Collaborating, Learning, and Adapting (CLA) Director at ACDI/VOCA November, 2021

ACDI/VOCA is seeking a CLA Director for an anticipated Activity in Tanzania funded by USAID.

The CLA Director will centralize many of the critical project support components that, collectively, influence CLA within a project, and better enable sustainable and effective project outcomes. S/he will facilitate cross-component learning and collaboration, overseeing the project functions of communications, training, and behavior change, and leveraging these various functions to advance CLA efforts throughout the technical implementation teams. They will work closely with the M&E Manager to ensure performance data is relevant and useful and is analyzed regularly to enable reflection, adaptation, and continuous improvement. The CLA Director will develop adaptive management processes and tools that facilitate purposeful experimentation and pivots in strategy and tactics based on planned experiments. Additionally, they will lead training on CLA for staff and partners and continually adapt and improve the project’s CLA Plan.

• Provide a centralized point for analysis, strategic planning, and support to improve technical implementation, effective use of resources, and sustainability
• Develop and manage the CLA plan including the learning agenda through a participatory process with project staff, partners, and donor stakeholders, with iterative reviews
• Create, share, and manage relevant knowledge assets that support program outcomes
• Ensure that programmatic learning and results are fully documented, shared, and used to drive adaptive management processes
• Lead the collection, analysis, documentation, dissemination, and use of best practices and lessons learned
• Ensure learning is shared with relevant stakeholders to further activity goals through learning events, mixed media, and other innovative methods
• Work directly with the COP, DCOP, and technical project component leads to plan, design, and or/manage specific CLA strategies and activities, such as supporting incorporation of technical, contextual and experiential learning into technical strategies, interventions, and processes
• Analyze, pilot, adapt, and design a facilitation approach that encourages purposeful experimentation and pivots in strategy and tactics based on planned research activities/surveys
• Continually develop and review impact causal models/results chains to demonstrate how interventions will contribute to sustainable poverty reduction in targeted districts
• Develop and/or maintain strategic relationships with relevant stakeholders to promote effective coordination, collaboration, and dissemination of program learning
• Participate in regular senior management planning meetings and provide analytical feedback and support to inform technical decisions by senior management and the technical component leads

• Master’s degree in agriculture, economics, business administration, or relevant field.
• Familiarity with the concept of adaptive management/CLA and demonstrated experience using a mix of informational sources and research methods to analyze project progress, communicate findings to a range of external and internal stakeholders, and apply learning to work planning.
• Minimum 7 years of experience in designing and implementing knowledge management and sharing/learning, using CLA principles and approaches.
• Demonstrated ability to provide technical assistance and advisory services to a range of financial service providers.
• Proven leadership in supervising staff, managing multiple complex project components, and convening people across technical teams to build consensus and achieve an outcome.
• Experience working in Tanzania and/or the region preferred.
• Fluency in English required, Swahili preferred.