Evaluation Specialist - USAID/Nigeria SCALE Final Performance Evaluation

Team: USAID/Nigeria MEL Support Activity
Project: USAID/Nigeria Peace and Democratic Governance (PDG) Office
Location: Federal Capital Territory – Abuja, Nigeria
Reporting to: Assessment and Evaluation Advisor
Employment Type: Independent Contractor / Short-Term Technical Assistance (STTA)
Period of Performance: October 2024 – April 2025
Number of Positions: 1

Navanti supports a Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) Support Activity program that assists USAID/Nigeria in advancing its broader organizational learning and development efforts. This program strengthens the Mission’s capacity and performance in programmatic monitoring, evaluation, learning, collaborating, and adapting. The MEL Support Activity closely aligns with USAID/Nigeria’s Country Development Cooperation Strategy (CDCS). It provides a broad range of specialized technical assistance, training, data gathering and analysis, field-based monitoring, evaluations and assessments, facilitation of organizational learning and adaptation initiatives, and short-term technical assistance.

Overview and Evaluation Purpose:
USAID/Nigeria has engaged the MEL Support Activity to conduct a final performance evaluation of the Strengthening Civic Advocacy and Local Engagement (SCALE) Activity to determine the extent to which SCALE enhanced capacity for civic advocacy, monitoring, and engagement and ascertain the extent to which SCALE activities fostered an enabling environment (legal and regulatory) for civic engagement.

This evaluation will be used primarily by USAID Nigeria’s Peace and Democratic Governance (PDG) team to inform activity design for future good governance-related activities. However, PDG will share the evaluation report with other technical teams within the Mission and the broader USAID audiences, including USAID/Washington to help agencies better understand the civic advocacy context of Nigeria, and most importantly, the efficacy of support to CSOs and civic monitoring and engagement.

About SCALE Activity:
SCALE was designed to contribute to USAID Nigeria’s current Country Development Cooperation Strategy’s (CDCS) development objective DO3, Accountable, Inclusive, and Responsive governance strengthened, by directly strengthening IR 3.2, Enhanced civic voice and accountability, through its 2 sub-IRs. The intervention was implemented by Palladium. SCALE's implementation approach is built on a foundation of proven methodologies for improving governance in Nigeria at the federal, state, and local levels.

SCALE Theory of Change (To C) was premised on:
IF: (i) CSO capacity (managerial, financial, and advocacy) is enhanced; AND (ii) CSOs collaborate effectively with each other and with government; AND (iii) the CSO enabling environment is permissive (legislative, policy and practice); THEN: civil society can effectively engage citizens to influence government in key development reforms at national, state and local levels in Nigeria to improve public accountability, transparency, and sustainable service delivery.

The above theory of change is based on the following assumptions:
Nigeria remains conducive for CSOs to influence reforms and policies in transparency, accountability, and good governance in targeted sectors, and ensures an enabling environment for CSOs devoid of intimidation and harassment. This is particularly imperative given the recent reports by domestic and international election observer groups alluding to the exclusion of CSOs from collation centers; and intimidation, arrest, and detention of journalists by security agencies. The Nigerian government will not introduce restrictive legislation and will continue to improve the legal and operational environment for CSOs to thrive. The government will work positively to address security constraints that hamper citizen participation in significant parts of the country experiencing conflict; and

USAID’s vision for SCALE’s success will be assessed by the activities' ability to move towards locally sustainable management that will be viable and thriving post-SCALE. Local partners’ self-reliance will be encouraged from the outset. In line with USAID’s localization strategy, SCALE will plan to transition key project functions to local entities before the end of the project. SCALE will design phased approaches to transition, allowing an appropriate time for project staff to mentor and provide quality assurance after the transition.

The estimated start date will be October 28, 2024. The evaluation is expected to last until April 2025.
Candidates are reviewed on a rolling basis; early submission is recommended.

Position Description:
Navanti is seeking an evaluation specialist who will be responsible for the overall design of data collection tools and procedures, lead training of research assistants, and manage and analyze both qualitative and quantitative data collected from the field. Under the guidance of the MEL Support Activity, the evaluation specialist is expected to work closely with the USAID/Nigeria-PDG team. The evaluation is expected to have done a similar evaluation in Nigeria and other similar contexts.
The evaluation specialist will be supported by the team leader, policy reform specialist, and civil society/advocacy specialist. The evaluation specialist will consult with and facilitate input from all team members throughout the evaluation.
The team will use a combination of literature review, mixed methods through focus group discussions, and in-depth interviews to gather insights to answer the evaluation questions. The team is also expected to propose an evaluation methodology/approach as required to respond to the evaluation questions.

Locations (Evaluation Coverage) :
The final locations are yet to be determined. However, the evaluation team will visit at least 7 states across the six geographic regions of North Central, North East, North West, South East, South West, and South-South.
Responsibilities:
The evaluation specialist should have a good methodological background in managing, implementing, or evaluating peace, democratic governance, and civil society human rights activities in developing countries. The candidate must have experience of USAID program evaluation, program design and analysis, quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis, and survey design and analysis.

The evaluation specialist will:

• Participate in the evaluation kick-off session with USAID/Nigeria.
• Conduct desk review of the activity and support policy reform contextual understanding of the evaluation.
• Design the data collection instruments and ensure they address all evaluation objectives.
• Collect, analyze, and interpret data using both qualitative and quantitative methods.
• Analyze data sets using statistical methods and relational databases.
• Support in preparing reports of research findings.
• Work with the team leader and other team members in planning, developing, coordinating, and administering research tools.
• Perform quality assurance reviews of both quantitative and qualitative data.
• Support the team leader in writing or editing technical reports and summaries of findings.
• Work with the team leader to perform desk review and identify additional information required for analysis.
• Work with the Team Leader and other team members in preparation and presentation of the In-brief and Out-brief to USAID/Nigeria and other stakeholders as requested.
• Support the team leader and other team members to develop the draft Evaluation report with support from the team members, taking into consideration feedback from the Out-brief presentation.
• Work collaboratively with team members throughout design, implementation, analysis, and report writing to complement each other's areas of expertise.

Qualifications:
The candidate is expected to have the following qualifications:

• A minimum of eight years of experience in monitoring, evaluation, learning, program evaluation design, data management and analysis, computer science, or a similar role.
• Strong experience in designing qualitative and quantitative data collection tools
• Advanced degree in statistics, mathematics, engineering, data science, or related field.
• Experience with qualitative and quantitative research methods.
• Strong analytical skills and attention to detail.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to work independently and as part of a team.
• S/he must demonstrate strong experience with data collection procedures, surveys, and analysis of data using statistical analysis tools such as SPSS or STATA suitable for a varied audience.
• Previous experience as an evaluation specialist in related evaluations, assessments, and research studies. USAID evaluation experience is strongly preferred.

The consultant should adhere to ethical guidelines, obtain informed consent, and protect the confidentiality and anonymity of participants.

Only selected candidates will be contacted for an interview. Please, no phone calls.