Developmental Evaluation Officer

**USAID REDUCING POLLUTION PROJECT**

**RECRUIT**

**DEVELOPMENTAL EVALUATION OFFICER**

**1. BACKGROUND INFORMATION**

The Reducing Pollution Project funded by U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) aims to support Vietnam’s efforts to address environmental pollution challenges using a collective impact approach.

Through this Activity, USAID expects to attain the following results:

- Six collective impact initiatives launched, including plastic pollution, air pollution, pollution from craft villages, and transparent data disclosure from companies and industrial zones;
- Improved legal framework on environmental pollution reduction to support the effective implementation of the 2020 Law on Environmental Protection;
- Enhanced collaboration among networks of stakeholders working together to prevent and reduce environmental pollution; and
- Strengthened capacity for establishing, sharing, and using environmental data to support the development of policy and solutions for environmental pollution challenges.

**2. POSITION DESCRIPTION**

The concept of developmental evaluation focuses on structured, ongoing monitoring, assessment, and feedback on the development of a project while it is in a stage of growth, development, or transition. This is often done through a longer-term relationship between the developmental evaluator(s) and the project team so that the evaluator(s) can gain a nuanced understanding of the many factors and considerations facing the project team and provide feedback that can be used to inform and improve project implementation as it occurs, rather than after the fact. It is within this context that the Reducing Pollution project is seeking a Developmental Evaluation Officer.

The Developmental Evaluation (DE) Officer’s role is to focus on collaboration, learning, and adaptation (CLA) to improve the quality and effectiveness of the Reducing Pollution Project and its six initiatives which requires collaboration amongst many different stakeholders from different organizations and sectors.

The DE Officer will collaborate with the team on an ongoing basis and is integrated into the process of gathering and interpreting data, framing issues, and testing model developments. As the project and its initiatives operate in a dynamic environment that is constantly changing and are concerned with innovation, replication, or mainstreaming, the DE Officer will provide timely feedback and ongoing recommendations to the Reducing Pollution Team, and other stakeholders so that they can use them to adapt and implement new measures and actions. They also take an active role in shaping the course of small grants to support the implementation of initiatives.

Supervised by the Team Leader for Learning and Innovation, the DE Officer will work with the project’s three team leaders to guide the Project’s learning agenda, and coordinate and implement the project’s evaluation activities. They also will actively collaborate with other project staff and the US-based Analytics, Gender, Inclusion, Learning, and Evaluation (AGILE) staff to promote the integration of evaluation across all project components, evaluation data collection activities, and the development, writing, and submission of evaluation reports.

**3. RESPONSIBILITIES**

The DE Officer will have the following responsibilities:
**Developmental Evaluation**
- In close cooperation with the Team Leader for Learning and Innovation, develop a plan for innovative developmental evaluation with real-time evaluation approaches, guidelines, tools for project, its initiatives, and small grants.
- Collaborate with the Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) team to review and update the Learning Questions in the Activity Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Plan (AMELP) of the Reducing Pollution Project to prepare a plan for beneficiary feedback collection and learning from previous experiences.
- Collaborate with the MEL team and Collective Impact team to monitor, assess and provide feedback on project and initiatives’ activities and for the development of grants or research while they are being designed or modified.
- Develop thorough and accurate questions about the process and findings, identify patterns and added information in those findings, and ensure that these are incorporated into the project via feedback loops.
- Take the lead in planning, organizing, and conducting developmental evaluation activities to gather real-time data and to recognize, record, and feedback on unexpected and unpredicted outcomes to inform ongoing decision-making.
- Produce short, practical developmental evaluation reports and ensure that findings will enhance the learning and effectiveness of the project and its initiatives.
- Identify best practices and lessons learned, promoting their use to improve the Reducing Pollution Project’s performance, and contributing to the work of Winrock International relating to knowledge management, innovation, and commu