Consultant (MSD Project - Monitoring, Learning Evaluation)
WorldFish, Bangladesh

Location: Dhaka, Bangladesh

Application Deadline: 14 September 2021

Type of contract: Consultant

Language(s) required: English (native/fluent writing and oral skills)

About the Organization

WorldFish is an international, non-for-profit research organization that works to reduce hunger, malnutrition and poverty by improving fisheries and aquaculture. With a 45-years track record of leading-edge science, WorldFish generates research evidence and innovations to inform sustainable practices and inclusive policies that enable better livelihoods and healthier diets for millions of poor people, particularly women, who depend on fish for food, nutrition and income. WorldFish is a member of CGIAR, the world’s largest global partnership on agriculture research and innovation for a food secure future. Headquartered in Penang, Malaysia and with regional offices across Africa, Asia and the Pacific, WorldFish leads the cross-disciplinary CGIAR Research Program (CRP) on Fish Agri-Food Systems (FISH).

Background

Feed the Future Bangladesh Aquaculture Activity is a 5-year assistance awarded by USAID to WorldFish on February 6, 2018 and is expected to continue until February 5, 2023. The goal of Bangladesh Aquaculture Activity is to achieve inclusive aquaculture sector growth through a market system approach. BAA aims to sustainably improve the livelihoods of a large number of smallholder fish farmers and other aquaculture value chain actors, providing them with the skills and knowledge to thrive in a growing market. The Activity takes a market systems approach where the emphasis is on facilitation rather than direct implementation. Activity staff identify critical underlying issues constraining the sector and encourage co-investment by private sector companies and NGOs through grants to address these issues. The Activity is being implemented through partners across 21 south-western districts and 2 south-eastern districts in Bangladesh.

About the Position

Bangladesh Aquaculture Activity (BAA) has a full-fledged Monitoring, Evaluation amp; Learning (MEL) Team and plan to conduct MEL activities to address USAID requirements. However, the Activity needs to improve the existing MEL system further to help enhance its implementation of market system development program in the aquaculture sector and capture and share scalable results of the interventions with relevant actors, BAA management and donor. For this purpose, it is necessary to assess BAA existing MEL system and bring required changes, develop key Mamp;E tools, select appropriate methods, and prepare materials and guidelines. To provide the support, the short-term consultant will work closely with BAA MEL and Market Systems Development (MSD) teams and other relevant staff, and accomplish the tasks mentioned in the section, below.

Responsibilities

• Review existing program documents and speak to key staff to get a thorough understanding of the MEL system.
• Understand how interventions are designed and managed by the program.
• Determine if and how interventions are monitored on a regular basis and evaluated periodically.
• Assess how results are aggregated from different interventions and used for donor reporting.
• Assess the key strengths and weaknesses of the existing MEL system and its suitability for an MSD program.
• Develop MEL tools and methodologies that enable project to better and more accurately capture the impact of its private sector partnership investments not only within the primary partners but also other value/supply chain actors that benefit/invest as a result of these interventions.
• Suggest changes to the existing MEL system in accordance with best practices.
• Develop tools for the MEL system as required to help with program management as well as donor reporting.
• Develop instruments for regular monitoring and evaluation of interventions.
• Help communicate the results generated by the program with help of infographics.

Deliverables

• Assessment report on BAA MEL system indicating the key strengths and weaknesses of the existing system and its suitability for an MSD program.
• Draft report on improved regular monitoring, evaluation, and learning system for MSD interventions including communicating results.
• Final report on improved MSD MEL system incorporating required key tools, instruments, changes based on best practices.

Requirements

This consultancy opportunity is open for NationalConsultant with the following skills and qualifications:

• Master’s Degree or higher in

Job Rewards and Benefits