ETHIOPIAN AGRICULTURAL TRANSFORMATION AGENCY

Required Number:       

One

Salary & Benefits:

Competitive

BACKGROUND:

The Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA) is a strategy and delivery-oriented government agency created to help accelerate the growth and transformation of the country’s agriculture sector. The ATA envisions that, by 2025, smallholder farmers are commercialized with greater incomes, inclusiveness, resilience and sustainability, contributing to Ethiopia’s achievement of middle-income country status.

The agency focuses on two primary national approaches to catalyze agricultural transformation. First, we support the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Resources (MoA), its affiliate institutions, and other partners to identify and address systemic bottlenecks within an Agricultural Transformation Agenda. Second, we support Regional Governments to accelerate the development of high-priority commodity value chains in clearly defined geographic clusters, through the Agricultural Commercialization Clusters (ACC) Initiative.

Our major activities include conducting strategic and analytical studies, providing technical implementation support, coordinating platforms to better integrate partners and projects, and designing and directly leading a number of implementation projects. Our headquarters are in Addis Ababa, and we have regional offices in Amhara, Oromia, SNNP, and Tigray regional offices, allowing us to work closely with a wide range of public, private and development sectors partners across the country.

Our Culture

We have an exceptional team of highly competent employees with a proven track record of success in managing complex activities and achieving transformational results.  Our culture is one where talented, dedicated and adaptable individuals are committed to doing their best and exhibit great teamwork to achieve excellent results.

At ATA, we provide an exceptional platform for people who want to achieve their highest potential and make a meaningful contribution to changing the country’s agricultural sector.  We offer rewarding work in a young, fast-paced growing organization with passionate, committed, motivated colleagues and excellent career development and training.  We recognize our most valuable assets are our staff and are committed to providing our employees with the tools, training, and mentorships necessary to achieve their career goals.

POSITION SUMMARY:

The Senior M&E Technical Expert will report to the Senior M&E Manager and contribute to the team’s activities by conducting monitoring, baseline study, mid-term, final and impact evaluations of ATA managed projects, advising PMER unit and relevant ATA teams on program design, monitoring, evaluations and baseline studies and supporting capacity building on Monitoring and evaluation within Performance Management Unit and ATA project teams.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES:

Conduct and manage baseline surveys as well as performance and impact evaluations:

• Lead the design of and conduct in-depth monitoring, baseline, and evaluation of ATA projects in collaboration with the ATA project team as well as the Evaluation Manager, Learning Manager, and Senior Technical Experts s within the EL Unit.
• Prepare and validate study/evaluation instruments.
• Collect qualitative and quantitative data using appropriate methods including, document review, interviews and FGDs with evaluation participants.
• Conduct enumerator training and field data collection process.
• Manage electronic data collection, including programming into the electronic data collection platforms.
• Analyze data collected from various sources and formulate findings, conclusions and recommendations.
• Organize stakeholders’ workshops and meetings to validate evaluation findings and recommendations and disseminate results of evaluations to relevant parties.
• Provide advisory services to EL Unit and project teams on evaluation and statistical questions, including implementation of evaluation recommendations.
• Support capacity-building activities within ATA on evaluation and impact assessment.
• Contribute to the strengthening of monitoring, evaluation and learning function of Performance Management Unit to improve efficiency and effectiveness of project implementation.
• Support the management and coordination of baseline and evaluations conducted by partner institutions or external consultants.
• Engage in dissemination of learning from monitoring, evaluations and other studies in collaboration with the Learning Manager and communication team.
• Engage in preparing project theory of change (ToC) and reviewing project Result Frameworks (RFW) and ensure all projects have an updated version of RFWs.

Conduct monitor outcomes and results, develop independent reports, and perform spot checks:

• Engage in project monitoring.
• Plan and conduct spot check monitoring to selected sites of ATA-managed projects.
• Producer and share monitoring reports.

Others

• Perform other duties as required and requested by the PMER Director or Senior Monitoring and Evaluation manager.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS:

• Master’s Degree in Monitoring and Evaluation, Development Economics/Economics/ Agricultural Economics, Development Studies, Statistics, or other relevant fields.
• At least 6 years of hands-on experience in managing a monitoring and evaluation system and/or impact evaluation, preferably in the fields of agriculture or rural development.
• Have demonstrated skill in conducting evaluations and can provide proof of work for conducting evaluations and baseline studies.
• Deep understanding of the theory and application of evaluation including best-practice tools and approaches.
• Hands-on experience with data management and analytical software such as SPSS/Stata.
• An understanding of Ethiopia’s agricultural system, with a broad perspective on how the entire system operates and how public, private, NGO and informal actors operate within the system
• Good knowledge of ongoing efforts to transform agriculture in Ethiopia.
• Ability to thrive in a fast-moving environment, with an emphasis on high performance, teamwork, accountability, and results.
• Highly facilitative and collaborative working style.
• Excellent analytical, problem-solving, and data gathering skills.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills.
• A strong set of personal values including integrity, honesty, and desire to be of service.
• Fluency in English is essential; fluency in Amharic is a plus.