Fellow - Monitoring, Evaluation, Adaptation and Learning at Sanergy

About the role

We are in our tenth year of operation, and Sanergy is refining our theories of change and action and designing and operationalizing an accompanying MEAL (monitoring, evaluation, adaptation and learning) strategy centered around demonstrating the credibility of the relationships on which these theories are based. This is far from an academic exercise; our theories of change and action, and our performance against our targets, guide us in ensuring that we work toward our vision as effectively and efficiently as possible. Simply put, we’re focused on doing what works, and the purpose of this project is to chart our course and our plan for keeping ourselves on track. We are committed to defining the hypothesized relationships between inputs, outputs, outcomes, and impact, to aligning existing evidence to support our hypotheses where relationships have been demonstrated, and to gathering new evidence for relationships that have not yet been demonstrated.

The Citywise team needs a practically-minded, action-oriented and research-savvy person to bring focus and follow-through to the task of championing theoretical foundations while aligning with the organization’s “operations first” approach. The MEAL Fellow will guide senior leaders through the exciting, gnarly tasks of articulating our theories of change and action and MEAL strategy, and creating clear, practical plans for their operationalization. The teammate we’re looking for brings both the rigor of academia and the adaptiveness of an entrepreneur, recognizing that a successful, sustainable approach will balance these often-conflicting approaches. This is a unique opportunity to collaborate with senior leaders to dig into  what we really need to know in order to realiz our mission, and to lay the foundation for a disciplined approach to learning, improving and sharing as the organization moves into a new stage of growth.
See additional information on the team, project and role here.

Duties and Responsibilities

The Fellow will support the following activities:

• Reflect on and revise, as necessary, existing theories of change and action
• Map existing evidence onto theories of change and action by:
  • Reviewing peer-reviewed literature
  • Liaising with operational teams to create an inventory of past and ongoing          internal research efforts
  • Creating an inventory of past and ongoing external research collaborations
• Assess strength of existing evidence to support causal relationships between stages, and identify unsupported relationships
• Identify priority research questions at the intersection of what is valuable for Sanergy and what is valuable for the sector to support widespread adoption of citywide inclusive sanitation (CWIS)
• Develop a prioritized research agenda to guide external collaborations
• Liaise with operational teams to identify opportunities for support of internal research efforts
• Create a standard format for framing objectives and reporting activities and accompanying process to support internal research efforts

Qualifications

• Work experience and/or graduate coursework in public health or a related discipline
• Interest in program design and evaluation methods; excitement to live and breathe logic model lingo and guide others in adopting this mindset
• Experience conducting literature reviews
• Ability to engage collaborators with competing priorities to provide input     without sacrificing project timelines
• Humility
• Proactive, self-driven individual