Developmental Evaluation Lead

Remote – U.S. East Coast

Posted January 15, 2025

Headlight Organization Overview

Founded in 2018, Headlight Consulting Services, LLC delivers data-driven decision-making to its partners through robust strategy design support, in-depth monitoring, evaluation, and learning technical services, and facilitated organizational change processes. Headlight brings extensive experience in international development and expertise in qualitative methods; systems-thinking; utilization-focused Collaborating, Learning, Adapting, Monitoring, and Evaluation (CLAME); emergent methods such as developmental evaluation; evaluation policy design; organizational development; and much more. Headlight offers fit-for-purpose, agile solutions to improve the efficiency and efficacy of development programs around the globe, focusing on the structures and systems that enable sustainable solutions.

Summary of Position

Headlight seeks a skilled Developmental Evaluation (DE) Lead to design, implement, and support knowledge management, adaptive management, and evaluative efforts as part of a Developmental Evaluation (DE) supporting the USAID/Ethiopia Mission. The DE, started in October 2024, facilitates evaluative thinking and adaptation with the USAID/Ethiopia team to improve activity design, management, and closeout. The DE Lead will facilitate active learning, iterative design, and adaptive management of an expansive, integrated portfolio. They will do this by clarifying and refining approaches to make the Mission more sustainable, flexible, and locally-owned. This will guide current and future programming priorities and contribute evidence to the broader USAID/Ethiopia portfolio as well as to USAID/Washington and other Missions.

The DE will bring all the partners together to build buy-in to the DE process, a culture of learning and adaptability from the evidence collected throughout the DE. A DE helps to ensure rigorous documentation of the learnings throughout the process, enabling them to be shared, replicated, and available for in-depth review for how decisions were made and adaptations executed. This documentation facilitates informed iterations within the Mission’s contracting processes, revisiting decisions to try different approaches when desired, and supports other similar initiatives in their learning and approaches to collective impact and complex partnerships.

The DE Lead will engage remotely with USAID/Ethiopia staff in Addis Ababa and the DE team in the U.S. throughout the life of the DE (2025 – April 2028). Travel to and within Ethiopia to work with partners or other stakeholders and/or collect data may be required. All pertinent safety considerations will considered before travel is approved. The DE Lead will have additional technical and strategic communications support from Headlight headquarters staff throughout the implementation of the DE.

The DE Lead will report directly to the DE Administrator Lead based in the Eastern US Timezone. Ability to work with the U.S. East Coast (GMT -5) and East Africa (GMT +3) time zones is required. East Coast-based staff generally start at 7 am Eastern.

Responsibilities

The DE Lead will be responsible for the implementation and iteration of the DE and for ensuring its quality. The DE Lead will be responsible for the following:

• Convene and organize partners to develop evidence-based continuous improvement plans (e.g., supporting workshops on adapting activity management to conflict);
• Foster strong, collaborative relationships with key client stakeholders; serve as a convener for dialogue and learning around emerging issues; assist in identifying and responding to key learning issues; and coordinate efforts amongst stakeholders working in common objectives;
• Facilitate ongoing DE stakeholder acculturation, which will help to collaboratively conceptualize and develop the DE design and approach (learning framework, methodology, work plans, reporting, etc.), including onboarding new stakeholders in the Mission’s support offices as needed;
• Develop, track, and communicate high-quality information to decision-makers to inform timely and data-driven decision-making; regularly record decision-making, program changes, and/or changes in the environment in a report log;
• Attend and collaborate through regular meetings with program leadership, relevant stakeholders at all levels, and monitoring and evaluation staff as needed to collect data and facilitate adaptation;
• Lead the establishment of working groups and serve as a strategic advisor, helping to cascade improved collaboration to the Mission’s implementing partners;
• Manage and contribute to a living work plan for the evaluation, including an agreed set of deliverables (which may change over time, depending on the needs of the program);
• Manage mid-level staff, providing learning, technical guidance, quality assurance, and opportunities for collaboration and connection with other resources;
• Identify and manage evaluative or data collection needs and associated teams as they arise;
• Provide quality assurance of relevant deliverables, including regular intermediate report logs (that track details of DE and document all events that occur — i.e., planned, unplanned, and associated outcomes) and the final report of the evaluation;
• Conduct analysis of the data collected and present engaging, use-focused feedback regularly to program staff and key partners and facilitate uptake of recommendations and associated adaption tracking; and,
• Develop and test CLAME tools; and identify and manage contributing or new evaluative or data collection needs and associated teams as they arise.

In addition to the responsibilities above, the DE Lead may also be asked to support some responsibilities of a Home Office-based DE Administrator as they will be uniquely positioned to make connections between the Mission’s activity design and activity management work and Technical Office-specific information that Office-assigned DE Leads could help cascade to appropriate Office staff and IPs. These responsibilities include:

• Monitor and contribute to DE strategy development and execution for potential adaptations across the activity;
• Provide backstop support to other DE Leads to ensure quality and timely delivery of service as it overlaps with aligned priorities and/or is needed;
• Coordinate and collaborate with USAID staff to scope discrete tasks and supports;
• Collaborate with the Learning Project team working on Knowledge Management and Organizational Learning (KMOL) to ensure connections are made with technical teams, support teams, and Mission Leadership
• Identify timelines, budgets, and labor coverage for projects and tasks (joint responsibility with task-associated DE Leads);
• Provide progress updates weekly to communicate the status of work being implemented; and,
• Support ongoing qualitative analysis (including data coding) on existing documentation (use-focused literature reviews), provided data sets, and newly collected data to inform evidence-based recommendations for the Mission and its IPs
• Approximately 25% travel is anticipated with this role.

Qualifications

• Master’s degree in Political Science, International Relations, or related disciplines.
• Minimum 7+ years of professional experience in international development and/or CLAME-related roles, with at least 2 years of professional experience working with USAID preferred.
• Familiarity with USAID’s organizational structure, program cycle, and operating context
• Facilitation experience, including with multicultural audiences and team members, particularly related to activity design and organizational learning.
• Technical knowledge, skills, and expertise in evaluation design, concepts, and approaches, and evaluating complexity in particular — extensive knowledge of M&E is required, such as theory of change development, indicators development, USAID’s CLA Framework, etc.
• Demonstrated experience with quantitative and/or qualitative data analysis and associated applications.
• Strong writing skills and experience writing for different audiences.
• Experience working as an advisor to clients at different levels of an organization, virtually, and across different time zones.
• Appetite for building relationships and networking.
• High standards of integrity, professionalism, and creative problem-solving.
• Must enjoy working in a team environment, as well as independently
• Desire to contribute to the international development community, share technical knowledge, and mentor local and junior professionals.
• Authorized to work in the US without sponsorship

Benefits

Headlight offers full-time employees a competitive salary package ($75,141 – $100,842); vacation, holiday, and sick leave; health insurance coverage; and much more. Headlight has a fixed payscale based on education and years of experience that will be applied when evaluating applicants.

How to Apply

Interested persons should send a CV and Cover Letter that highlights experience aligned with the requirements above to info@headlightconsultingservices.com. Please include in the subject line of your email “US-based DE Lead.”

Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis, so apply as soon as possible! Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

Headlight Consulting Services, LLC follows all state and federal laws and is an Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action Employer. Headlight provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, and training.