POST-DOCTORAL RESEARCH SCIENTIST IN QUALITATIVE IMPACT EVALUATION (IE)

The African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC) is an African-led and Africa-based international research institution committed to conducting high-quality and policy-relevant multidisciplinary research. Our goal is to generate evidence for meaningful action, engage with policymakers in the region to disseminate our research findings, influence policy decisions, and improve the quality of life in Africa. APHRC’s Data Synergy Unit supports all Program Units across the Center in the application and utility of monitoring and IE approaches to inform the implementation and assess the performance of the projects aligned to the different research priorities at subnational and national levels across Africa.

To this end, APHRC seeks to recruit one (1) Post-Doctoral Research Scientist in Qualitative IE to support the qualitative IE activities at the center in the following research thematic areas:

1. Human development with focusing on inclusive policies and practices for early childhood development, education, and youth empowerment systems in Africa;
2. Health and Wellbeing with focusing on effective interventions/ or strategies and policies to promote equitable health and well-being of all people in Africa; and,
3. Population Dynamics and Urbanization focusing on the generation of evidence in the areas of urbanization, fertility, and aging and their implications for developing sustainable and resilient cities in Africa.

As a Postdoctoral Research Scientist in Qualitative IE, the successful candidate will support all four thematic areas, working collaboratively with APHRC researchers.

The position will be based at the Center’s Head Office in Nairobi, Kenya; and may include some travels to conduct qualitative IE (IE) activities in other Anglophone and Francophone African countries. As a Qualitative IE Specialist, the Postdoctoral Research Scientist will be primarily responsible for the management of IE projects and supporting researchers at the Center on appropriate qualitative IE designs for different undertakings in the designated research thematic areas. The expected specific duties and responsibilities include the following:

Technical leadership and support

• Leading the design and implementation of development-related qualitative IEs and research studies;
• Support researchers at the Center in the adoption of qualitative IE designs in research studies including complex IEs based on modern practices such as appreciative inquiry, participatory approaches, most significant change, outcome harvesting, contribution analysis, comparative case studies, and process tracing among others.;
• Develop and deepen innovative approaches to IE for example, through training of researchers at the center in IE methodology, developing and writing papers that utilize IE methodologies in peer-reviewed journals, engaging with IE communities of practice to strengthen the Center’s visibility in IE practice, etc.

Fundraising for IE sustainability

• Contribute to the resource mobilization for IE projects to ensure that the Center sustains its IE mandate to the foreseeable future;
• Support IE proposal writing and other fundraising activities – including designing qualitative IE approaches geared towards leveraging funds to broaden the current mandate of the Data Synergy and Evaluations (DSE) Unit;
• Actively collaborate with and contribute to the work of other Program Areas at APHRC to strengthen the IE mandate;

Management of IE Projects

• Establish, monitor, and update work plans and budgets for IE projects;
• Oversee mobilization of IE teams, including organizing and managing team planning meetings and overseeing all necessary logistical preparations for field data collection;
• Identify, recruit, and train research assistants; support teams technically; assist in orienting consultant team members to procedures for working with APHRC;
• Assure high-quality deliverables and evaluation reports;
• Support development of IE including background and supporting research for ongoing/upcoming IE and oversight of survey development: interview and focus group discussion guides, and observation checklists among others;
• Manage qualitative IE datasets (audio recordings and transcripts) throughout the IE life-cycle from coordination of local data collection partners to data management including transcriptions cleaning and coding to preliminary and final analyses;
• Serve as a responsive point of contact for clients, ensure contract compliance, and support contract reporting requirements;
• Support the IE team to develop, review, and finalize IE analysis plans, and evaluation frameworks, and contribute to the drafting of work plans, data collection tools, and field monitoring tools for each IE activity;
• Work with the Project Evaluation Team to provide timely updates and reports on evaluation activities as needed;
• Participate and/or support the dissemination of IE findings at local, national, and international fora through abstract presentations, roundtable discussions, publications, blogs, policy briefs, and working papers among others;
• Carry out any other functions that may be assigned to you from time to time by the Senior Management Team at the Center;

Key Competencies, qualifications, and experience

• Ph.D. in Social Sciences, Sociology, Medical Anthropology, Public Health, International Health, Social Work and Social Administration, Public Policy, and other related disciplines, with specialization and significant demonstrated experience in Qualitative IE of development projects, preferably public health;
• Advanced skills in qualitative IE designs, data collection approaches, and rigorous data analysis;
• Strong qualitative research skills, and ability to conduct and work with large qualitative datasets using computer assisted qualitative data analysis (CAQDAs) software programs (RQDA, Dedoose, Nvivo, MAXQDA, and ATLAS.ti);
• At least 3 years of work experience in project evaluation and impact analysis is essential;
• Demonstrated experience in in-depth qualitative impact analysis methods, including mixed-methods IE;
• Experience designing and implementing one or more of the following: implementation research, formative evaluation, process evaluations, process monitoring, summative evaluation, and IE;
• At least five (5) publications or technical reports (or a doctoral research thesis) that utilized qualitative IE methodologies/approaches, with 3 or more first-author publications.
• Excellent qualitative scientific writing, presentation, and communication skills including the ability to present arguments and analysis in a structured and succinct manner;
• Sound causal reasoning, and good knowledge of the theory of change, evaluation criteria, causal attribution, and limitations of qualitative IEs;
• Ability to work independently; self-starter and highly motivated;
• Strong theoretical and applied qualitative knowledge; fluency in French is highly desirable
• Knowledge of economic evaluation and quantitative IE methods will be an added advantage;
• Proficiency in the English language is a must;
• Working knowledge of East, Southern, Northern, and West African regions is desirable.