Title: Conflict Management and Mitigation Specialist

Team: USAID/Nigeria MEL Support Activity

Project: USAID North-East Connection (NEC) Final Evaluation

Location: Federal Capital Territory – Abuja, Nigeria

Reporting to: Deputy Chief of Party – Technical

Employment Type: Independent Contractor / Short-Term Technical Assistance (STTA)

Period of Performance: June 2023 – November 2023

Number of Positions: 2

 

Navanti supports a Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Support Activity program that assists USAID/Nigeria in advancing its broader organizational learning and development efforts. This program strengthens the Mission’s capacity and performance in programmatic monitoring, evaluation, learning, collaborating, and adapting. The MEL Support Activity closely aligns with USAID/Nigeria’s Country Development Cooperation Strategy (CDCS) and provides a broad range of specialized technical assistance, training, data gathering and analysis, field-based monitoring, evaluations and assessments, facilitation of organizational learning and adaptation initiatives, and short-term technical assistance.

 

Project Objective:

USAID/Nigeria has engaged the MEL Support Activity to conduct an external final evaluation of the North-East Connection Activity. This Activity is theorized that developing local conflict mitigation capacity and increasing social cohesion in areas not yet under terrorist control would serve as a barrier against VE infiltration. The activity was implemented in 90 communities across 15 LGAs as shown below:

• Adamawa sate – Guyuk, Demsa, Numan, Lamurde, Mubi South, and Mubi North
• Borno state – Kwaya Kusar, Hawul, Shani, Maiduguri, and Biu
• Yobe state – Potiskum, Damaturu, and Gujba

The primary purpose of this final evaluation is to assess the effects of NEC activity on the levels of violence in targeted LGAs and impact of the use of nonviolent conflict resolution methods to address violent extremism. The evaluation is also expected to provide feedback on its design and how learnings can be used to improve future projects.  

The evaluation will achieve this purpose by assessing the activity's design, the approaches to achieving the activity objectives, its impact on violence in the LGAs, public perception on the use of non-violence skills to address conflict and its contribution to building community members' resilience to violent extremist groups.

The estimated start date will be June 05, 2023. The evaluation is expected to last until November 2023, and the estimated LOE will be 48 days, maximum.

Candidates are reviewed on a rolling basis; early submission is recommended.

 

Position Description:

Navanti is seeking a Conflict Management and Mitigation Specialist who will be responsible for coordinating qualitative interviews based on contextual understanding of the location and subject matter. The conflict management and mitigation specialist will work with the team leader and evaluation specialist to develop quality data collection tools, conduct qualitative interviews, and support the development of the report. Under the technical leadership of the MEL Support Activity, the Conflict Management and Mitigation Specialist will be working alongside three other team members on the evaluation of the NEC activity. The Conflict Management and Mitigation Specialist will consult with the team leader, evaluation specialist, USAID, NEC Activity implementation team and partners for their input throughout the duration of the evaluation.

 

Locations:

• Adamawa, Borno, and Yobe states

 

Responsibilities:

The Conflict Management and Mitigation Specialist will…

• Provide expert guidance to team members regarding evaluation of conflict resolution     methodologies and conflict prevention.
• Coordinate with the team leader and evaluation specialist to conduct interviews.
• Conduct desk review of the activity and support contextual understanding of the evaluation.
• Work with the evaluation specialist to design the data collection instruments and ensure it addresses all evaluation objectives.
• Interpret and analyze qualitative.
• Support in preparing reports of research findings.
• Work with the team leader in planning, developing, coordinating, and administering research tools.
• Perform quality assurance reviews of both quantitative and qualitative data.
• Support the team leader in writing or editing technical reports and summaries of findings.
• Work with the team leader to perform desk review and identify additional information required for analysis.
• Work with the Team Leader in preparation and presentation of the In-brief and Out-brief to USAID/Nigeria and other stakeholders as requested.
• Support the team leader to develop the draft Evaluation report with support from the team members, taking into consideration feedback from the Out-brief presentation.
• Work with the team leader to respond to USAID comments on the draft report, incorporate USAID/Nigeria staff comments into the final version of the report and finalize the report.
• Work collaboratively with team members throughout design, implementation, analysis, and report writing to complement each other's areas of expertise.

 

Qualifications:

The candidate is expected to have the following qualifications…

• At least 10 years of experience in conflict mitigation and management, peacebuilding, and Do No Harm approach to program implementation.
• Experience in conducting qualitative research interviews with requisite skills such as interview probing skills.
• Experience in conflict management and mitigation practices, support to peace processes, reconciliation, security sector reform, demobilization and reintegration, psycho-social counseling, youth, gender, and other conflict-related work.
• Ability to ask clarifying questions, note taking and ability to observe the scenery for related findings.
• Have excellent verbal and written communication skills in English.
• Knowledge of key actors in the BAY states including donors and other INGOs.
• Must be able to communicate fluently in Hausa.
• Strong analytical skills and attention to detail.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Previous experience as evaluation specialist on peacebuilding, conflict resolution and conflict assessment-sector evaluations, assessments, and research studies. USAID evaluation experience strongly preferred.
• Previous experience working in Africa preferably Nigeria.

 

Only selected candidates will be contacted for an interview. Please, no phone calls.