Vacancy: CLA Specialist, USAID Ghana MEL

Company Profile

EnCompass is a women-owned business offering innovative, customized solutions for leadership, capacity strengthening, technical assistance, and monitoring and evaluation. We have experience in more than 70 countries and a team of more than 1,300 staff and consultants around the globe.

We partner with government and multilateral agencies, nonprofit organizations, and corporations around the world, offering thought leadership, diversity, and technical expertise in education, gender and inclusive development, global health, human rights, and food security.

Job Description

Position Description

EnCompass seeks Collaborating, Learning and Adapting (CLA) Specialist candidates for an anticipated five-year United States Agency for International Development (USAID) monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) program in Ghana.  This anticipated project will provide USAID/Ghana with services focused on supporting and facilitating USAID’s capacity to utilize MEL approaches in service of improving development outcomes, and on strengthening the organizational capacity of USAID/Ghana’s strategic partners to advance shared development objectives.   

The CLA Specialist will lead the development of learning and knowledge dissemination activities and work to create, facilitate and sustain a culture of collaborative and adaptive management for activity stakeholders. The CLA Specialist will work to ensure that data collected and evidence generated are disseminated to and, more critically, applied by MEL project stakeholders for more effective development programming in consistent and systematic ways. The CLA Specialist must be an inclusive leader and effective communicator and listener with knowledge of the USAID Program Cycle and key Agency guidance. He or she will have a passion for identifying novel approaches to learning and show leadership for energizing others to work together on complex development challenges. The ideal candidate will have demonstrated experience building and sustaining collaborative partnerships with a variety of stakeholders – to include implementing partners, USAID, civil society, and government of Ghana. She or he will have a technical background in monitoring and evaluation and change management, as well as demonstrated experience facilitating a variety of activities to apply learning to advance effectiveness of development programming.

The position will be full-time and be based in Accra, Ghana with travel throughout the country.

Position Duties and Responsibilities

Essential functions:

• Lead collaborative dialogue and an iterative learning environment for USAID, implementing partners, and other stakeholders around emerging issues; facilitate reflections on the implications of new learning, and assist in responding to key learning findings


• Work closely with the USAID Ghana MEL team to develop and maintain a knowledge management system for learning and adapting of development programs


• Ensure monitoring and evaluation information is shared and effectively used through knowledge sharing and strategic learning processes to adapt and improve programming as well as bring new innovations to the Mission’s work


• Develop a learning agenda, with activities and best practices that promote learning, to meet USAID Ghana goals and manage the promotion and use of the learning agenda


• Establish, build, and maintain collaborative relationships with stakeholders relevant to the learning needs of USAID Ghana MEL, to include implementing partners and government of Ghana stakeholders


• Design agendas and facilitate convenings, workshops, and learning communities with a variety of stakeholders


• In all activities, ensure clear objectives are set, resources are coordinated, and feedback loops to adjust approaches as necessary are in place

Required Skills or Experience

Position Requirements

Academic Qualifications

• Advanced degree in international development, organizational development, social science, or a related field preferred

Experience and Skills

• No less than seven (7) years leading organizational learning, change management, and monitoring and evaluation activities, with demonstrated experience creating systems and building networks to consistently apply learning and aid in program adaptations  


• Experience supporting USAID funded activities preferred


• Prior experience in Ghana and/or the region required


• Strong communication, supervision, and management skills required 


• Fluency in written and spoken English is required


• Citizens of Ghana are strongly encouraged to apply