Abt Associates is recruiting qualified candidates for the upcoming USAID/Nepal Agricultural Input Market System Activity, a new five-year Activity planned by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in Nepal. This Activity will focus on improving the productivity, competitiveness, inclusivity, and resilience of Nepal’s agriculture sector by increasing the availability and accessibility of four critical inputs – improved seed, fertilizer, irrigation, and agricultural equipment. The Agricultural Input Market System Activity will result in the stabilization of Nepal’s agricultural input market system and reduce the specific barriers faced by women, youth, and marginalized farmers to accessing, utilizing, and benefiting from improved inputs.

The position will be based in Kathmandu, Nepal and is contingent upon project award to Abt Associates.

Qualifications:

• Master’s degree in statistics, development economics, business administration, or relevant area of study and at least 10 years of professional experience in data management and analysis for monitoring and evaluation, adaptive management and/or learning
• Demonstrated experience designing and implementing MEL systems for complex donor-funded development projects, preferably USAID-funded.
• Experience in market systems monitoring and/or the Donor Committee for Enterprise Development (DCED) Standard preferred.
• Expertise in adaptive management, organizational learning/development, systems mapping, and development and use of collaborating, learning and adapting (CLA)-related tools. 
• Demonstrated leadership skills and ability to work collaboratively and independently.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills in English required.
• Nepali nationals are strongly encouraged to apply.

Minimum Qualifications:

Bachelor’s Degree + Twelve years of relevant experience, or Master’s Degree + Ten years of relevant experience, or PhD+ Eight years of relevant experience

Job Descriptions 

• Lead the design, development, and implementation of the project Activity Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Plan (AMELP) and learning agenda, including identifying and adapting relevant indicators.
• Work closely with project technical staff and management to ensure appropriate and adequate MEL efforts are in place to provide each team with data needed to inform their program design and implementation decisions.
• Manage a rigorous approach to MEL and research to measure performance toward specific goals and objectives, including quantitative, qualitative, and participatory methodologies.
• Design data collection tools, schedules, analysis methods, and applied learning approaches for stakeholder training.
• Develop mechanisms to establish feedback loops between activity implementation, data collection, and communications and learning.
• Oversee and lead qualitative and quantitative data collection processes and strategies.
• Synthesize monitoring and evaluation findings needed for quarterly and annual reports for USAID.
• Drive the project’s overall learning agenda to derive lessons learned and best practices from project activities and contribute to quarterly program reviews.