Job Description / Terms of Reference                                                                                   

Position: Research Analyst          

Contract: National contract

Reports to: Analysis Project Team Leader                         

Supervision of: None

Budget responsibility: None                    

Duty Station: Nairobi, Kenya

Travel: Less than 20%                                                                  

Duration & contract type: Fixed term, through 30 April 2024, 100%

Eligibility:  Candidates with the right to live and work in Kenya.

Starting date: 1 July 2023 or as soon as possible thereafter

ACAPS’ PURPOSE

ACAPS is dedicated to helping humanitarians make better decisions. We want to put evidence at the heart of decision-making. To achieve this, we collaborate with a variety of partners across the humanitarian sector and beyond. We strive to be an evolving platform, providing:

• Independent analysis to support evidence-based decision-making for humanitarian operations.
• Deployment of experts to support assessments and analysis in crises.
• Innovative approaches to collect more reliable and timely data and conduct rigorous analysis.

ACAPS’ ANALYSIS WORK

ACAPS provides analytical support to the humanitarian community responding to humanitarian crises. Products are designed to inform response programming, awareness raising, advocacy, and decision making, with an emphasis on uncovering barriers to the response, and identifying gaps and priority areas (both sectoral and geographic). ACAPS is in continuous contact with operational organizations and other stakeholders to provide analytical products that directly support the needs of humanitarian community.

ACAPS’ product portfolio includes regular and non-regular reports, including humanitarian needs analysis, thematic analysis, and anticipatory analysis.

RESPONSIBILITIES 

Generic responsibilities 

• Research and Analysis: Conduct monitoring of information on political, economic, social, and humanitarian developments of humanitarian crises and design and write analytical reports about them.
• Methodology and quality assurance: Support the development of ACAPS knowledge and guidance on better data collection, data preparedness activities, analysis, and reporting.
• Collaboration and Networking: Build network of key informants to help to improve the quality of analysis, represent ACAPS and provide visibility to ACAPS’ work.

Secondary data analysis and crisis monitoring

• Review all assessments, reports and information products on humanitarian crises in the Horn of Africa to understand the information landscape and current gaps.
• Contribute to the establishment and maintenance of the team’s information management systems and ensure that internal and external needs for information are processed in a structured and efficient manner. This includes maintenance of ACAPS’ internal monitoring tracking sheet.
• Ensure that crisis monitoring feeds into the design of analytical products.
• Support the overall informational needs of the response through the compilation, synthesis, and analysis of relevant qualitative and quantitative information.
• Contribute to the creation of tools to facilitate the ongoing analysis and sharing of data and information that support evidence-based decision making.

Analytical products

• Lead the design and delivery of multi-sector and thematic analytical products, which includes all phases of analysis production, such as ideation, research, and drafting, and coordinating technical support from other teams within ACAPS.
• This may include leading on in-depth thematic research, ad-hoc briefing notes, and anticipatory analysis, depending on analysis needs and team priorities.
• Support other team members with the development of analysis products.

Strategic External Collaboration

• In close coordination with and with support of the Team Leader and Senior Analyst, lead the expansion of ACAPS’ network and outreach in Nairobi, with regional stakeholders relevant for the work of ACAPS’ analysis team, including regional humanitarian working groups and analysis actors.
• This includes identifying and contacting key interlocutors, building relationships, creating and maintaining contact databases.
• Identify relevant spaces and interested audiences for ACAPS to present its analysis.
• Travel in East Africa for stakeholder outreach, if needed.

Any other tasks which are jointly agreed upon may be added to the job description, as per the project needs. 

Professional Competencies

Required skills, knowledge and experience

• Knowledge of quantitative and qualitative research and mixed analysis methods and ease with handling large amounts of quantitative and qualitative data.
• Written clarity, including ability to analyse complex concepts and synthetize information.
• Previous experience (2 years) in research, analysis, information management, advocacy, or other relevant experience in the humanitarian sector or related fields (development, international relations, social science, etc).
• Ability and confidence to make judgment calls when interpreting ambiguous data.
• Demonstrated understanding of the principles of emergency preparedness, response, and early recovery.
• Demonstrated understanding of needs assessments in humanitarian crisis.
• Demonstrated experience in building and maintaining professional networks.
• Fluent written and oral communication skills in English. Any other language is an asset, especially languages spoken in East Africa.
• Willingness to travel in East Africa.

Generic professional competencies

• Relevant Master’s degree, preferably in humanitarian action, social sciences (anthropology, sociology, economics, political science, psychology, geography, etc.), area studies, international relations, public health, epidemiology or other relevant education.
• Ability to work efficiently under pressure, manage multiple tasks and meet deadlines, while maintaining attention to detail.
• Ability to work autonomously and proactively.
• Proven cooperation and inter-personal skills, including proven capacity to work very efficiently in a team.
• Demonstrated analytical and problem-solving skills, and results-oriented approach.
• Demonstrated ability to take initiative, manage own use of time, and self-motivate.
• Excellent working knowledge of Microsoft Office suite, particularly Excel.
• Familiarity with R, Python, Tableau, PowerBI, or similar software, is an asset.
• Flexible, including willingness to work overtime.

Behavioural Competencies

• Planning and delivering results: Ability to work efficiently under pressure, manage multiple tasks and meet deadlines, while maintaining attention to detail. Ability to work autonomously and proactively.
• Working with people: Proven cooperation and inter-personal skills, including proven capacity to work very efficiently in a team.
• Communicating with impact and respect 
• Active listening 
• Adapting and responding to change
• Social perceptiveness
• Adhering to principles and values 
• Deciding and initiating action

Operate in line with the ACAPS values

ACAPS is a dynamic and independent organisation. Our culture is enshrined in the ACAPS values. The post holder is expected to develop the position in line with these values. The ACAPS values live in the way we manage our teams, create our content and engage with stakeholders.

Performance Management 

The employee will be accountable for the responsibilities and the competencies. The following documents will be used for performance reviews:

• The Job Description
• The Work and Development Plan
• The Performance Review Template