Strategic Information & Evaluation Manager-Friendship Bench

Location: Harare, Zimbabwe ability to travel nationally and internationally up to 20% of the time.

About Friendship Bench

Friendship Bench is a non-profit dedicated to creating safe spaces and a sense of belonging for millions of individuals who currently lack access to quality mental health care. Guided by values of empathy and connection, and anchored in over a decade of rigorous research, Friendship Bench has re-imagined the delivery of evidence-based mental healthcare in low-resource settings by training community health workers (also known as lay health workers or affectionately, as “grandmothers” to provide basic Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, with an emphasis on Problem Solving Therapy, as well as facilitating peer-led support groups. To date, Friendship Bench has reached more than 85,000 clients and achieved a 61% reduction in depression and suicidal ideation. Over the next 5 years, Friendship Bench aims to provide access to mental health for 5 million people. Friendship Bench has been supported by organizations including Grand Challenges Canada, Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation, Comic Relief, Mulago Foundation, and Grand Challenges Africa and has also been recognized by WHO, UN, TED, BBC, TIME, World Economic Forum, The Guardian, and others.

The opportunity

The Strategic Information & Evaluation (SIE) Manager will be responsible for leading Friendship Bench’s efforts to generate accurate and timely strategic information and data to effectively enhance program outputs and outcomes. The SIE Manager will oversee the design and implementation of effective and efficient data collection systems, quality improvement and data analysis, information dissemination to relevant stakeholders (e.g. staff, board members, implementing partners), and capacity building for strategic information use across the organization. The SIE Manager’s role involves ensuring program knowledge and technical evidence is effectively generated, packaged, and disseminated for program learning, decision-making, and adaptation. Program knowledge includes all information generated through routine program implementation, analysis of existing and new program data, and through targeted data-driven rapid assessments. S/he will use this information to identify and recommend appropriate program enhancements and modifications to the core FB team as well as to implementing partners to enhance the use of evidence-based program strategy to achieve targets. As a rapidly growing organization with a vision to provide high-quality mental health services to 5 million individuals in the next 5 years, the SIE Manager will play a pivotal role in helping us leverage data to learn and adapt our work to optimise the quality, effectiveness, and scalability of Friendship Bench programmes.

Roles & responsibilities

The SIE Manager will report to the Associate Programs Director and will work in close collaboration with the senior leadership team and will be responsible for managing and supporting evaluation staff; The key responsibilities of the SIE Manager include but are not limited to: Provide sound technical leadership for data collection through the development of M&E plans and framework, supporting the programme staff in documenting, organizing and capturing program progress, capturing best practices of innovation and success initiatives; Management and analysis of data and quality assurance through tracking program indicators across program areas and continuously flagging urgent matters and critical success factors that need attention; Strengthening the capacity of all evaluation and programmes teams in implementation of data collection procedures and completion of monitoring tools; Ensuring that quality data is collected and analysed on an ongoing basis and the programmes team has a complete data set on which it acts on a weekly and monthly basis; Support project design activities including development of project theories of change and Results Frameworks using appropriate monitoring, evaluation, accountability, and learning MEAL methodologies; Track donor and FB reporting requirements and deadlines and provide MEAL information to Programs Team for drafting reports; Lead and provide technical leadership on conducting data quality assessments across FB programmes; Developing monthly indicator dashboards for monitoring of programme achievement, guiding programme activities and changes on a weekly basis; Assisting in using project data and information to develop visibility and external communications materials; Oversight of data published by Friendship Bench through ensuring dissemination of results of programme interventions; Compilation of monthly and quarterly M&E reports for Leadership team and Board; Build capacity for knowledge management among programme staff through providing coaching and mentoring in using evidence for programme management

Desired qualifications

Master’s degree in area of public health, social development, monitoring and evaluation, Information Technology, Statistics, or related field; Minimum of 7 years including leadership position(s) in monitoring and evaluation large, multi-year international health sector projects; Proven expertise in quantitative and qualitative evaluation methodologies, operations research, health management information systems, reporting, data quality assessments, data analysis and presentation; Demonstrated ability to take a strategic view in designing information and evaluation systems required for scale, implementing those systems, and working alongside implementing partners; Demonstrated strong management, coordination, teamwork and planning skills with proven ability to function effectively with multiple stakeholders in both the public and NGO sectors; Expertise in research to practice—identifying and adapting best practices to specific project contexts; Proficiency in usual desktop software (MS Word, Excel, Power-point, and Outlook,) STATA, SPPS, Epinfo Web-enabled Monitoring and Evaluation system including the use of theory of change.

Why work at Friendship Bench

Make the world a better place: Every member of our team contributes to ensuring there is a Friendship Bench within walking distance for all who need it; Be at the forefront of reimagining the delivery of mental health care: Friendship Bench has been selected by WHO, Ministries of Health and other partners to redesign the way that millions access evidence-based mental health care, and we are scaling rapidly; Join a diverse, energetic team of individuals: Our team brings deep passion and often a personal connection to the work we do, and we take a highly collaborative approach to building a model that can achieve our vision for impact at scale; Build an exciting career and gain significant exposure: As the first development hire in a growing organization, there will be ample opportunity for growth and new experiences for someone who is eager to learn and build new skills and capabilities.