Forcier Consulting jobs at Africa, Mozambique

Position: Director of Research – Southern Africa

About Forcier Consulting

Forcier Consulting is the response group to the overwhelming demand for data, research, and information in some of the most challenging environments in Africa. It aims to produce reliable and high-quality research in these complex settings. They also make long-term investments in building the capacity of national staff to serve as researchers and consultants.  The organization has succeeded in more than 650 research projects to date across 39 countries worldwide.

Daily tasks

• Actively track all available staff, their levels of utilization, and their skill sets.
• Actively track all ongoing and incoming/nascent projects, and appropriately matching people/teams and their toolkits with projects.
• Provide or appropriately delegate/assign the provision of quality assurance and quality control on all deliverables from that country office.
• Assist in the methodological design of projects at the proposal stage and during project implementation. Also, input on context and local knowledge of the execution of projects internally and with clients.
• Attend meetings with current and potential clients, major planning meetings and other cluster government meetings as required.
• Introduce innovation and best practices to enhance research programs and operational performance.
• Maintain quality standards in research programming in line with Forcier’s mission and values as well as international standards for research.
• Develop standard work policies and procedures for the research department and conducts annual performance evaluations of research staff in conjunction with the Director, Southern Africa.
• Similarly, maintain reasonable workloads and expectations for all country office staff.
• Develop professional development plans for research staff to ensure skill-building and mentoring activities occur.
• Represent the organization and liaise with local and national authorities, UN Agencies and NGOs to facilitate successful coordination of activities and ensure transparency in the community.
• Furthermore, complete other duties as assigned.

Qualification and requirements

• M.A. degree (or equivalent) in political science, anthropology, international development, statistics, or a related field.
• Fluency in written and spoken English.
• Experience in managing teams and human resources to ensure successful completion of projects and objectives
• Similarly, prior experience and technical skills in qualitative and quantitative tool development, scripting questionnaires in CAPI software (preferably with ODK), sampling, operationalization of complex research designs, data cleaning, quality assurance methods.
• Prior experience in planning and managing budgets and resources.  Also, strong analytical and writing skills with both quantitative and qualitative data.
• Advanced knowledge of Stata, SPSS, or R required (preference for Stata) as well as experience collaborating with and managing diverse, multi-cultural teams.
• Ability to conduct themselves in a professional manner with it comes to client and partner communication and interaction, and liaising with upper-level management.
• Excellent knowledge of Office package as well as good skills in Excel.
• Ability to work independently in a stressful environment with minimal supervision. Similarly, the ability to produce high-quality work under tight deadlines.
• Creativity and an ability to think outside the box to conceptualize projects and implementation strategies.
• Strong communication skills, cultural sensitivity, curiosity, sense of humor and a ‘can do’ attitude.
• Interest in South Sudan and Eastern Africa as well as flexibility and willingness to work in other countries as needed.