Lead Strategy Alignment and PMP Development Specialist, SUPPORT, Juba, Sudan

Management Systems International (MSI) is a global international development firm based in Washington, D.C. providing specialized short- and long-term technical assistance. MSI is part of Coffey International Development, a global international development consulting firm. Together with Coffey ID, MSI now has more than 1,500 development professionals worldwide, a corporate presence in 11 countries and manages more than 200 projects worldwide. It currently manages more than 20 long-term projects in countries, including Iraq, Sudan, Colombia and Russia. Broadly, MSI implements a range of analytical and field projects in its core technical areas, including democracy and governance, strategic management and performance improvement, organizational capacity building, human development and natural resource management. For more information on MSI, please visit our website at www.msiworldwide.com.

Project/Proposal Summary:
MSI was awarded a three-year contract with USAID/Sudan on a project named SUPPORT (Services Under Program and Project Offices for Results Tracking), and tasked with the responsibility of executing functions normally associated with USAID’s Program and Communications offices. As a part of the SUPPORT project, MSI hiring technical and support staff, assisting USAID with logistics, and facilitating VIP visits. For more information on our Sudan project
(Services Under Program and Project Offices for Results Tracking – SUPPORT) please follow this link: http://www.msiworldwide.com/index.cfm?msiweb=project&p_id=150

Position Summary:
The Education component of the USAID/South Sudan Transition Strategy is captured under DO 3: Essential Services Developed and Sustained, which incorporates activities under Health, Education, Nutrition and Water and Sanitation. For post-conflict countries, the Agency’s Education Strategy requires that at the early stages of state reconstruction/recovery, development efforts should be focused on the expansion of education opportunities and establishment of institutions, structures and systems, and human capacity development in order to create the enabling institutional environment and education delivery platform for long-term improved education outcomes. The two evaluators will develop a new Performance Management Plan (PMP) to regulate the monitoring, reporting and evaluation functions related to implementation of the Transition Strategy in South Sudan. This PMP is expected to align the design of new activities, and the reporting of results and evaluation of context and other performance evaluation under ongoing and new activities with the programming and reporting requirements contained in the Agency Education Strategy. The assignment is for approximately 36 LOE days from October – November 2011.

Responsibilities:
The Lead Consultant will be responsible for overseeing the team and ultimately responsible for the submission of the final deliverables to the Mission. The objective of assignment is to develop for implementation, a Performance Management Plan (PMP) that will support the monitoring and reporting of results and the evaluation of program performance and/or impact and other contextual analysis that could inform evidenced-based programming under the Education component of Development Objective (DO) 3: Essential Services Developed and Sustained of the USAID/South Sudan Transition Strategy. Specifically, the specialists will:

1) Review the Education component of the USAID/South Sudan Transition Strategy and its results reporting framework to determine the extent of alignment with the programming considerations for post-conflict countries as outlined in the Agency’s Education Strategy.
2) Perform an indicator gap analysis between the results framework indicators of the USAID/South Sudan Transition Strategy and the proposed indicators of the Agency’s Education Strategy and advise on how future interventions under the Transition Strategy may be designed to better align with Agency’s Education Strategy.
3) Prepare a graphic results framework that presents the DO and IR statements as well as the proposed indicators on a single sheet.
4) Prepare detailed narratives for the DO and IR level (incorporating relevant outcome and output indicators outlined under Goals 1 and 3 of the Agency’s Education Strategy). The narratives should discuss what result is expected to be achieved and why/how the proposed goal, result and activity level indicators will successfully measure progress toward the achievement of the DO and IR; ensuring that performance indicators are direct, objective, useful for management, adequate and attributable to USAID.
5) For each selected indicator, and as part of development of respective indicator reference sheets, outline appropriate plans for performance data collection and analysis, for performance reviews.
6) Prepare Performance Indicator Reference Sheets for each selected indicator.
7) Establish baseline data collection and processing framework for each selected indicator.
8) Document data validation and quality assurance processes to enhance the year-on-year integrity of reported performance data.
9) Establish Audit Readiness mechanisms to enhance the maintenance of effective internal controls over data processing and an audit trail to safeguard the integrity of performance data reporting processes.
10) Determine the range of evaluations and other studies required to enhance evidenced-based programming over the life of the Transition Strategy.
11) Package materials/narratives into a draft Performance Management Plan for submission to the DO.
12) Prepare a final draft of the DO PMP that incorporates feedback received from the DO Team for final submission.


Qualifications:
• Bachelor’s Degree and minimum of fifteen (15) years of progressively responsible work experience OR Master’s Degree and a minimum of ten (10) years of relevant experience with a USG foreign affairs agency, large international assistance organization, or non-governmental organization.
• Strong skills in PMP development, performance indicator measurement and reporting processes of USAID projects (preferably 10 years or more)
• Experience in the design of development assistance projects in conflict-affected contexts (preferably 5 years or more)
• Strong skills in descriptive and inferential statistical analysis and data presentation
• Strong research and writing skills
• Extensive experience working in East Africa and in South Sudan
• Facilitation experience, experience leading participatory program strategy designs that include intended program beneficiaries as active participants in the design processes

Only candidates who have been selected for an interview will be contacted. No phone calls, please.

To apply, please visit our website:
www.msiworldwide.com.