Job Summary

Position: Individual Consultant

Term of Employment:  Six months

Duty Station(s):  Addis Ababa

Required Number:  Two

Salary & Benefits:  Competitive

Application Deadline:  February 13, 2021

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 sector 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 in 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:

ATA is seeking for hiring two Individual Consultants for the planned Evaluation and Learning studies to be carried out in 2013 with an experienced evaluation to aid in the evaluation cycle of its projects for EFY2013. In summary, the individual consultants will be to support the PMER unit of ATA during the preparation and execution of midterm and final evaluations planned for 2013 EFY.

The main objective of the work is to assess the overall performance of the project (relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, impacts, and sustainability) of the project final evaluations at federal and in the four main regions (Amhara, Oromia, Tigray, and SNNPR) of the following projects. This includes preparing the evaluation TOR & technical report (including data collection tools), ensuring quality data collection, data analysis, and the evaluation report writing for the following projects:

• Project 1: One-Stop Shop for Agricultural Inputs (OSS) Project Mid-Term Evaluation
• Project 2: Direct Seed Marketing (DSM) Project Final Evaluation Internal
• Project 3: Teff Row Planter (TRP) Project Final Evaluation
• Project 4: Integrated Apiculture Value Chain Project
• Project 5: Tef Improvement Project

ESSENTIAL DUTIES:

• Prepare the TORs for conducting midterm and end-line evaluations.
• Based on TORs, prepare inception report/technical design/ of the impact evaluation using the experimental, quasi-experimental methodology and mixed nonexperimental methods, including sampling strategy, etc.
• Conceive the design of thematic surveys so as the intermediate level output and outcomes are tracked objectively.
• Provide technical assistance for data collection which will be conducted by an external consultant using a single digital questionnaire.
• Review raw data to ensure quality and consistency, and take immediate corrective actions, including on feedback from the Consultant ATA team
• Clean and analyze data and prepare evaluation reports.
• Prepare Evaluation reports based on OECD criteria and detailing key processes observed, adherence, and variances in the laid processes and potential implications.
• Strengthen the capacity of the Planning Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting (PMER) units at ATA in evaluation by providing technical inputs to the evaluation reports prepared by the unit,
• Ensure all training materials, Evaluation Reports, original data collection forms, and hard copies of raw data (if any) are maintained and submitted to ATA with the final dataset.

Job Requirement

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS:

• Master’s degree in Monitoring and Evaluation, Development Economics, Economics, Agricultural Economics, Development Studies, Statistics or another relevant field.
• At least 8 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, based on planning frameworks such as logical framework, results in framework, outcome mapping.
• Deep understanding of the theory and application of performance evaluation as well as impact 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 interact.
• Excellent analytical, problem-solving, and data gathering and analysis skills.
• Ability to thrive in a fast-moving, start-up environment, with an emphasis on high performance, teamwork, accountability, and results.
• A strong set of personal values including integrity, honesty, and desire to be of service.
• Fluency in English is essential.
• In-depth understanding of GTP issues in Ethiopia, with a special focus on Agribusiness, Input voucher system, cooperative marketing.
• Experience in conducting qualitative and quantitative research.
• Hands-on experience in SPSS, STATA
• Analytical competence, excellent ability to identify constraints, and capable of using a system approach required.