Scenario Planning Advisor (Contingent)
Abt Associates is currently seeking a qualified Scenario Planning Advisor to serve as a Long Term Technial Advisor (LTTA) for the upcoming USAID Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) 7 Pillar 3 Strategic Planning and Activity Design (SPADe) Support Activity Task Order. The project’s goal is to provide USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA) with a flexible mechanism to procure timely market analyses; secondary data analyses; country/context desk reviews; stakeholder mapping and analyses; and scenario planning. Based on SPADe studies, analyses, and reviews, BHA will design emergency activities, disaster risk reduction activities, resilience activities, and potentially others.
The Scenario Planning Advisor will use a mix of traditional and non-traditional approaches to gather, analyze, and interpret data from diverse databases and multiple sources. Scenario Planning activities will focus on developing or facilitating the development of scenario planning into strategic planning and activity design through the development of products that define the scenarios for specific contexts and timeframes or provide USAID or implementing partners with the tools and capacities needed to develop their own scenario planning.
The Scenario Planning Advisor will advise on and provide quality assurance for approximately four Scenario Planning activities per year over the course of five years, likely in USAID’s Resilience focus countries or Feed the Future target countries.
Position is contingent upon contract award to Abt Associates. We expect that this role will require approximately 11-15 hours per week, plus some additional time at the start of the contract (expected award date of September 30th, 2022) to develop standard principles and guidance for all Scenario Planning activities.
Responsibilities:
- Facilitating scenario planning exercises using consultative processes with multiculturally diverse stakeholders
- Using facilitation methods and tools to identify, frame, and reduce risk factors and contexts that would impact an activity’s design and incorporating these into a scenario plan
- Translating and utilizing both qualitative and quantitative data and research to inform activity designs
- Writing reports, presenting and advising on the use of scenario plans
- Conducting training-of-trainers sessions to build capacity of BHA staff to conduct their own scenario planning workshops
- Establishing standards and overall guidance for all Scenario Planning activities conducted by the consortium team, in line with best practices
- Conducting in-depth quality assurance reviews of all Scenario Planning activities conducted by the consortium team
Qualifications:
- Education: Master’s degree in a related subject area
- Work Experience: Must have at least five years of progressively responsible international work experience
- English fluency is required; Proficiency in French, Spanish or Portuguese is preferred
- Strong training and facilitation experience
- Proven ability to conduct scenario planning capacity building and develop scenario planning products or services for similar donors and clients in the humanitarian and resilience programming space
- Demonstrated familiarity with conflict and post-conflict environments, as well as humanitarian emergencies, preferred
- Previous USAID project experience and FEWS NET familiarity preferred
Nice to have
- Experience in writing online content
- Additional languages
- Google Adwords experience
- Strong analytical skills