Research and Knowledge Management Manager

Functional Title: Research and Knowledge Management Manager

Responsibility Level / Grade: Central Level Staff
Department / Project / PN: USAID ARH Project
Workstation: Central Office, Kathmandu
Incumbent’s Name: To be determined
Supervisor / Principal Evaluator: Director Data collection, Analytics and Use

JOB SUMMARY
USAID Adolescent Reproductive Health (ARH), is an adolescent co-led initiative to empower girls and boys, 10-19 years and including the most marginalized, to attain their adolescent reproductive health (ARH) rights. The goal of the program is to support adolescents to reach their full potential by; ensuring they receive correct and appropriate reproductive health (RH) information and guidance to decision-making skills, creating an environment conductive to making healthy reproductive health decisions and facilitating translation of these decisions into healthy behaviors.
The Research and Knowledge Management Manager will lead creating and supporting the knowledge management process, systems, and products of the ARH project. S/he will be providing support to generate ARH project research and learning questions specific learnings and research brief. S/he will be responsible for planning, designing, testing, and implementing the research efforts with appropriate methodologies and tools to ensure the exploration of knowledge from ARH project different efforts to improve quality program delivery. S/he should engage in different research efforts to lead its process from planning to collecting and analyzing data, training and mentoring province- level M&E/MIS specialists, consolidating findings, and writing reports and scientific articles. S/he will be responsible for providing technical guidance to project staff on research/KM tools, processes, and strategies, and building the capacity of staff and consortium partners in these areas. S/he is also responsible for the development and implementation of systems, processes, and behaviors that will enable the ARH team to reflect on, detect, and learn from the changes the project brings in the lives of the adolescent girls at both the grassroots level and in terms of policy influence. S/he will also be responsible to communicate and share research-based evidences, learning, and updates from ARH projects in the wider USAID and CARE learning platform and community of practices. The employee shall fully comply with CARE policies and procedures and should be accountable for it.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES AND TASKS:
R1. Develop, implement and maintain effective knowledge management practices

• Take lead in the development and implementation of Knowledge Management plans, processes, digital platforms, and strategies for the ARH project.
• Support in the development of KM tools and systems, and lead the process for the implementation of such tools to generate evidence, best practices, learning, and gaps and challenges to ensure the quality of program implementation.
• Ensure and maintain learnings and research brief log sheet of the best practices and evidence of impact generation and scalable models.
• Ensure consistent application of learnings and research findings in the projects through capacity-building of consortium partners and establish and promote a culture of learning among staff to institutionalize gathered knowledge.

R2. Research Design, Planning and Implementation

• Take lead to design research plan and initiatives that are aligned with ARH project research and learning questions, priority areas and strategic approaches.
• Engage with consortium partners to identify ideas and opportunities for action/operational research and learning to sharpen the project approaches, models,and tools.
• Design efficient and productive research methodologies in line with the project requirements, and lead the research process as per the developed schedule.
• Engage stakeholders in research design, conducting research, analysis and validating the findings.
• Develop research protocols and obtain the relevant study approvals from USAID and project team along with resource and schedule planning.
• Develop research dissemination plan with clear range of audience and implement it for the effective dissemination of research results/findings in USAID and CARE learning platform and community of practice.

R3. Ensure systematic collection and documentation and sharing of program learning and research brief

• Document case stories, most significant change stories and important lessons learnt, especially regarding result framework/milestone of projects in coordination with Communications and Branding Specialist.
• Prepare research papers and reports as per the requests of different research initiatives and engage consortium team in the analysis and preparation process before finalizing it.
• Prepare periodic research report and share with relevant project team and external stakeholders.
• Support project team to plan and organize regular review and reflection sessions with consortium partners in the provincial and federal level. Synthesize learning and actions from project review and reflection to develop knowledge products and evidence packages.
• Ensure that all the information collected as part of program implementation and monitoring and evaluation is being systematically captured in KM digital platform to enhance knowledge generation process.
• Document learning and evidence in support of best practices and key projects/approaches by travelling to project areas to collect and document, and substantial reworking and editing of existing materials prepared by the consortium partners for further work.
• Strategically engage with USAID and CARE knowledge management communities, networks, and platforms and showcase ARH learnings and research findings.
• Ensure regular update, quality cross check and analysis of project information to fulfil USAID as well as CARE’s institutional reporting requirements emphasizing knowledge management aspects.
• Prepare manuscripts for research publication and presentations of research findings data and engage with consortium team for the purpose and also assist with the preparation of manuscripts, abstracts.

R4 Program/project and partner staff capacity building on Research and Knowledge management

• Assess the capacity of the consortium partners and support for organizing capacity- building training and orientation about the specific KM tools, research design, methodology, and process.
• Develop and manage KM and research capacity strengthening plan for the MEL team, and consortium staff; and provide mentoring and training on selected topics.
• Build capacity of consortium partner staff on knowledge management and research design, data, and information collection.
• Ensure gender-sensitive, inclusive, and participatory processes across KM and action/operational research.
• Prepare progress reports in line with KM and research capacity-building plan implementation.
• Support MEL Manager and consortium partners to prepare periodic progress reports in-building learnings and research narrations and share at various levels in their respective working areas.

R5. Human Resource Management

• Supervise and Identify development needs of direct reports and arrange appropriate strategies and actions for capacitating their skills and knowledge in consultation with Supervisor.
• Ensure that all administrative functions (timesheets, staff performance review) are conducted in a timely manner.
• Ensure performance management (Annual Performance Agreement and Assessment – APAA) of direct reports; and facilitate their capacity development though training needs assessment, coaching, mentoring, and other relevant activities.
• Support and actively participate in Country office and program level initiatives for team performance.

R6 Upholding CARE’s Core values and ensuring its principles

• Link and demonstrate CARE Nepal’s core values, programming principles, strategic objects, gender equity, equality & social inclusion in programming and behaviors
• Comply and exercise organizational values and culture
• Help to promote rights and good governance
• Responsible for gender responsive behavior in all actions and decisions

AUTHORITY:

Spending Authority: None
Supervision: Communication and Branding Specialist

Working conditions:

• Based in Kathmandu with estimated 60% travel to project implementing district

PERSON SPECIFICATION REQUIREMENTS:

Qualification:

Master’s Degree in relevant field such as public health, knowledge management, demography, development studies, research, social science and analysis, or equivalent; ideally with a strong focus on Knowledge management and research work.

Experience:
At least 5 years relevant experience in Knowledge management and research lead role in international development programming context with demonstrated experience in quasi experimental research design both quantitative and qualitative research methods. Proven people management experience.

Skills and Knowledge

• Strong knowledge and experience in knowledge management tools, processes and system building
• Knowledge and experience in developing and implementing KM framework, tools and systems.
• Demonstrated capacity to conduct high quality independent research as evidenced by first authored peer-reviewed publications (or submissions) in international journals.
• Good training and facilitation skills, and proven experience in capacity building in the development field
• Knowledge and experience in information collection and analysis, its effective management and capturing and documenting program learnings and best practices
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English and Nepali, with particular emphasis on oral communication with research participants, with high level academic writing skills.
• Expert level competency on GIS will be an added advantage
• Experience with statistical analyses and packages including STATA, SPSS, NVIVO and qualitative tools.
• Excellent interpersonal, time management and organizational skills with a proven ability to deal with multiple tasks; establish priorities and meet deadlines.

Competencies:

• Planning and organizing – Able to define work goals and objectives; develop and execute work plans; and contribute to the achievement of work group objectives
• Teamwork – Able to work effectively with a team
• Developing others – Able to foster the development of others by providing a supportive learning environment
• Communicating and sharing ideas and information – Able to present information and express opinions confidently to internal and external audiences
• Writing – Able to communicate ideas and information in writing to ensure that information and messages are understood and have the desired impact
• Initiative – Deals with situations and issues proactively and persistently
  Embracing and Valuing Diversity – Able to contribute effectively to a culture that positively values the diversity of people, values and ideas within CARE Nepal
• Influencing – Able to generate commitment and build consensus among others and gain their support
• Innovation – Demonstrates openness to new ideas, seeks out new opportunities
• Interpersonal sensitivity – Able to communicate with sensitivity and foster communication, actively listening to other

Tagged as: Care Nepal, Kathmandu, Manager, NGO INGO