Recruitment Impact Evaluation Field Coordinator
Terms of Reference
July 2019
- Summary
The Development Impact Evaluation unit (DIME) is launching its recruitment process for 3 field coordinators (FCs) to work on a large portfolio of impact evaluation (IE) studies. The process aims to select all consultants who will join DIME from September 2019 to June 2020 but could be extended based on performance and project development. The consultants will be based in country’s capital city and work with the DIME team to build client governments’ capacity for evidence-based policy-making through the cycle of several IEs. The consultants’ main responsibility will be to coordinate the implementation of the IE work in the field working closely with the project implementation team, prepare and supervise large scale survey’s and delivering training to the clients as needed. The consultants will also be involved in analytical aspects of the IE.
- Background and objectives
DIME’s objective is to increase the use of impact evaluation (IE) in the design and implementation of public policy, to (i) improve World Bank and other MDB funded development projects and public policy to deliver better outcomes, (ii) strengthen country institutions for evidence – based policy making and (iii) generate knowledge in strategic development areas. Most DIME IEs are associated with a World Bank project. DIME works across the following World Bank sectors: Agriculture, Governance, Climate Change, Financial & Private Sector Development, Entertainment Education, Transport & Infrastructure, and Fragility Conflict and Violence. DIME establishes a research team to work on each IE study through its completion. Each research team includes a principal investigator and co-investigators, a field coordinator based in country to support the government team on all aspects of the IE, and one or more research assistants. Positions are open in the projects/programs listed below.
Road Safety in Kenya
Kenya ranks among the top 10 countries in death rate due to RTCs in the world, with 29 deaths per 100,000. Policy action is constrained by lack of data and evidence on cost-effective interventions. Reliable statistics are lacking: in Kenya, the WHO estimates that the number of RTC fatalities is 3.7 times the official registry, which suffers from poor vital statistics systems. Information about the location of crashes and the physical characteristics that determine crashes is also lacking. Understanding what combination of approaches will prove successful in this context requires: (i) investment in data, (ii) understanding of the
local constraints to road safety, and (iii) experimentation with safety approaches that involve multiple dimensions of road safety from behavioral to infrastructural.
This part of the consultancy is linked the development of features of a detailed real-time geo-referenced crash map to generate high-frequency data on crashes and their density around urban hotspots, which will be complemented with a real-time verification process that will record crashes typology and characteristics. This map will then be used to define interventions that can improve road safety in Nairobi and similar growing cities in the region.
The consultant will report to Guadalupe Bedoya (Economist) and Sveta Milusheva (Economist). The consultant will interact with other team members from the World Bank and other partner organizations.
World Food Programme in Burundi
DIME is working with the World Food Programme to implement IEs on Cash-based Transfers and their potential contribution to women’s empowerment. One of these IEs will take place with the WFP country office of Burundi.
WFP transferred billions of US dollars to households in 2018 to promote economic development. These magnitudes, complied with research in other contexts, suggest not only that WFP transfers are likely to have direct impacts on gender equality and women’s empowerment, but also that these programs can be adapted to magnify these positive impacts. By leveraging the rollout of the Tubehoneza program, and experimentally shifting programming to focus more on targeting women, we can 1) understand the impacts of WFP’s cash-for-asset programming in Burundi on women’s empowerment and a broad range of outcomes, and 2) understand how cash-for-asset programming in Burundi can be adapted to target promotion of women’s empowerment.
The consultant will be based in Bujumbura with regular field travels and will be responsible for coordinating with WFP country staff in designing the impact evaluation and preparing for a baseline data collection. He or she will have excellent French communication skills.
World Food Programme in El Salvador
Similar to the Burundi program, DIME is also implementing an IE with WFP in El Salvador. The primary goal of this evaluation is to understand the extent to which women’s empowerment and gender equality can be achieved by maximizing the probability that women retain control over household assets and income. The two levels of randomization in this evaluation are designed to answer this question directly. Specifically, we investigate whether providing women with additional control in the choice of asset, and the assets’ payoffs, affects outcomes.
Considering the context of El Salvador, a secondary goal of this impact evaluation is to understand the direct effects of a CFA program on additional wellbeing outcomes, such as migration and crime. To this end, we will rely on the comparison between communities randomly assigned to any treatment to those allocated in the control group.
The consultant will be based in San Salvador and will be responsible for coordinating with WFP country staff in designing the impact evaluation and preparing for a baseline data collection. He or she will have excellent Spanish communication skills.
- Tasks
The tasks per project include (but are not limited to) the following:
- Act as a liaison among members of the research team, government representatives, local stakeholders and other locally hired field staff to promote understanding of and support for the impact evaluation.
- Contribute to the development and implementation of field protocols and procedures and survey instruments, including: field protocol, data quality protocol, recruitment of field staff, pilot testing instruments, and production of progress reports.
- Conduct training sessions with stakeholders
- Coordinate data collection activities and compile data as appropriate (e.g. administrative data, community surveys, interviews etc.)
- Supervise the implementation of data collection and data entry activities (including helping in training field and data entry staff, conducting random spot checks of the activities, making sure that the data quality protocols are adhered to etc.)
- Ensure that interventions are carried out as planned. This may include ensuring IT systems for inspections are installed, inspection forms and checklists are properly used, tablets are prepared and available, and other similar tasks.
- Closely monitor the implementation of the interventions to be evaluated to ensure that the identification strategy is not compromised, identify possibilities of mid-line and qualitative data collection, and plan the first follow-up data collection and entry. Send weekly progress reports on the implementation to the research team.
- Conduct data cleaning and support the team with data analysis. This includes the review of data files and data cleaning to ensure all observations are uniquely identified and reported data are internally consistent; conduct merging across data files to ensure clean merges.
- Support in-country capacity building by helping train local hires and stakeholders in impact evaluation methodology, data collection, etc.
- Support the dissemination of impact evaluation methodology and results.
- Perform other related tasks, upon request.
- Requirements
The consultant should present the following qualifications:
- Master’s degree in economics or related fields
- Experience in developing technology and using big data to study economic and urban issues.
- Advanced programming skills in R, Stata and Python preferred
- Knowledge of SurveyCTO or another ODK-based platform.
- Excellent interpersonal skills
- Experience in developing countries preferred
- Excellent written and spoken English. In addition, for the Burundi IE the consultant will speak French and for the El Salvador, IE the consultant will speak Spanish.
- Selection Process
Qualified candidates should apply in this website no later than August 15. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis. Applicants will be asked to add a link to a shared folder with their resume, a brief (maximum 1 page) statement of interest and a do-file prepared by them that best indicates the level of experience in Stata. Candidates may also send code samples in other relevant languages/software. Short listed candidates will be invited to take a technical test on statistical software (Stata, R or Python) and hold an interview with interested teams.
The World Bank Group is committed to achieving diversity in terms of gender, nationality, culture and educational background. Individuals with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated in the strictest confidence.