BACKGROUND ON IMPACT AND REACH
REACH was born in 2010 as a joint initiative of two International NGOs (IMPACT Initiatives and ACTED) and the United Nations Operational Satellite Applications Programme (UNOSAT). REACH’s purpose is to promote and facilitate the development of information products that enhance the humanitarian community’s decision making and planning capacity for emergency, reconstruction and development contexts. REACH facilitates information management for aid actors through three complementary services: (a) need and situation assessments facilitated by REACH teams; (b) situation analysis using satellite imagery; (c) provision of related database and (web)-mapping facilities and expertise.
IMPACT Initiatives is a humanitarian NGO, based in Geneva, Switzerland. The organisation manages several initiatives, including the REACH Initiative. The IMPACT team comprises specialists in data collection, management and analysis and GIS. IMPACT was launched at the initiative of ACTED, an international NGO whose headquarter is based in Paris and is present in thirty countries. The two organizations have a strong complementarity formalized in a global partnership, enabling IMPACT to benefit from ACTED’s operational support on its fields of intervention.
We are currently looking for a (Senior) Education Assessment Officer to support our Global Programme Education Team in Geneva
Position: (Senior) Education Assessment Officer
Contract duration: 18 months
Location: Geneva, Switzerland – with short-term field deployments
Starting date: January 2025
CONTEXT
IMPACT Initiatives has started a formal partnership with the Global Education Cluster (GEC) in 2019. IMPACT support the GEC is ensuring that the GEC and Country Clusters have in place processes, methodologies and resources to inform evidence-based education responses. IMPACT support the GEC to achieve three main objectives:
– The Humanitarian Programme Cycle (HPC) is informed by strong analysis.
– The National Clusters programming is informed by high quality Education Needs Assessments.
– Inclusion of Education in Rapid Responses to mitigate learning disruptions.
To achieve objective 1, IMPACT and the GEC have worked together to continuously improve the methodology for the People in Need (PiN) calculation and to support national clusters in applying the methodology at the country level. IMPACT and the GEC have also worked to develop tools and templates that make the analysis process faster, transparent and of high quality. In addition, IMPACT ensures that REACH country teams are well informed on the GEC methodology and that the Multi-Sectoral-Needs-Assessments (MSNAs) conducted in countries can provide high-quality data for the Education PiN calculations.
To achieve objective 2, IMPACT and the GEC have developed standard methodologies for school-level assessments and IMPACT supports the national clusters in their assessment needs via deployments or via remote support.
To achieve objective 3, IMPACT and the GEC have implemented different activities (mapping of Rapid Response Mechanisms (RRMs), development of a Rapid Response Toolkit) to enable emergency responses to have a clear focus on education and ensuring that educations needs of children living through emergencies are not neglected.
IMPACT is now recruiting a (Senior) Assessment Officer ((S)AO) to play a key role in advancing objective 3.
More about Education in Emergencies:
The RRM (Rapid Response Mechanism) is an operational, programmatic and partnership model designed to enhance the humanitarian community’s capacity to respond in a timely, coordinated and predictable manner to the needs of the populations made vulnerable by conflict, displacement, disease and/or natural disaster in humanitarian settings. Since 2004, over 37 million people have been assisted through the RRM. In 2017 alone, humanitarian actors provided emergency assistance to approximately 10 million people worldwide through this mechanism.
While childhood education is considered a fundamental human right in nearly every country around the world, it is rarely prioritized in the first phase of humanitarian responses where RRMs have proven effective in reaching the most vulnerable people with a multi-sectoral response. Further, schools are an invaluable tool in providing children a sense of normalcy, offer the protective functions of safe learning spaces, and frequently host a number of other inter-sectoral interventions, such as feeding programs. Against this backdrop, REACH is supporting the Global Education Cluster (GEC) in ensuring that current and future RRMs systematically include quality education responses.
CORE RESPONSIBILITIES
Under the supervision of the REACH Education Senior Assessment Specialist, the (S)AO will support the Global Education Cluster in ensuring that education is systematically included in current and future RRMs. Specifically, the Assessment Officer will be in charge of:
1. Reviewing and updating the Rapid Education Response (RER) toolkit based on the key learning from its first roll-out.
2. Strengthening the assessment capacity of national coordination platforms and relevant education partners.
3. Supporting national coordination platforms in the implementation of rapid needs assessments.
In addition, any other activities in agreement with their line management could be included in their scope of work.
The (S)AO will maintain the strictest confidentiality on all data collected and related processes. They will actively take measures to prevent the unauthorized sharing of any information and data belonging to IMPACT and its partners, or collected during their assignment with IMPACT.
1. UPDATE, Piloting and dissemination of the RER toolkit
Based on the first phase, the SAO will be responsible for improving the rapid needs assessment question bank developed based on the lessons learned. Additional tools will be developed to be incorporated in the toolkit such as methodological guides, KoBo questionnaires, and factsheet templates that could be rapidly adjusted based on the emergencies’ type. The revision of the toolkit should be oriented toward making clear and meaningful linkages between needs and response indicators, to guarantee action-oriented analysis products.
2. Strengthening the assessment capacity of national coordination platforms and relevant education partners.
The SAO will be responsible to train the national cluster team and relevant education partners in the use of the new training. New workshops modalities will be developed in coordination with the Global Education Cluster and will be delivered to the country teams in person or remotely.
3. Supporting national coordination platforms in the implementation of rapid needs assessments.
Based on national clusters’ requests – and in coordination with the GEC, the SAO will provide technical support to the implementation of rapid education needs assessment. The support could be remote or in person and will depend on the cluster needs; it could include technical backstopping on research design, analysis and reporting or directly leading those activities. It is important that when leading, the SAO will seek a broad participation of national coordination platforms’ members at all the stages of the assessment process to create a broad sense of ownership.
REQUIREMENTS
- Years of work experience 3 years of relevant working experience in a humanitarian setting, such as assessments, monitoring and evaluation, research design and analysis, etc.;
- Research skills Excellent quantitative and qualitative research data analysis experience required;
- Familiarity with aid system Good understanding of the aid system and the research community. Prior experience with humanitarian coordination forums preferred;
- Thematic experience Prior experience with Education in Emergencies is an asset;
- Communication/reporting skills Excellent verbal and written communication and drafting skills for effective reporting required;
- Academic qualifications Excellent academic qualifications, including a master’s degree or equivalent in a relevant discipline (e.g. international studies, development, humanitarian response, data science, political science, etc.);
- Software skills Proven knowledge of Microsoft Office Suite, to include Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are required. Familiarity with R, SPSS and/or STATA or other statistical analysis software an asset.
- Security environment Ability to operate in a complex and challenging security environment.
- Field-work experience Past experience in coordinating data-collection exercises is required; experience of RRM and/or RNA implementation is a strong asset
- Language skills Fluency in English required, a fair working knowledge (B1 level at least) of French is also required.
COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS
· For this position, gross salary between 5’500 CHF and 5’700 CHF monthly (before income tax).
o NB – IMPACT salaries are strictly determined by our salary grid depending on the grade of the position and the level of education and experience of staff. A contribution to medical insurance of 450 CHF per month is already included in the salary figure. Experience in needs assessments, monitoring & evaluations, information management in field research settings in an international context
· Insurance covering professional and non-professional accidents throughout the period of employment with IMPACT
· Health insurance, life insurance and repatriation assistance in case of field visits/temporary deployments
· Enrolment in IMPACT Initiatives Research Foundational Learning Programme within the first 3 months from the start of contract.
· Applicants must hold a valid work permit for Switzerland or be EU/EFTA citizens
· Up to 40% of remote work on a weekly basis.
