Director, Strategy, Evaluation and Learning

About International Development Research Centre (IDRC)

As part of Canada’s foreign affairs and development efforts, the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) champions and funds research and innovation within and alongside developing regions to drive global change. We invest in high-quality research in developing countries, share knowledge with researchers and policymakers for greater uptake and use, and mobilize our global alliances to build a more sustainable and inclusive world.

Our head office is located in Ottawa, Canada, while five regional offices keep us close to the researchers and projects we fund. The regional offices are located in Montevideo, Uruguay; Nairobi, Kenya; Dakar, Senegal; Amman, Jordan; and New Delhi, India.

IDRC is governed by a board of up to 14 governors, whose chairperson reports to Parliament through the portfolio Minister.

IDRC was established by an Act of Canada’s Parliament in 1970 with a mandate “to initiate, encourage, support, and conduct research into the problems of the developing regions of the world and into the means for applying and adapting scientific, technical, and other knowledge to the economic and social advancement of those regions.”

Role Summary

The Director of Strategy, Evaluation and Learning leads the division responsible for strategy, external trends and foresight analysis, strategic knowledge translation, and a well-functioning monitoring, evaluation and learning framework, including both decentralized and externally commissioned evaluations. These functions contribute to IDRC’s reputation and functioning as a strategic, utilization-focused, results and learning-oriented organization. The Director works closely with other senior managers to create a culture of strategic insight, foresight thinking, evaluative practice and learning.

The Director is a member of the Centre’s Management Committee, and serves as Acting Vice-President, in the absence of the Vice-President, when needed. The Director is a thought leader for IDRC in knowledge translation, strategy, analysis and foresight as well as monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL). The Director collaborates and liaises with other branches, including the Programs and Partnerships Branch (PPB) and the Resources Branch, with Regional Offices as well as the President’s Office, while ensuring that staff within the Division create and maintain these relationships as well. Within SRPB, the Director works closely with the Policy and Communications Division to ensure knowledge-sharing and strategic-thinking coherency.

The Director manages a budget of approximately CAD $1 million in programming allocations and an operating budget of approximately CAD $1.4 million, with a staff of 13.

Strategic Planning, Scanning and Foresight (25%)

• Lead a team to undertake environmental scanning, global trends analysis and horizon scanning, liaising closely with regional offices.
• Facilitate the development of periodic strategic plans for IDRC, by designing and implementing the process of strategic planning, including engagement with the Board of Governors, management, staff, grantees, funding partners and key stakeholders in Canada and in the developing regions of the world.
• Represent IDRC in fora of Canadian and international research-for-development funder networks that engage at the strategic level and share intelligence on emerging Canadian and international strategic priorities.
• Ongoing foresight, involving strategic scanning and analysis to inform the Centre’s directions and positioning.
• Develop and maintain professional liaisons and working relationships with the heads of strategy in other agencies in Canada and abroad, exchanging information and resources.

Strategic Knowledge Translation (15%)

• Lead a team to propose, coordinate and support strategic-knowledge translation priorities as part of IDRC’s knowledge-sharing framework. Build knowledge-translation capacity, oversee business processes related to knowledge translation and engaging with global networks to showcase, promote and support knowledge translation among other donors and partners.
• Oversee the Division’s process to deliver on the knowledge-translation priorities of the Centre through the Strategic Knowledge Translation team.

Evaluation (15%)

• Oversee the Division’s design, implementation and stewardship of the Centre’s evaluation policy, system and processes, which enable IDRC programs to monitor, improve and report on organizational and program performance.
• Design, implement and manage evaluation at IDRC, by providing strategic leadership within the Centre and externally among its donor partners.
• Provide intellectual leadership in performance monitoring and improvement
• Represent IDRC in the Canadian government heads of evaluation community, as well as in international evaluation fora.

Corporate Performance Management and Learning (20%)

• Oversee the development and implementation of the Centre’s corporate performance framework
• Lead the annual priority-setting, planning and reporting processes to support learning and accountability and monitoring to improve performance.
• Oversee the MEL team to ensure a working relationship with PPB and Digital Solutions and Information Governance to ensure cross-branch understanding and collaboration around data collection, input, management and processing.
• With the team, determine and implement any internal capacity strengthening and guidance needed for monitoring.

Human Resources Management (15%)

• Manage the staff of the Division, providing leadership, advice and guidance, approving their work plans, fostering team spirit and ensuring the Division’s strong linkages with other parts of the Branch and IDRC.
• Manage, oversee and assign work of professional, technical and support staff.
• Oversee recruitment, professional development and performance appraisals of Division personnel.
• Ensure a strong relationship between strategic knowledge translation, monitoring, evaluation, learning and strategy and foresight within IDRC and in development thinking, through the Division’s efforts and the Director’s own work.

Corporate Management (10%)

• Serve as a member of IDRC’s Management Committee and of other IDRC committees as required, actively contributing to corporate policy development and management at the corporate level.
• When required, act for the Vice-President, Strategy, Regions and Policy.

You bring a deep appreciation of research for development and innovation along with a passion for feeding the insight gained into strategy, foresight, programming and ultimately, results. You operate at a highly strategic level, with the experience and insights to see the systems holistically. You are forward-thinking and an innovator, with broad and up to date knowledge of international developments trends. You are skilled at encouraging research excellence and its applications and bring experience in organizational change management. You are considered a thought leader and have demonstrated experience representing at a high level, ideally in the applied research or development sectors as well as with funders. A strong bilingual (English/French) communicator, you embrace ongoing reflection, continuous and evidence-based learning and the importance of adaptation. You are rooted in and inspired by Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) excellence and are inspired by this role’s focus on sharing groundbreaking insights within IDRC and externally with partners and donors. You are skilled at distilling what knowledge to bring forward and translating highly detailed information in a targeted and compelling way. Highly collaborative, you enjoy working with a diversity of perspectives and bring experience that will allow you to successfully engage with the many IDRC colleagues. Working across different regions, branches and programming areas you build trust, break down silos and ultimately support efforts to ensure the quality of their work. You are a confident leader and people manager, skilled and eager to support the development of your team with a mentoring, collaborative and empowering style of leadership.

Candidates must be eligible to work in Canada.

Education

• Graduate degree in social sciences or a field of research relevant to IDRC’s mandate.

Skills and Experience

Development Research, Strategy and Evaluation

• Eight years of experience at a senior level in development research, strategy or evaluation, preferably in an international organization, government, crown agency or other type of multi-disciplinary organization.
• A sound and demonstrated understanding of the importance and role of evaluation concepts and practices, in knowledge-based organizations, in relation to international development programs, performance measurement and organizational learning.
• Understanding of issues related to assessing and reporting on performance of research and development programs in low- and middle-income countries.
• Experience distilling complex information for use by a wide range of audiences and purposes, including management decisions.

Leadership and Management

• Experience serving on a management team and working collaboratively in a highly matrixed organization.
• At least eight years of experience managing highly skilled staff, equipped with clear goals and performance metrics.

Representation and Knowledge of Government

• Experience representing an organization at a senior level.
• In-depth understanding of Canadian federal government processes and priorities and experience working with or within the federal government.
• A comprehensive understanding of IDRC’s strategic directions and programs, and knowledge of its partners in Canada and abroad.

Interpersonal Skills and Teamwork

• Demonstrated ability to foster a collaborative work environment and resolve conflicts within a team setting.
• Experience mentoring team members and facilitating professional development opportunities.

Communication and Cultural Sensitivity

• Proficient in communicating trends, emerging issues, complex plans, reviews and evaluations, orally and in writing, in both French and English.
• Possess cross cultural skills needed to work in a diverse and global organization.

Language

• Bilingual (English/French) at an advanced level.
• Knowledge of other languages, particularly Spanish, would be an asset.

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