Resilience Research and Learning Program Advisor
72066319R00018
I. GENERAL INFORMATION
1. SOLICITATION NO.: 72066319R00018
2. ISSUANCED ATE:7/16/2019
3. CLOSINGDATE/TIMEFORRECEIPTOF OFFERS: DATE (5:00pm Ethiopia’s local time.)
4. POSITION TITLE: Resilience Research and Learning Program Advisor
5. MARKET VALUE: $ $90,621to $117,810 equivalent to GS-14. The final compensation will be negotiated within the listed market value based on the successful candidate’s salary history, work experience, and educational background. Salaries over and above the top of the pay range will not be entertained or negotiated.
6. PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE: Two years, with three additional one-year extensions pending approval, need, performance, and funding, not to exceed five years.
7. PLACE OF PERFORMANCE: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia with possible travel as stated in the Statement of Work.
8. SECURITY LEVEL REQUIRED: Facility Access: The final selected candidates must obtain both the appropriate security and medical clearances within a reasonable period of time. If such clearances are not obtained within a reasonable time or negative suitability issues are involved, any offer made may be rescinded.
9. STATEMENT OF DUTIES
1. General Statement of Purpose of the Contract
Despite rapid economic growth over the past decade, Ethiopia continues to struggle to effectively respond to recurrent and unexpected crises, such as drought, conflict or disease outbreaks. A significant number of Ethiopians remain either poor or vulnerable to falling into poverty in the wake of a shock. As USAID/Ethiopia refines and launches its next Country Development and Cooperation Strategy, the Mission expects to expand its portfolio of activities in resilience, food security and social protection. These investments will directly contribute to Ethiopia’s Journey to Self-Reliance and the strategic objectives of building the resilience of vulnerable Ethiopians—and Ethiopian systems and institutions—to recurrent shocks and crises.
The Resilience Research and Learning Program Advisor will coordinate USAID research and learning investments and activities that support the Government of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (GFDRE)’s resilience programs and ensure that USAID activities support the Mission’s strategic development objectives and the overall Mission strategy, Food for Peace Strategy, the Global Food Security Strategy, the Feed the Future Initiative, and USAID objectives in Ethiopia to build the resilience of vulnerable populations. The incumbent will provide technical and thought leadership on resilience measurement and analysis. Within the USAID/Ethiopia Office of Assets and Livelihoods in Transition (ALT), s/he will serve as a Contracting/Agreement Officer’s Representative for DA-funded activities that support the design, development and implementation of utilization-focused resilience research. They will assume a technical advisory role and provide expertise on more effective, efficient and accessible approaches to evidence and data gathering/utilization, and will work across the Mission to translate evidence into action in Mission programming. They will catalyze partners and all relevant stakeholders on critical areas of research and program understanding. Their focus on resilience to multi-sectoral shocks and vulnerabilities will require coordination with other sections of the broader Mission, and the incumbent will represent USAID at various donor and partner fora and working groups. This individual will lead complex and multi-project research activities and initiatives. This person is critical to building an evidence-based portfolio built for smart design adaptations.
The incumbent is responsible for contributing to the USAID CDCS Development Objective (DO) 2: Resilience of vulnerable populations to shocks increased, through management, supervision and technical direction of research and learning efforts particularly focused on resilience investments.
Additionally, the incumbent will contribute to ALT programming and implementation, in addition to work related to research and learning.
Resilience Programming
Strengthening resilience of households, communities and systems against environmental, political, socio-economic, health, and related shocks is a key long-term goal of USAID development assistance. USAID has been a strong partner to Ethiopia for over 50 years, and is supporting various Government of Ethiopia (GOE) programs through its investments. Each of the USAID-assisted economic, social and development sector programs is contributing in one way or another (some more explicitly, others rather implicitly) to building household, community or systems resilience, with a focus on vulnerable populations.
USAID/Ethiopia is at the leading edge of Agency thinking and programming on resilience. The Mission has a multi-hazard framework that examines vulnerability to multiple shocks and stresses and is designing and implementing activities that will advance Ethiopia’s Journey to Self-Reliance by supporting Ethiopian-owned flagship programs proven to build resilience. Resilience is elevated to a Development Objective in the next CDCS, with distinct projects in highlands and lowlands geographies.
The need for Increased Resilience of Vulnerable Populations to Key Shocks has been underscored in the mission’s new Strategic Results Framework and resilience itself has been recognized as a cross-cutting theme for all DOs. To maximize the potential for moving the needle on this DO and the resilience components of others, critical testing and understanding of key development hypotheses are needed within our own programs but particularly for GOE programs we support given the potential for scale.
The GOE has a serious agenda for economic growth and job creation. However, major support is needed for growth not to leave behind the most vulnerable Ethiopians, including the strengthening of basic services, livelihoods pathways and core value chain enabling environments. Ethiopia’s National Social Protection Policy (NSPP) introduced the concept of a ‘sustainable social protection system,’ which mandates a comprehensive package of social protection support to the poor. Various strategies and programs are underway to support the implementation of the policy, such as the PSNP and Community Based Health Insurance (CBHI).
In response to the range of covariate and idiosyncratic shocks 5 suffered by rural Ethiopians, the GOE, in 2005, established the PSNP, which has evolved over time. The PSNP now provides resource transfers to poor and food insecure rural households. It engages its beneficiaries on livelihoods, nutrition, WASH, community and household gender norms, and strengthens access to finance among the poor. The program has seen improvements in food security and household diet diversity. Efforts are also made to promote increased alternative livelihoods (off-farm and employment pathways) of the clients. However, potentials gains are often small and financial reserves of safety net client households limited. Among other vulnerabilities, PSNP beneficiary households remain vulnerable to income loss due to health shocks, which puts at risk any gains achieved.
The Health Sector Transformation Plan has a very strong focus on equity and on achieving universal health coverage. Health insurance is one element which will support this target. In 2011, to mitigate the financial consequences of ill-health, the government introduced a pilot (CBHI) scheme, which is being rolled out in the country, including provisions which provide targeted subsidies for the poor.
PSNP and CBHI serve as examples for the type of resilience programming the mission supports. There is a deliberate intention towards Ethiopia’s self-reliance demonstrated by the focus on improving the effectiveness of government-owned resilience programs.
B. Organizational Location of Position:
The Resilience Research and Learning Program Advisor position will have formal reporting lines in USAID/Ethiopia’s Office of Assets and Livelihoods in Transition (ALT). However, as the Mission moves toward implementation of its new strategy, the incumbent may be deployed as a technical expert in Project Teams that touch upon a number of Mission technical and support offices and development objectives (DO) teams. The incumbent will contribute to related cross-cutting activities such as resilience, nutrition, gender, disaster risk management and youth. Within ALT, across USAID, and in conjunction with USAID implementing partners and other partners such as other donors and the Government of Ethiopia, the incumbent will support ALT’s Learning Agenda and promote adaptive management in alignment with Collaboration, Learning and Adapting (CLA) principles. The incumbent will directly support senior Mission management as well as relevant offices in the Embassy in formulating and articulating appropriate resilience policy and activities to address chronic vulnerability, including the direct engagement with USAID’s support to the PSNP.
2. Statement of Duties to be Performed
Specific responsibilities will include but are not limited to the following:
Technical Expertise (40%)
● Provide technical assistance based on research and personal field experience to enable ALT and mission programs to develop cutting-edge program learning and research systems, and continually refine and improve them.
● Provide Mission-level expertise and guidance on technical areas related to chronic and transitory food insecurity and social protection in Ethiopia, including overall policy, strategy and programs. The incumbent is expected to remain generally informed of the latest research and trends in food security, social protection, and resilience literature, specifically as it relates to safety nets and social protection.
● Advises ALT leadership on food security and resilience policy best practices, as well as on long-range technical and management plans for efficient and effective development program implementation and administration; serves as an expert analyst in the assessment and improvement of program effectiveness in resilience, social protection and food security policy.
● Serves as an expert analyst in the assessment of the portfolio’s impact on resilience, food security, nutrition, health and WASH. Analyzes primary and secondary data sets to determine whether investments are achieving targeted outcomes in resilience measures, poverty, malnutrition and hunger; and, if not, what drivers of these outcomes are not being addressed.
● Conducts in-depth analysis and modeling to answer key questions to support portfolio review processes, and conduct additional analysis on resilience and non-resilience data to provide context and inform potential program actions when portfolio reviews or other processes raise concerns about program performance and the likelihood of meeting program objectives.
● Conducts analysis and modeling to support evidence-based programming, in collaboration with Agency and interagency stakeholders.
● Conducts special analyses as input to strategic planning, policy development, performance reporting, program design, speeches, Congressional inquiries, and other program documents related to key resilience investments.
● Advises on ways to effectively visualize, communicate, and disseminate research and learning of the portfolio for a variety of stakeholder audiences in government, donor, interagency, academic institutions and other sectors as part of a larger office and mission communication strategy.
● Contributes to mission, FFP, and GFSS monitoring, evaluation, and analysis.
Strategy and Activity Design (20%)
● Design and manage the implementation of innovative and state of the art operations research in the resilience sector.
● Lead the design of strategies, concept papers and procurement documents in line with USAID requirements for activities to generate resilience learning and lead efforts to scale evidence-supported programming.
● Formulate learning and research strategies for integrating social protection and resilience into USAID activities in all technical areas.
● Leverage USAID expertise and programming to meaningfully support GFDRE and other donor activity or program designs.
● Develop scopes of work, design documents, and other inputs to contract, where necessary external support or expertise in support of new activity or strategy designs.
Coordination and Representation (25%)
● Coordinate with key stakeholders to routinely conceptualize, update and revise thinking related to action learning and research as it relates to resilience programming.
● Serves as liaison between USAID and other in-country stakeholders involved in researching and evaluating resilience programs; Maintains regular contact with partners and travels to resilience investment areas (USAID and GoE) as required to further develop or implement mission-critical resilience research and learning activities.
● Represent USAID at workshops, forums and meetings advocating for USAID resilience and research related objectives and programming. The incumbent will represent USAID/Ethiopia at resilience forums, including but not limited to technical working groups and relevant assessments. The incumbent will take a lead role in supporting the implementation of resilience programs through regular coordination meetings and participation in dialogue, decision-making, and follow-up with the GFDRE and other donors.
● The incumbent will identify, support, and provide technical support to learning and programming opportunities across the ALT Office and broader Mission including support for ALT’s joint learning agenda. The incumbent is expected to liaise with all ALT teams, including the Program and Resource Management Team, The Emergency Team, the Disaster Risk Management Team, and the Program Management and Monitoring Team, to support ALT’s and the broader Mission’s efforts in collaboration, learning and adaptation as they relate to the resilience portfolio. The incumbent will seek to share USAID lessons learned and assimilate lessons from other donors through engaging with partners and stakeholders.
Administrative Management and Supervision (15%)
● Give strategic support and guidance to one team member and/or rotating fellows in ALT. The incumbent will oversee all related administrative processes for the members of the resilience research unit within ALT. This includes day to day management of the staff and completion of annual performance reviews, reviews of position descriptions, professional development plans and leave requests. The incumbent will also advise, consult, and notify ALT Office management on personnel matters relevant to the team that require action.
● The incumbent is responsible for monitoring research and resilience portfolio budgets. This includes reviewing budget requests for appropriateness, monitoring use of funds and burn rates to ensure timely spending, reviewing quarterly pipeline reviews/budget status reports, following up on irregular audit findings, providing advice for realignments of budgets, and reviewing accruals.
● As necessary, the incumbent prepares progress reports on resilience and research activities. These include the annual USAID Operational Plan and the Annual Performance Report.
● The incumbent will be responsible for understanding and incorporating USAID core values and USAID Ethiopia’s Leadership Behavior Charter in all aspects of his/her work.
3. Supervisory Relationship:
The incumbent will report to the Deputy Chief of the ALT Office at USAID/Ethiopia. As required, s/he will provide in-depth briefings on food security issues including the PSNP, aspects of Feed the Future and resilience programming for the Mission Director and Ambassador, as well as Mission staff. S/he may receive guidance from senior Mission management as the situation warrants. The incumbent will be expected to show strong independent initiative and work with minimal supervision, leading programs and coordinating across multiple stakeholders.
4. Supervisory Controls:
The supervisor will set overall objectives and resources available, and work with the incumbent to develop deadlines, projects, and work to be accomplished. The incumbent will be responsible for planning and carrying out assignments, resolving most conflicts, coordinating with others, and interpreting policy in terms of established objectives. Keeping the supervisor informed of progress, the incumbent may determine the approach to be taken and the methodology to be used. The supervisor will review completed work from an overall standpoint of feasibility, compatibility with other work, or effectiveness in meeting requirements. The incumbent will directly supervise 1-2 FSNs, fellows, or research interns.
10. AREA OF CONSIDERATION: U.S. Citizens, and Resident Aliens.
For USPSC:
· Be a U.S. citizen or U.S. Permanent Resident (“green card holder”);
· U.S. resident alien means a non-U.S. citizen lawfully admitted for permanent residence in the United States;
· Submit a complete application as outlined in the solicitation section titled APPLYING;
· Be able to obtain facility access authorization;
· Be able to obtain a Department of State medical clearance;
· Be willing to travel to work sites and other offices as/when requested;
· Employment is subject to funds availability and all the required approvals obtained.
11. PHYSICAL DEMANDS:
The work requested does not involve undue physical demands.
12. POINT OF CONTACT: Supervisory Executive Officer, Annmarie McGillicuddy and HR Specialist, Fekadu Tamirate at addisusaidjobs@usaid.gov.
Note: No in-person appointments or telephone calls will be entertained, unless you are required to have more information about this solicitation.
II. MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS REQUIRED FOR THIS POSITION
Applications will be initially screened by the Human Resources Office to determine whether applicants have met the advertised minimum qualifications. A list of qualified applicants will be referred to the hiring office for further consideration and screening.
EDUCATION: A master’s degree in international development, social science, public administration, business administration, agriculture, social protection, food security and nutrition or another related field is required. A master’s degree can be substituted with an additional three years of relevant development experience.
WORK EXPERIENCE: A minimum of seven years related development experience including social protection, rural development, agricultural development, food aid assistance, poverty reduction or other resilience related development activities is required. A minimum of three years experience in monitoring and evaluation, designing and implementing operations research, social protection, poverty reduction, livelihoods diversification, or resilience related programming is considered a plus. Experience in the support of donor-government relations will be given extra weight
LANGUAGE: Fluent English speaking, reading and writing are required. Amharic language skill at the conversational level is considered an advantage.
III. EVALUATION AND SELECTION FACTORS
The following evaluation factors for evaluating applications are established. The Technical Evaluation Committee will establish the competitive range/cut-off points per the evaluation factors listed below. Applicants are encouraged to provide a narrative for each selection criteria listed below in this section. This information will be used for evaluating and scoring each criterion. The TEC will conduct interviews with all offerors in the competitive range and provide the final rating and ranking of the offerors based on the interview. The CO will consider findings from the reference checks as part of the responsibility determination. Be sure to include your name and the solicitation number at the top of each page.
EDUCATION (10 points): A master’s degree in international development, social science, public administration, business administration, agriculture, social protection, food security and nutrition or another related field is required. A master’s degree can be substituted with an additional three years of relevant development experience.
EXPERIENCE (20 points): A minimum of seven years related development experience including social protection, rural development, agricultural development, food aid assistance, poverty reduction or other resilience related development activities is required. Experience designing and implementing operations research, social protection, poverty reduction, livelihoods diversification, or resilience related programming is considered a plus. Experience in the support of donor-government relations will be given extra weight.
KNOWLEDGE (25 points): Demonstrated knowledge of and experience working on resilience and social protection research and evaluations programs; strategy, policy and programs related to food security, resilience, poverty reduction, livelihoods support, linking the poor to markets, social protection, and/or safety nets in a developing country context.
SKILLS and ABLITIES (35 points): Ability to coordinate and incentivize disparate teams, activities, or stakeholders towards common action and collective impact. This includes government and donor coordination, and/or ability to design, develop and manage programs, coordinate the work of multiple implementing partners, align programs with host country policies and programs, and/or support collaboration, learning and adapting among staff, implementing partners and host government officials.
COMMUNICATION (10 points): Operating effectively in cross-cultural environments and working with host country government officials and other donors and development partners. Chairing and facilitating meetings and/or public speaking and presentation experience. Highlight relationship development, negotiation, advocacy, and consensus building experience with partners, donors, development partners, and host government officials. .
IV. APPLYING
For your application to be considered, the following documents must be submitted:
1. Eligible offerors are required to complete and submit the offer form AID 309-2,“OfferorInformationforPersonalServicesContractswithIndividuals,”availableathttp://www.usaid.gov/forms.
2. Offers must be received by the closing date and time specified in Section I, item 3,and submitted to the Point of Contact in Section I, item 12.
3. To ensure consideration of offers for the intended position, Offerors must prominently reference the Solicitation number in the offer submission.
4. Letter of Application and current resume.
5. To ensure consideration of offers for the intended position, Offerors must prominently reference the Solicitation number in the offer submission.
6. Application must be submitted ONLY via addisusaidjobs@usaid.gov and the email subject must say –: 72066319R00018 Resilience Research and Learning Program Advisor.
7. Please submit the application only once; and
8. Late and incomplete applications will not be considered; the application must be submitted before or on the closing date at local Ethiopia time 5 p.m. (Local Ethiopia, Addis Ababa Time).
V. LIST OF REQUIRED FORMS FOR PSC HIRES
Once the CO informs the successful Offeror about being selected for a contract award, the CO will provide the successful Offeror instructions about how to complete and submit the following forms.
1. Medical History and Examination Form (Department of State Forms)
2. Questionnaire for Sensitive Positions for National Security (SF-86),or
3. Questionnaire for Non-Sensitive Positions (SF-85)
4. Finger Print Card (FD-258)
VI. BENEFITS/ALLOWANCES
As a matter of policy, and as appropriate, a PSC is normally authorized the following benefits and allowances:
1. BENEFITS:
(a)Employer's FICA Contribution
(b) Contribution toward Health & Life Insurance
(c)Pay Comparability Adjustment
(d) Annual Increase (pending a satisfactory performance evaluation)
(e)Eligibility for Worker's Compensation
(f) Annual and Sick Leave
2. ALLOWANCES (if applicable):
Section numbers refer to rules from the Department of State Standardized Regulations (Government Civilians Foreign Areas)
(a) Temporary Quarter Subsistence Allowance (Section 120)
(b) Living Quarters Allowance (Section 130)
(c) Cost-of-Living Allowance (Chapter 210)
(d) Post Allowance (Section 220)
(e) Separate Maintenance Allowance (Section 260)
(f) Education Allowance (Section 270)
(g) Education Travel (Section 280)
(h) Post Differential (Chapter 500)
(i) Payments during Evacuation/Authorized Departure (Section 600), and
(j) Danger Pay Allowance (Section 650)
VII. TAXES
USPSCs are required to pay federal income taxes, FICA, Medicare and applicable state income taxes.
VIII. USAID REGULATIONS, POLICIES AND CONTRACT CLAUSES PERTAINING TO PSCs
USAID regulations and policies governing USPSC a wards are available at these sources:
1. USAID Acquisition Regulation(AIDAR),Appendix D, “Direct USAID Contracts with a U.S. Citizen or a U.S. Resident Alien for Personal Services Abroad,” includingcontractclause“GeneralProvisions,”availableathttps://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1868/aidar_0.pdf.
2. Contract Cover Page form AID309-1availableathttps://www.usaid.gov/forms.
3. Acquisition and Assistance Policy Directives/Contract Information Bulletins(AAPDs/CIBs) for Personal Services Contracts with Individuals available at http://www.usaid.gov/work-usaid/aapds-cibs.
4. Ethical Conduct. By the acceptance of a USAID personal services contract as an individual, the contractor will be acknowledging receipt of the “Standards of Ethical Conduct for Employees of the Executive Branch,” available from the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, in accordance with General Provision 2 and 5CFR2635. See https://www.oge.gov/web/oge.nsf/OGE%20Regulations.
END OF SOLICITATION
EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY: The U.S. Mission in Ethiopia provides equal opportunity and fair and equitable treatment in employment to all people without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, political affiliation, marital status, or sexual orientation. USAID/Ethiopia also strives to achieve equal employment opportunity in all personnel operations through continuing diversity enhancement programs.
The EEO complaint procedure is not available to individuals who believe they have been denied equal opportunity based upon marital status or political affiliation. Individuals with such complaints should avail themselves of the appropriate grievance procedures, remedies for prohibited personnel practices, and/or courts for relief.
Fekadu Fekadu, Human Resource Specialist, Phone 251111306031, Email ftamirate@usaid.gov - Ferehiwot Ferehiwot, Snr. HR Assistant, Phone 0111306035, Email fali@usaid.gov
