Pact is an international nonprofit that works in nearly 40 countries building solutions for human development that are evidence-based, data-driven and owned by the communities we serve. Founded in 1971, Pact works with partners to build resilience, improve accountability, and strengthen knowledge and skills for sustainable social impact.

Programs – Pact strives for a world where all people are heard, capable, and vibrant. The Programs Team helps realize this objective by bridging program management, technical support, and business development, enabling Pact to achieve its global strategy. We ensure program excellence through continuous learning, monitoring and evaluation and provide organizational and industry-wide thought leadership by leveraging a complementary set of cross-functional, multi-disciplinary skills, expertise, and experiences. The Programs team: influences progressive change through the development and implementation of global and regional strategies and business plans; supports advancement of innovative solutions; pursues new business opportunities; and drives effective internal and external engagement to maximize Pact’s impact across the globe. Across all aspects of its role, the Programs Department adheres to and promotes a culture of inclusion, accountability, and respect.

Pact seeks an experienced Senior Research and Learning Advisor for the anticipated USAID Madagascar Access Miahy Activity. USAID Access Miahy’s goal is to accelerate sustainable reductions in maternal, neonatal and child morbidity and mortality through increased access and availability of quality primary health care (PHC) services. Access Miahy will continue building the capacity of Ministry of Public Health (MOPH) actors and other relevant stakeholders at district, facility and community levels to design, develop, manage, deliver, monitor and evaluate health services and programs aligned with the intervention packages in their catchment areas.

USAID Access Miahy is anticipated to be a $50-$99M cooperative agreement; the anticipated release date is August 16, 2024, with an anticipated award date of October 31, 2024. This position is subject to the project award.

This position is anticipated to be based in Antananarivo, Madagascar.

The Senior Research and Learning Advisor provides strategic guidance, vision, and management for successful program research, evaluation and learning. The Advisor will collaborate with technical teams to ensure utilization of evidence-based activities; and will be responsible for cultivating a culture of data use for decision-making and learning throughout all levels of the project. This position will apply intentional integration of robust learning within program activities to ensure capture and dissemination of program successes and learnings. This position will supervise regional CLA Officers while collaborating closely with the Senior Monitoring and Evaluation Manager on development and implementation of the program’s research, evaluation and learning agendas. This position reports to the Director, Monitoring, Evaluation, Research and Learning.

The specific duties to be carried out by the successful candidate are:

Operationalize USAID’s Collaboration, Learning and Adapting (CLA) Approach

• Identify and prioritize internal and external teams and stakeholders for strategic collaboration.
• Create systematic collaboration and learning touchpoints throughout the project including routine pause & reflect opportunities for collaborative review of data and learnings.
• Analyze learning from implementation and/or pause & reflect opportunities to inform decision-making; and follow through on decisions reached to manage adaptively.

Design and operationalize robust research, evaluation and learning agenda

• Lead the development of the Activity’s learning agenda which includes both evaluation-focused and learning- focused questions.
• Define research methods for responding to evaluation and learning questions; and conduct relevant studies according to standard research best practices.
• Analyze and write up findings from studies and disseminate them to relevant stakeholders through appropriate channels.
• Track updates in relevant technical evidence base; and collaborate with technical teams to apply best practices and adaptations to programming based on changing evidence base.
• Maintain relevant program contextual awareness by identifying risks and opportunities in the local context, monitoring shifts, and responding to shifts.

Manage CLA Staff at Regional Level

• Provide supportive supervision and mentoring of regional level CLA staff to ensure that CLA activities at the regional level are implemented as planned and meet the standards required.
• Support the regional CLA staff to implement research and learning activities as planned in collaboration with the regional level government.
• Support the regional staff in publication and dissemination of regional level lessons and results from the project to ensure shared learning across partners.

• Bachelor’s degree (social science, international development, public health, evaluation, statistics, or economics) and 8 years’ relevant experience and experience. Alternatively, a Master’s degree in similar disciplines and 6 years’ relevant experience.
• A minimum of 4 years of management experience.
• Significant experience designing, managing, and implementing results-based MERL activities.
• Demonstrated relevant technical skills in analyzing and interpreting quantitative and qualitative data and packaging the findings.
• Progressively responsible experience in monitoring and evaluation of sexual and reproductive health and livelihoods, program beneficiaries, and program staff.
• Experience in utilizing gender and social inclusion sensitive indicators and measures.
• Extensive knowledge of reporting procedures, including USAID, best practices, guidelines, and tools for monitoring, evaluation and learning, including impact evaluation.
• Demonstrated ability to work well with diverse technical teams and with various partner organizations.
• Experience working in Madagascar.
• Extensive expertise in research ethics and Do No Harm requirements in sensitive research environments.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office programs, i.e., Excel, Word, PowerPoint, etc., and the ability to use various commercially available statistical software programs.

• Experience with DHIS2 platform and mobile data collection software.
• Experience in utilizing gender and social inclusion sensitive indicators and analysis.
• Malagasy nationals are strongly encouraged to apply.

Salary for this position is commensurate with local office salary scales and will be determined based on the candidate’s experience and qualifications.