**Job Information**:
Project/Activity
- USAID/Colombia Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning
Industry
- USAID
City
- Bogota
State/Province
- Bogota, D.C.
Country
- Colombia
Zip/Postal Code
- 110111
HIghest Level of Education
- Graduate Degree
Work Experience
- 1-3 years
The Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) Activity is USAID/Colombia's current MEL Platform. MEL Activity provides high-quality services that improve decision-making for the USAID/Colombia Mission based on evidence related to monitoring, evaluation, research, geographical information, and lessons from its projects and activities. Specifically, MEL Activity (a) facilitates informed program management decisions, (b) shapes the long-term strategic direction of programs and decision-making within the Mission, and (c) supports USAID/Colombia in complying with USAID/Washington's Evaluation Policy and Automated Directives System (ADS) Chapter 201: Program Cycle Operational Policy. As part of MEL Activity's technical support, the project should enhance USAID/Colombia's MEL capacity and ensure empirical evidence is generated for programming, learning, and adaptation.
In September 2019, USAID/Washington established a Data Administration and Technical Advisory Board, as mandated by the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018 (Evidence Act) and subsequent guidance from the Office of Management and Budget in Memoranda M-19-18 and M-19-23. In these documents, the US government defines Data governance (DG) as the process of setting and enforcing priorities for managing data as a strategic asset in service of an agency's mission, including its strategic plan and other high-level priorities. This requires ensuring that sufficient authorities, roles, organizational structures, policies, and resources are in place to transparently support the management, maintenance, and use of strategic data assets.
Data governance is far more likely to succeed if the effort follows a roadmap (Ovaledge). The roadmap should define drivers, priorities, human capacity support, and how governance will drive the organization's overall data strategy. In the case of USAID/Colombia, this is important because it allows the creation of realistic goals, defining roles, establishing milestones, and identifying clear actions to prevent possible barriers inside the Agency that could interfere with the data governance strategy implementation.
Given that, a data governance project's full implementation and maturation is a multiyear effort, intermediate maturity states can be used to construct a roadmap. The maturity model approach facilitates the assessment of Data Governance and focuses on specific areas where actionable opportunities can be rapidly addressed (Stanford, 2011).
In this context, the USAID/Colombia Mission requests support in establishing guidelines to ensure compliance with ADS 579 and other USAID regulations and procedures related to MEL data governance. This consultancy project will create and test a methodology to define MEL data value chains, challenges, and priorities. Additionally, it will help develop a strategy and a plan for implementing this strategy. The following will be the main responsibilities:
**Responsibilities**:
- Identify and define a data governance framework in the USAID/Washington regulations and guidelines (i.e., ADS 201, ADS 579).
- Define USAID/Colombia data governance maturity process milestones according to the data governance framework.
- Define a data governance value chain for the MONITOR System.
- Carry out workshops with different stakeholders to define the priorities for the data governance strategy.
- Draft a document describing the strategy and priorities.
- Conduct follow-up presentations at different stages of the project.
- Edit the document and presentations according to the comments of the different reviewers.
- Other requested tasks related to the objectives of the project.
**Español**
- La Actividad de Monitoreo, Evaluación y Aprendizaje (MEL) es la actual plataforma MEL de USAID Colombia. La Actividad MEL provee servicios de alta calidad que mejoran la toma de decisiones de la Misión con base en la evidencia generada por el monitoreo, la evaluación, la investigación, la información geográfica y las lecciones de sus proyectos y actividades. Específicamente, la Actividad MEL (a) facilita la toma de decisiones de programación informadas, (b) ayuda la dirección estratégica de largo plazo y (c) apoya a USAID/Colombia para que cumpla con la política de evaluación "USAID's Evaluation Policy and USAID/Colombia Automated Directives System (ADS) Chapter 201: Program Cycle Operational Policy".
En septiembre de 2019, USAID/Washington estableció la Junta para el Manejo de Datos y de Asesoramiento Técnico (Data Administration and Technical Advisory Board), según lo establecido por la Ley para el Establecimiento de la Política Pública basada en evidencia (Foundations for Evidence-Ba