CALL FOR APPLICATIONS
Senior Research and Project Management Assistant
Project Overview
Background
Current Status of Sustainable Land Management in Ethiopia
Ethiopia has a population of approximately 120 million, of which about 70% reside in rural areas, and around 60% of the labor force is engaged in agriculture. Agriculture accounts for approximately 40% of the GDP and is a core industry directly linked to the country's economy and food security. However, due to population growth, farmland fragmentation, intensive continuous cultivation, deforestation, and overgrazing, approximately 27 million hectares (about one-fourth of the national land area) are affected by land degradation. In highland areas, soil erosion of up to 100 tons/ha per year has been reported, resulting in an estimated 2-3% loss in agricultural GDP (World Bank). These conditions exacerbate rural poverty and food insecurity. Furthermore, climate change-induced natural disasters and changes in rainfall patterns increase land vulnerability, amplifying risks in a society highly dependent on agriculture.
Implementation of the JICA SATREPS-SLM Project
In response to the above situation and upon request from the Government of Ethiopia, the Science and Technology Research Partnership for Sustainable Development (SATREPS) project titled 'The Project for Development of Next-Generation Sustainable Land Management (SLM) Framework to Combat Desertification' (2016-2023) was implemented (hereinafter referred to as the SATREPS-SLM Project).
In Amhara Region, 13 types of SLM technologies and 4 approaches for social implementation were identified based on scientific evidence, and a next-generation SLM framework was developed. These technologies and approaches were developed jointly by Japanese research institutions, including Tottori University, together with Bahir Dar University (BDU) and the Amhara Agricultural Research Institute (ARARI). In pilot sites, soil erosion was reduced by 66-96%, land productivity improved by 48-134%, and income of targeted women and youth groups increased by approximately 40%.
To disseminate the developed technologies, 'Guidelines for Sustainable Land Management' and technical manuals, including local language versions, were prepared. Academically, 86 internationally co-authored papers were published, 21 of which ranked in the top 10% by citation count, receiving high international recognition. As a framework for social implementation of these achievements, the 'Regional Research-based Sustainable Land Management (SLM) Partnership' was agreed upon among the Amhara Bureau of Agriculture (BoA), Bahir Dar University (BDU), and Amhara Agricultural Research Institute (ARARI).
Request and Approval of the Successor Project from the Government of Ethiopia
To further disseminate and expand the technologies and approaches developed under the SATREPS-SLM project, the Ministry of Agriculture submitted an official request to the Government of Japan in 2022, and the Project was approved in 2023. The Project is positioned as a social implementation of the SATREPS-SLM project.
Change of Target Area Due to Security Instability in Amhara Region
Initially, the Project was planned to be implemented mainly in Amhara Region, utilizing the framework of the Regional Research-based SLM Partnership. However, due to security instability in the region since April 2023, the Project could not be launched. Given the difficulty in forecasting the stabilization of the region, both parties agreed to change the target area to the Lake Hawassa Watershed, which has stable security and a high need for strengthening sustainable land management systems.
Objective
The Senior Research and Project Management Assistant (hereinafter referred to as "the Staff") shall provide continuous support to the JICA expert team in implementing project activities. Specifically, the Staff shall provide technical and operational support for the project activities, and serve as the management assistant to ensure smooth project implementation based on the directions of the Project Coordinator.
Duties and Responsibilities
The Staff shall carry out the following duties under the supervision of the Project Coordinator. Responsibilities cover all components upon the request of the Employer, focusing on two major categories:
Technical & Operational Coordination
Administrative Office Management
Department: SRH
Reports to: Research and Learning Advisor
Based in: Multiple Woredas across Afar and Somali regions.
Duration of contract: Based on Ad-Hoc assignments
Application Deadline: 5 days after vacancy announcements
Who are we?
We’re Population Services International (PSI), the world’s leading non‐profit social marketing organization. We work to make it easier for people in the developing world to lead healthier lives and plan the families they desire by marketing affordable products and services that range from mosquito nets to contraceptives to HIV testing. We are a $560m enterprise based in Washington, DC, operating in the private and public sectors in more than 65 countries.
Join us!
There are over 9,000 “PSI’ers” around the world. It’s a diverse group of entrepreneurs and professionals with an unusually wide range of backgrounds - from the medical industry to the music business - all with unique skills we bring to the job.
PSI/Ethiopia wants to reimagine healthcare, put the consumer at the center, and whenever possible, bring quality care to the front door. We achieve health impact in Ethiopia by working with both government and private partners and harvesting technology innovation to bring quality care closer to communities, schools, and homes. We empower consumers by including them in the design of healthcare solutions, offering them more healthcare choices, and helping them to have a voice in influencing national priorities. We work with all market actors in the health system to understand their needs, designing and delivering solutions so that market systems can sustainably serve consumers for the long term, helping to support the Government of Ethiopia in achieving Universal Health Coverage.
PSI Ethiopia, in partnership with JSI and the Ministry of Health (MOH), is preparing to implement a three-year project to strengthen RMNCHN and malaria service delivery through enhanced com-munity engagement using the Village Health Leader (VHL) model. The RMNCHN + Malaria Project aim to strengthen the continuum of care and accelerate improvements in maternal, newborn, and child health outcomes across target regions and woredas. The project will be implemented in Nine regions: Afar, Oromia, Amhara, South Ethiopia, Tigray, Sidama, Central Ethiopia, South-west Ethiopia and Somali covering a total of 100 woredas.
We are looking for
We are seeking highly skilled Qualitative interviewers (1 in Afar and 1 in Somali) and analysts to conduct qualitative interviews and collaborate in qualitative data analysis with the research team for a national community RMNCH, nutrition and Malaria program baseline assessment.
Job Responsibilities
Salary
Negotiable
Apply by
Nov 10
Date: 29 October 2026
Job position: Research Manager
Location: Sher Ethiopia Ziway Farm
Sher Ethiopia PLC is one of the largest and most influential horticultural enterprises in Africa, specializing in the cultivation and export of premium-quality roses. Located in Ziway, Oromia Region, the company operates the world’s largest rose farm, spanning over 650 hectares of greenhouse area. Sher Ethiopia plays a vital role in Ethiopia’s floriculture industry, exporting millions of roses daily to European markets. Beyond its commercial success, the company is deeply committed to social responsibility employing over 14,000 workers, the majority of whom are women. To strengthen our team, we are looking for 1 Research Manager.
The Research Manager will lead, and coordinate research initiatives aimed at improving the rose crop productivity, sustainability and innovation. He/she will be responsible for designing, running, supervising and overseeing research projects, analysing data and presenting research findings to Sher Ethiopia management. He/she will possess excellent analytical and communication skills with the ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously
Criteria to fulfil the job position.
Additional criteria / competences |
Supervisory Skills |
Salary
Negotiable
Apply by
Nov 7
The Ethiopia Local Governance Project (ELGP) is a three-year governance and accountability initiative to be implemented by HELVETAS Swiss Intercooperation in partnership with Amhara Women Association (AWA), Sidama Development Association (SDA), Wag Development Association (WDA), and Women Empowerment Action (WE-Action). The Austrian Development Agency (ADA) is co-funding the action ELGP as part of International Partnerships Austria. The project is the successor phase of the Amhara Local Governance Project Plus (ALGP+), which was implemented in the Amhara Region over seven years. Building on the achievements and lessons of ALGP+, the project seeks to strengthen and institutionalise effective governance and accountability approaches in the Amhara Region while adapting and introducing them in the Sidama Region.
The project will be implemented over a period of thirty-six months across three zones in the Amhara Region and two zones in the Sidama Region, covering twenty-two woredas and 247 kebeles. Direct beneficiaries will include citizens, elected council members, civil society organisations, community-based organisations, and service providers operating at the local government level. Through strengthened governance systems, enhanced citizen participation, and improved public accountability, ELGP seeks to contribute to more responsive, inclusive, and accountable service delivery and is expected to indirectly benefit more than one million citizens residing within the intervention areas.
Ethiopia operates under a decentralised federal governance system in which significant responsibility for development planning, budgeting, and service delivery has been devolved to regional, woreda, and kebele administrations. The constitutional framework recognises citizen participation, transparency, accountability, and inclusive development as fundamental principles of governance. Local councils are legally mandated to represent citizens, enact local legislation, approve budgets and development plans, monitor implementation, and hold executive bodies accountable for the delivery of public services.
Despite these provisions, many local governance institutions continue to face substantial challenges affecting their effectiveness, legitimacy, responsiveness, and accountability. Local planning processes often remain top-down, opportunities for meaningful citizen participation are limited, council oversight functions are weak, and accountability mechanisms are either underdeveloped or inadequately institutionalised. Citizens frequently report low levels of influence over public decision-making, while community priorities are not consistently reflected in government plans and budgets. Weak feedback mechanisms, insufficient public consultations, and ineffective grievance redress systems further contribute to reduced trust between citizens and local government institutions. At the service delivery level, public institutions responsible for education, health, water, agriculture, and rural infrastructure often face constraints in responsiveness, transparency, and accountability. Citizens, particularly women, youth, persons with disabilities, and other marginalised groups, frequently encounter barriers in accessing information, influencing planning processes, and holding service providers accountable for results. These governance and accountability challenges directly affect the quality, accessibility, and inclusiveness of basic services delivered to communities.
The predecessor intervention, ALGP+, generated important achievements in strengthening citizen participation, promoting Integrated Community-Based Participatory Planning (ICBPP), improving community-government dialogue, and enhancing council performance in target areas of the Amhara Region. The project demonstrated the effectiveness of citizen platforms, participatory planning mechanisms, community consultations, and council capacity development interventions in improving local governance outcomes.
However, lessons learned from ALGP+ also highlighted key challenges. These included limited participation of women in governance processes, weak institutionalisation of accountability mechanisms, insufficient integration of community priorities into government budgets, limited responsiveness of executive structures, and persistent socio-cultural barriers affecting civic participation and inclusion. ELGP intends to address these challenges through approaches that place greater emphasis on inclusion, accountability, institutional sustainability, women's leadership, council empowerment, grievance redress mechanisms, and participatory service delivery monitoring.
As ELGP builds on the implementation of ALGP+ in the Amhara Region, substantial evidence is already available through project monitoring systems, assessments, and the ALGP+ Endline Evaluation. These sources provide an important reference point for understanding governance, participation, accountability, and service delivery conditions in the Amhara intervention areas. In contrast, the Sidama intervention areas represent a new geographic focus for the programme, where comparable baseline information is not available. Therefore, the baseline assessment is undertaken primarily to establish benchmark values for ELGP indicators and generate evidence on the prevailing governance and service delivery context in Sidama, where comparable baseline data are not available, against which future progress, outcomes, and results can be measured.
The Sidama National Regional State was established recently following Ethiopia's decentralisation reforms and continues to strengthen its governance systems, administrative structures, planning capacities, and accountability mechanisms. Preliminary assessments conducted during project design identified both opportunities and challenges affecting local governance performance in the region. The region depends largely on smallholder agriculture and is vulnerable to climate-related risks, land degradation, resource pressures, and disparities in service delivery. Access to quality health, education, water, agricultural extension, and rural infrastructure services remains uneven in a number of localities. Institutional capacities among local councils, planning structures, oversight bodies, and service providers vary considerably across intervention areas.
Furthermore, socio-cultural norms continue to affect inclusive governance and participation in the region. These factors may affect the extent to which women, youth, persons with disabilities, and other marginalised groups are able to participate effectively in decision-making processes and governance structures. Preliminary assessments indicate that women face significant barriers in participating effectively in decision-making processes and governance structures. However, a separate Intersectional Gender Analysis will be undertaken by ELGP parallel to this baseline assessment to examine these issues in detail. A separate Context Analysis will also be conducted to assess governance dynamics, institutional relationships, opportunities, and risks that may influence implementation of the project in Sidama. Therefore, the baseline assessment will build on, and complement, these studies rather than duplicate them.
The overall impact of ELGP is: Communities in the project areas of the Amhara and Sidama Regions benefit from improved delivery of basic services that are planned through participatory processes and delivered in an accountable and inclusive manner to all citizens and driven by empowered councils holding the administration accountable. To contribute toward this impact, ELGP is expected to achieve three outcomes:
The project plans to apply mutually reinforcing approaches, including Integrated Community-Based Participatory Planning (ICBPP), Community Score Cards (CSC), Social Accountability Committees (SAC), citizen platforms, consultation platforms, council capacity development, Grievance Redress Mechanisms (GRM), policy advocacy, community-government interface meetings, and institutional strengthening of accountability systems. These approaches are expected to enhance citizen participation, strengthen council oversight, improve accountability, and promote responsive and inclusive service delivery.
The overall objective of the baseline assessment is to establish evidence-based baseline values for the project indicators in the intervention areas of Sidama Region and to generate a comprehensive understanding of the existing governance, participation, accountability, and service delivery context. The assessment will provide the official benchmark for measuring project results and progress throughout the implementation period and will inform evidence-based planning, adaptive management, monitoring, learning, accountability, and future evaluations.
Specifically, the baseline assessment shall:
The baseline assessment will be conducted in the ELGP intervention areas of Sidama Region, covering North and South Sidama Zones. The assessment will be conducted in three sampled woredas selected from the six target woredas (Malga, Gorche, Hawassa Zuria, Bursa, Teticha, and Hula), including a representative sample of kebeles from the 60 project kebeles. As the first phase of ELGP implementation in Sidama, the assessment will establish the baseline conditions against which project progress and results will be measured throughout the implementation period.
The study will focus on communities and institutions that are expected to benefit from and contribute to the achievement of ELGP results. Data will be collected from a representative sample of households and relevant stakeholders within the intervention areas to assess the existing status of citizen participation in local planning, budgeting, and decision-making processes; the effectiveness of council representation and oversight functions; the accessibility and functionality of accountability mechanisms; and the responsiveness, inclusiveness, and quality of local service delivery systems.
The assessment will engage a range of key stakeholders, including women, men, youth, persons with disabilities, community representatives, elected council members, local government institutions, public service providers, community-based organisations, and civil society actors. The study will generate evidence on the governance and service delivery context in the intervention areas and establish baseline values for all relevant impact, outcome, and selected output indicators contained in the ELGP logframe, thereby providing the benchmark for project monitoring, annual outcome surveys, the Mid-Term Review, and the Endline Review.
The assessment will address the following key questions, but will not be limited to:
Impact indicators:
Outcome Indicators:
Output Indicators:
The baseline assessment will employ a mixed-methods approach that combines quantitative and qualitative methods. The consultant is expected to propose a methodology capable of generating reliable, representative, and disaggregated baseline data while providing sufficient contextual information to explain and interpret the findings. Human Rights-Based Approaches (HRBA), GSE, conflict sensitivity, and do-no-harm principles should be integrated throughout the assessment design, data collection, analysis, and reporting process.
The quantitative component will consist of a representative survey of citizens and council members in the project intervention areas, generating data disaggregated by sex, age, disability, and other relevant social categories where appropriate. The qualitative component will complement the survey through key informant interviews, focus group discussions, institutional assessments, document review, and, where relevant, direct observation of governance and community participation processes. Together, these methods will enable triangulation of findings and provide deeper insight into governance dynamics, participation, accountability, inclusion, and service delivery challenges.
The consultant will review relevant project and contextual documents, including the ELGP Project Document, ELGP Logframe, ALGP+ evaluation findings, ALGP+ phase reports, and other governance and planning documents. Data collection will utilise Kobo Toolbox and be supported by appropriate quality assurance measures, including enumerator training, pre-testing of tools, field supervision, data verification, and data cleaning. Quantitative data will be analysed using appropriate statistical techniques, while qualitative data will be analysed using thematic methods. Findings from different sources and methods will be systematically triangulated to strengthen the validity and reliability of the baseline results.
Ethical Guidelines for Evaluations and Data Collection: All data collection will adhere to international ethical standards and HELVETAS' safeguarding policies. This includes:
The baseline assessment is expected to be completed within 40 days of contract signing. The assignment will be implemented through the following phases.
Phase 1: Inception and Design (7 Days)
During this phase, the consultant will undertake a desk review of relevant project and contextual documents, refine the assessment methodology, develop data collection tools, finalise the sampling strategy, and prepare a detailed fieldwork plan. Data collection tools will be translated into Amharic and Sidama language (Sidaamu Afoo), as required, and pre-tested to ensure clarity, accuracy, and contextual appropriateness. An inception report (maximum 15 pages excluding annexes) will be submitted, containing the assessment methodology, assessment matrix, sampling approach, data collection tools, quality assurance procedures, analysis framework, and workplan. HELVETAS and ADA will review the inception report and provide consolidated feedback within 5 days. The consultant will address comments and submit the revised inception report before commencement of fieldwork.
Phase 2: Field Data Collection (13 Days)
The consultant will conduct quantitative and qualitative data collection in the selected project intervention areas using approved tools and methodologies. Data collection will be undertaken using Kobo Toolbox and follow agreed ethical, safeguarding, and data quality standards. Regular communication will be maintained with the ELGP team to address emerging operational and data quality issues. This phase will result in completed fieldwork, verified data, and cleaned primary datasets.
Phase 3: Data Analysis and Draft Report Preparation (10 Days)
The consultant will analyse quantitative and qualitative data, triangulate findings, establish baseline values for project indicators, and prepare a draft baseline report. The draft report (maximum 30 pages excluding annexes) will present the methodology, baseline findings, indicator values, analysis, conclusions, recommendations, and a draft baseline indicator matrix. HELVETAS, ADA, and relevant stakeholders will review the draft report and provide consolidated feedback within 5 days.
Phase 4: Validation and Finalisation (10 Days)
The consultant will facilitate a validation workshop to present preliminary findings and gather stakeholder feedback. Based on comments received from HELVETAS, project partners, and key stakeholders, the consultant will finalise and submit the baseline assessment package, including the final baseline report in Word and PDF formats, a baseline indicator matrix presenting baseline values for all ELGP impact, outcome, and relevant output indicators, cleaned datasets (including Kobo Tool data with credentials) and analysis files, final data collection tools, and a PowerPoint presentation summarising the methodology, key findings, baseline values, conclusions, and recommendations.
The baseline assessment will be conducted by an external consultant under the overall supervision of HELVETAS Ethiopia. The ELGP MEAL Officer will serve as the primary focal point for coordination, technical guidance, quality assurance, and review of deliverables throughout the assignment. The MEAL Officer will work closely with the ELGP team and relevant technical staff to facilitate access to required documents, stakeholders, and field locations, and to ensure alignment of the assessment with project information needs.
The consultant will maintain regular communication with HELVETAS throughout the assignment and provide progress updates during key stages of the assessment. All deliverables, including the inception report, draft baseline report, baseline indicator matrix, datasets, and final report, will be submitted to HELVETAS for review and approval before proceeding to subsequent stages of the assignment.
The management of the baseline assessment will adhere to accepted research ethics and professional standards, including objectivity, impartiality, confidentiality, independence of findings, and do-no-harm principles. While HELVETAS will provide technical oversight and quality assurance support, the consultant will retain responsibility for the methodological rigor, accuracy, analysis, and conclusions of the assessment findings. Where required, HELVETAS will facilitate coordination with relevant government institutions, project partners, and other stakeholders to support the successful implementation of the assessment.
Salary
Negotiable
Apply by
Nov 9