through continuous capacity-building, including webinars, and production of related training materials as needed, on topics prioritized collaboratively with education technical unit colleagues;
• Support program staff to design, implement, update and deploy data dashboards, in alignment with broader IRC approaches to data visualization and sector-wide best practice;
• Work with the Education and Technology TA and Education TAs, as well as the IRC Measurement Technical Unit to create one to two measurement tool kits to support program staff in routine data collection on core education indicators and establish shared practices and standards across IRC education programs; identify needs for additional tools and toolkits collaboratively and proactively pursue additional opportunities for improvement;
• Develop case country studies that demonstrate good practice and lessons learned on the use of data to inform course correction and continuous quality improvement, and share lessons learned with other stakeholders and country teams;
• Interface with the IRC’s Measurement Unit and relevant working groups to learn from other sectors’ challenges and success in this space, and expand and promote conversations to share learning within the education TU and across country teams ;

Key Working Relationships

• Position Reports to: Senior Technical Advisor, Education
• Position directly supervises No current direct reports, potential for supervision of consultants, specialists, or officers as work evolves.
• Indirect Reporting: N/A
• Internal: position works closely with the Measurement Technical Unit, Senior Researcher, Education; Education Technical Unit; and education country teams
• External: New York University – research partners

Position Requirements

• Advanced degree in a relevant field such as economics, statistics, international development / public policy, or other social sciences
• Technical understanding of education in humanitarian response contexts strongly preferred
• Experience (at least 5 years) designing, developing, and rolling out education M&E tools and systems, through both hands-on work and supporting others
• Experience developing data systems and working with education-related data sets to enable use of data by front line educators, education program managers and education leaders
• Experience analyzing and presenting data, and developing or managing the systems to do this, in simple ways to enable use of data for decision-making
• Experience working with and building the capacity of individuals from a wide range of countries, cultures and with a range of expertise related to M&E and data collection, analysis and use, both in-person and remotely
• Experience with mobile data collection and analysis tools especially ODK-based applications (Kobo, Ona, Formhub, Commcare, etc.)
• Experience with data analysis/visualization software (PowerBI, Tableau), GIS, R, STATA, or SPSS
• Familiarity with use and analysis of common international M&E tools for education (e.g. EGRA/EGMA) preferred
• Fluency in written and spoken English is required; proficiency in French, Spanish, and/or Arabic is preferred
• Strong organizational skills: the ability to work independently and productively in a fast-paced environment
• Flexible work attitude: the ability to work productively in a team and multi-sectoral environment & independently