Principal Advisor - Office of Evaluation and Oversight

We improve lives

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Group is a community of diverse, versatile, and passionate people dedicated to improving lives in Latin America and the Caribbean. Our people find purpose and do what they love in an inclusive, collaborative, agile, and rewarding environment.

The Office of Evaluation and Oversight (OVE) is responsible for independently evaluating all aspects of the IDB Group’s work. OVE reports directly to the IDB Group’s Boards of Directors with the objective of improving management’s accountability and learning. OVE delivers corporate, country, and thematic evaluations, validates project-level self-evaluations, and tracks implementation of recommendations. In addition to evaluating the IDB Group’s work, OVE supports capacity building for the staff of public institutions in Latin America and the Caribbean.

OVE is also a member of the Evaluation Cooperation Group (ECG), a standard-setting network of the independent evaluation offices of multilateral development banks (MDBs).

We are seeking a Principal Advisor to:

The Principal Advisor will report to OVE’s Director and will closely collaborate with OVE’s Cluster Leaders and all OVE staff.

• Provide intellectual guidance to team leaders and staff in identifying and applying evaluation methods consistently across OVE's work.
• Broaden evaluation methods, including through the informed integration of data science applications and artificial intelligence (e.g., machine learning, text analytics, hybrid use of geospatial data).
• Work with evaluation teams in collaboration with the Cluster Leaders and under the direction of OVE’s Director to ensure the quality and robustness of evaluation design and OVE’s capacity building work.
• Spearhead the establishment of standards and tools for data collection, management, analysis, and presentation, ensuring consistency across OVE’s products and services.

• In close collaboration with the Cluster Leaders and the Director, promote high standards and reliability in evaluation designs, offering guidance on methods and practices to enhance quality to the Task Team Leaders and evaluation teams.
• Review OVE’s Approach Papers, Evaluation Reports and other evaluation outputs (e.g., annotated outlines and emerging findings presentations) as well as key deliveries of OVE’s capacity building work, providing timely feedback through all stages of the evaluation process.
• Contributing to writing and revising sections of evaluation reports and intermediate outputs (e.g., emerging findings reports) as needed in collaboration with the evaluation teams, the Cluster Leaders and the Director.

• Be an active member of OVE’s leadership team, which strategically guides OVE’s work and OVE’s staff.
• Contribute to strategic decisions regarding work programs, budget, staffing, and other critical matters discussed in weekly OVE leadership team meetings.
• Provide insights to the Cluster Leaders on the performance of OVE staff who have provided cross support to the Principal Advisor.
• Assist the OVE Director in interactions with IDB Group Boards of Directors, management, and internal stakeholders.

Lead OVE’s learning agenda on evaluation methods, including the yearly learning week; produce learning materials, and advise on staff learning requirements.
Lead/participate in OVE’s activities with the Evaluation Cooperation Group (ECG), including the update of the Global Practice…