Senior Manager, Restoration Monitoring and Data Insights at World Resources Institute (WRI)

Job Highlight:

• Reporting to the Senior Manager of Africa Land Restoration and Senior Manager of Global Restoration Monitoring, you will help manage the operations of WRI’s restoration monitoring and verification activities in AFR100. You will identify critical data and insights needs for Restore Local to demonstrate progress to donors, partners and WRI leadership, leveraging the Inform team’s latest data science innovations. You will design how geoscience data and data through social science and environmental science can be used to in still trust and credibility in Restore Local's progress. You will shape restoration monitoring activities at landscape, country and continental scales, drawing links and learning lessons from existing monitoring and verification activities at TerraFund project scales. You will also contribute evaluation expertise and lead evaluation and impact assessments on various topics relevant to the Restore Local Project (i.e. restoration impact on food production, water supply, etc). As monitoring data is generated, you will work with the TerraMatch product and the Inform team to ensure that the needs of Restore Local user audiences are considered, which may require developing capacity development and knowledge products.
• You will build, nurture and manage the African Inform team that provides technical support to landscapes, countries and to the broader AFR100 partnership. You will engage WRI’s Africa Restoration Executive Team (AFRET) on key decisions for the Inform team, support proposal development and staffing plans for monitoring, evaluation, and learning activities, publications reviews, training events, workshops, retreats and other learning events.

What will you do:

Strategy and Program Management (50%):

• Set the MRV vision for Restore Local team members to understand how existing geoscience data and research as well as socio-environmental science data and research contribute to highlighting progress in the Lake Kivu & Rusizi River Basin, the Greater Rift Valley, and the Ghana Cocoa Belt landscapes for donors, partners and investors. This includes integrating gender and social equality, locally-led adaptation, climate resilience into the indicator frameworks at project, landscape, country and continental scales
• Lead discussions within WRI and with partners to scope potential evaluations, impact assessments. Nurture a culture of impact evaluation within WRI’s inform team
• Lead the continuous improvement processes for TerraFund MRV, Landscape and Restore Local MRV to ensure learning across scales with a focus on improving accuracy and robustness of data, increasing the replicability and scalability of methods
• Represent WRI by communicating the Restore Local MRV program vision with partners, including Realize Impact and One Tree Planted, and continue to build a working relationship on restoration monitoring with them
• Develop and execute a plan for completing existing grant deliverables for WRI’s target countries in AFR100
• Manage delivery of restoration monitoring outputs, which includes aligning with GRI’s Objective and Key Results, setting priorities, and creating a culture of Asana use, achievement celebration, and accountability
• Liaise with AFRET and Senior Manager of Global Restoration Monitoring to plan and run bi-annual data-backed “pause, reflect and learn” moments that take stock of Restore Local’s progress and inform adaptive management measures

Research, Development and Innovation (30%):

• Define priorities for research & development related to restoration MRV, evaluation and impact assessment based on the needs of Restore Local at the project, landscape and regional scales
• Develop a plan with priorities and timelines to collaborate with internal and external experts to strengthen GRI’s narrative of how restoration creates outcomes for cross-cutting issues food, water security, biodiversity, climate, jobs, and livelihoods. Integrate diverse types of knowledge into research plans, including local, Indigenous, experiential, cultural
• Lead processes to identify Restore Local’s impact metrics and to design appropriate quantitative methods
• Lead or participate in field scoping and data gathering missions, including interviews, focus groups, site visits or other activities to identify evaluation elements or make recommendations for data collection methods
• Conduct or Oversee data analysis processes, following best practices for robust analysis and documentation to interpret findings
• Build and nurture partnerships with data providers, researchers and monitoring, evaluation, and learning experts in Africa
• Oversee field and/or sample-based data collection operations and recommend ways to improve operational efficiencies and to ensure replicability and scalability of TerraFund MRV and other landscape efforts
• Communicate research findings and lessons learned internally and externally through authoring WRI publications, blogs, reports, issue briefs, technical manuals on Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV)

Leadership and Fundraising (20%):

• Provide direction and clarify priorities for the multidisciplinary team that performs the daily operations for WRI’s monitoring activities in AFR100. This includes supervision and professional development of Monitoring and Data Insights team members, consultants, interns, and partners
• Draft donor and investor reports in a robust and timely manner
• Provide supervision and clarify priorities for Monitoring and Data Insights team member(s), consultants, interns, and partners

What will you need:

• Education: You have completed a master’s degree in data science, Econometrics, Social Science, or Environmental Science
• Experience: You have a minimum of 10 years of full-time work experience in a relevant field, with at least 3 years’ experience of managing a multi-disciplinary, multi-cultural team
• You have experience in managing and providing technical backstopping for a multi-million dollar, cross-functional sustainable development programs in an NGO
• You have a strong understanding of theory of change development, strategy development, program management as well as monitoring, evaluation, and learning
• You have experience working with international teams, in U.S. and Africa.
• You have experience in forest and landscape restoration or forestry, with a focus on the realities and needs of local restoration groups
• You have fluency in Microsoft Word, Outlook, Excel, and PowerPoint, with experience PowerBI, DevResults, M&E software systems, Python, Nvivo, or STATA.
• You have the ability to manage a complex workload remotely and meet deadlines
• Languages: You have written and verbal proficiency in English and French
• Requirements: Existing work authorization is required where this position. WRI is unable to authorize visa work authorization