Group Summary:
The Strategy, Measurement and Evaluation (SME) team is responsible for the foundation's strategic planning process and its overall approach to results measurement and evaluation. Strong planning and technically sound measurement are high priorities for the foundation's leadership. SME will build new capacity through 2012 to act as a cross-disciplinary resource for foundation programs working in domestic education, international health and development. As a center of excellence, the SME team designs and tests pilots to facilitate organizational learning and improvement, brings in best practice and innovation from outside the foundation, and leads the in-house technical community of practice - a standard setting and technical review body for the foundation's evaluation plans.
Responsibilities:
The SM&E team has a new mandate at the foundation and is building up many of its work streams in 2012-13. The Senior Officer is a key member of the team, responsible for helping to define, launch and implement three related work streams. For the time being, the Senior Officer will not have management responsibilities, but this may change over time depending on the evolution of the work.
The Senior Officers in SM&E focus on three priority areas of work: technical backstopping, M&E organizational analysis, and evaluation. The top priority for this Senior Officer's work is evaluation, providing strong technical support to diverse program teams as an entrée to strengthen the organization's overall understanding and use of evaluation design and use.
The Senior Officer reports to the Director and will work closely with other team members as well as MLE colleagues across the foundation.
Specific responsibilities are to:
- Provide technical support in evaluation to foundation program teams and country offices.
- Write an annual report of M&E practice in the foundation. SM&E is responsible for tracking the overall quality of M&E at the foundation and the progress we make improving it over time. Senior Officers are responsible for this broad look across the organization, surfacing needs for investment in both capacity and dollars. Using his/her work in technical backstopping, participation in the MLE Community of Practice and other entrees to M&E "intelligence", the Senior Officer(s) lead the annual review of foundation practice that SM&E can use as a communication, advocacy and change management tool.
- Develop and run an Evaluation System. The Senior Officer(s) are key drivers of the foundation's evaluation system - a new and essential investment for the organization. This includes an evaluation policy, support creating relevant terms of references and selecting evaluators, technical review of evaluation designs, an evaluation registry and management, meta- analysis and fluency in the organization's ongoing evaluations. This work will be necessarily very collaborative and engage not only MLE staff, but also grantees, program staff and leadership, requiring a good deal of partnership, coordination and project management skills.
- Speak out for evaluation. All SM&E staff members communicate widely about measurement, looking for ways to create buzz and discourse on innovation, lessons, best practice and the need for transparency about the foundation's results. In addition, the Senior Officer(s) use their work with program teams and knowledge of outside trends to develop regular content for internal communication on M&E practice and innovation inside/outside the foundation.
- Partner and Collaborate Senior Officer(s) contribute to the larger measurement community of practice at the foundation and participate actively on other SM&E work streams, including the effort to strengthen our grant making and management tools, specifically the training and tools that will be developed and rolled out to program teams.
Qualifications:
- Advanced degree in economics or related quantitative social science or public health discipline (e.g., epidemiology, public policy, political science) required; PhD strongly preferred.
- Expertise and experience in the area of rigorous measurement and evaluation, including econometrics, strongly preferred.
- Thorough familiarity with logic models, logical frameworks, or similar devices for framing strategic objectives, articulating key assumptions, and articulating results important.
- The ideal candidate will have a creative, pragmatic bent that allows for being responsive to program needs while maintaining integrity in evaluation expertise and technical advice
- Content knowledge and expertise in one of the foundation's global program areas required.
- A preference for rigor, purpose driven evaluation and cost effective use of resources important.
- Experience working as a practitioner in international development or public health or in a grantee or donor organization preferred.
- At least 10 years of experience doing evaluation related work in complex organizations doing global work
- Very strong verbal and written communication skills, including facilitation
- Ability to work as part of a team with flexibility, optimism, efficiency, enthusiasm, and diplomacy both individually and as part of a complex organization.
- Sense of humor. Huge.
As part of our standard hiring process for new employees, employment with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will be contingent upon successful completion of a comprehensive background check.
Foundation Overview:
Guided by the belief that every life has equal value, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives. In developing countries, it focuses on improving people's health and giving them the chance to lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty. In the United States, it seeks to ensure that all people-especially those with the fewest resources-have access to the opportunities they need to succeed in school and life. Based in Seattle, the foundation is led by CEO Jeff Raikes and co-chair William H. Gates Sr., under the direction of Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett.
crossposted from 3ie news.
Requisition Number: 3094BR
Nearest Major Market: Seattle
Job Segments: Change Management, Epidemiology, Global Health, Government, Healthcare, International Health, International Medicine, Legal, Management, NGO, Nonprofit, Not for Profit, Philanthropic, Philanthropy, Project Manager, Public Health, Public Policy, Strategic Planning, Strategy, Technical Support, Technology
Location: Seattle, WA, US
Business Title Senior Officer, Strategy, Measurement & Evaluation
Division: Strategy, Measurement and Evaluation
Department: N/A
Location: Seattle
