Collaborating, Learning, and Adapting (CLA) support services and Capacity building and strengthening services Socha LLC

Job Description

Company profile:

SoCha (a portmanteau of Social and Change) is an independent Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (ME&L) firm that provides bespoke solutions to social challenges. We are a US-registered, veteran-owned small business and staff support offices in Nairobi, Bangkok, and Mauritius. SoCha currently supports multiple foreign assistance interventions across Asia and Africa.

Background:

USAID/Zambia has a diverse portfolio with programs in the following areas: Health (HIV/AIDS, maternal and child health, family planning and reproductive health, water supply and sanitation, nutrition, malaria, tuberculosis); Education (basic education and early child development); Economic growth (agriculture policy support, private sector, economic opportunity, energy, environment, global climate change, wildlife conservation, energy); and Democracy, Rights and Governance (rule of law and human rights, good governance, political environment and consensus building, civil society).

The Zambia Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Platform (Z-MELP) is an implementing mechanism that provides the USAID/Zambia Mission with access to technical and advisory services to design and carry out specialized, third-party MEL tasks, including practices, processes, and requirements that support Program Cycle implementation. Z-MELP provides on-demand services in response to USAID requests across all technical offices and the Program Office. Among these requests are support for workshop facilitation, whether focused on matters of technical activity (MEL) design and/or implementation, pause and reflect sessions, or team-building in the context of team retreats (to provide just a few examples). For this purpose, Z-MELP is currently building up a pool of local facilitators (operating on a consultancy basis) that can be mobilized as new workshop facilitation requests are issued by the Mission.

Selected individuals and/or firms will be engaged, as needed, on facilitation assignments in the following support areas:

• Provision of Collaborating, Learning, and Adapting (CLA) support services
• Delivery of capacity building and strengthening services

Scope of Work:We are searching for self-assured and experienced workshop and event facilitators to support select Z-MELP engagements with USAID, including leading activity co-creation workshops, strategic planning and team building retreats and other stakeholder engagements as well as on newly introduced USAID content. The facilitators should elucidate participants’ existing knowledge and perspectives, prepare pertinent, meaningful facilitation material, and subsequently steer discussions. The facilitators should be able to monitor and capture participants’ views in ways that can draw out effective actions that address priorities and solve challenges within the Mission as well as with its partners.

To ensure success as a facilitator, you should exhibit zeal and confidence, and be able to draw on creative methods to encourage attendees’ active participation. Invariably, an excellent facilitator should skillfully traverse the line between facilitating and teaching, contingent on the subject matter.

Roles and Responsibilities:

• Facilitate client meetings and events, both for technical and team building purposes;
• Conceptualize workshops based on client inputs and needs;
• Highlighting needs pertaining to collaborating, learning and adaption (CLA);
• Perceiving which requirements are amenable to facilitation;
• Facilitate co-creation workshops, retreats, stakeholder engagement meetings;
• Selecting accompanying group activities that are relevant to the subject matter;
• Encouraging respect for ideas voiced during facilitation;
• Steering conversations on matters that relate to each USAID technical offices;
• Extracting varied insights from participants;
• Technical report writing of each event and ensuring that it speaks to the subject matter that was discussed for each event; and

Minimum qualifications and experience:

• Master’s degree in Social Science, Adult Education, or other related field required;
• At least five (5) years of experience leading/ co-leading the conceptualization and facilitation of workshops; preferably in the space of international development cooperation;
• USAID experience and experience working across a range of USAID/Zambia’s thematic focus areas is a strong asset;
• Excellent inter-personal and communication skills, as well as the listening and problem-solving skills needed to respond in real-time to identified issues/challenges and propose options to workshop participants;
• Creativity and the ability to use interactive exercises, visualizations, and other engaging tools/methods to generate and sustain the interest of workshop participants;
• Creative, curious, and open-minded approach to working with individuals of diverse backgrounds; includes the ability to manage complex group dynamics;
• Awareness of adult learning techniques/methodologies is a bonus;
• Ability to synthesize client feedback to draft detailed workshop agendas and workshop reports/learning pieces; and
• English-language fluency is required
• Zambian nationals or Zambian-based firms meeting the requirements stipulated above are preferred.

Location:

Lusaka, Zambia with occasional travel within Zambia.

Reporting:

Will depend on assignment.

About the Organization

SoCha (a portmanteau for Social Change) is an independent Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (ME&L) firm that provides bespoke solutions to social challenges. We are a veteran-owned small business, registered in the United States and headquartered in Mauritius, which is an IT hub for Southern Hemisphere international organizations. SoCha is structured to be nimble and flexible, where we can rapidly respond to evaluative and analytical requests globally and have a well-established network across Africa and Asia. Since our inception in 2010, we have grown from a consortium of globally recognized experts who specialize in evaluating the effectiveness of development assistance, to a full-fledged ME&L services firm that specializes in advancing innovative methodologies and changing the way donors find solutions to social problems.