Deadline: 12-Jan-24
The Cultivate Fellowship is now accepting applications from implementers of Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance (BHA)-funded emergency programs and resilience food security activities (RFSAs) and other USAID-funded strategic partners who are interested in deepening their understanding of inclusive resilience dynamics through qualitative inquiry and collaborative learning.
Brought to you by the Gender and Youth Activity (GAYA), the Cultivate Fellowship is a capacity-strengthening opportunity for field-based emergency and resilience food security implementers who are interested in using qualitative methods to increase gender and youth inclusion.
Over three months, a cohort of 16-20 members will participate in both an in-person workshop, regular online meetings, and independent work to develop innovative solutions to increase gender and youth inclusion in their programs.
The Cultivate Fellowship supports fellows to design and use qualitative methods to address their program-specific questions and deepen their contextual understanding of social inclusion and resilience dynamics of their activities, in order to adapt programming for transformative change.
Through the Fellowship, Cultivate Fellows will use qualitative methods to unpack program-specific questions focused on inclusive resilience dynamics, to:
- Explore how systems thinking tools and strategies can deepen their understanding of inclusive resilience dynamics.
- Collaborate with peers to examine how qualitative inquiry can deepen their understanding of these dynamics.
- Design learning questions, a qualitative inquiry process, and qualitative inquiry tools to explore program-specific questions aimed at unpacking these dynamics and informing program adaptation.
- Assess barriers (e.g., organizational, resource-based, structural) to integrating inclusive resilience-focused qualitative inquiry and develop clear strategies for addressing these barriers, including, but not limited to behavior change within the program.
- Conduct this qualitative inquiry within their own program, including:
- Collecting data;
- Analyzing results;
- Convening a team for sensemaking, reflection, and decision-making regarding how to apply learning within the program; and
- Revising the learning questions, process, and tools based on reflections for broader use in investigating inclusive resilience dynamics within the program.
- Engage with a robust Alumni Network committed to creative, collaborative, and critical innovation around inclusive resilience-focused qualitative inquiry, implementation, broader measurement, learning, and adaptation.
Expectations for Fellows:
- Fellows’ program/activity will fund travel costs (i.e., travel, accommodation, per diem) associated with attending the in-person workshop (mid-March 2024, Zimbabwe)
- Fellows will engage in three months of activities, including, but not limited to, virtual preparatory meetings, a 5-day in-person workshop, biweekly virtual meetings following the workshop, informal and formal technical mentorship calls, and a virtual learning event
- During the Fellowship, Fellows (with the support of their peer and other technical mentors) will be required to complete an inclusive resilience-focused qualitative inquiry within their program/activity, which includes but is not limited to:
- Engaging with program leadership and technical leads to identify a challenge and associated learning question
- Creating a clear action plan for conducting the qualitative inquiry over the next three months
- Developing and implementing a process and tools for the qualitative inquiry
- Collecting and analyzing data collected using these qualitative inquiry tools
- Conducting a sensemaking process to discuss the results of the qualitative inquiry
- Implementing the action plan and applying learning within the program o Integrating findings from qualitative inquiry within the program
- Documenting learning and project outcomes
- Sharing the findings of and program changes at the Alumni Celebration
Expectations for Leadership:
- Senior leadership within Fellows’ programs/activities must commit to:
- Attending a pre-selection call with GAYA to discuss the relevance of the Fellowship to the program’s current activities
- Attending a leadership kick-off call
- Supporting Fellows in establishing the enabling conditions critical to conducting inclusive resilience-focused qualitative inquiry as a central part of the program/activity’s measurement system
- Dedicating time to reflect and problem-solve with Fellows about the qualitative inquiry process on a monthly basis
- Attending the final learning event
Eligibility Criteria
- Prospective applicants should apply as a pair working within the same program, ideally representing:
- Applicant 1: Gender, youth, and/or social inclusion components or the equivalent (ideally social inclusion lead)
- Applicant 2: Monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) and/or collaboration, learning, and adaptation (CLA) or adaptive management equivalent (ideally MEL or CLA lead)
- Program pairs and their leadership should complete one application together. Single applicants will not be accepted. The Fellowship can accommodate teams of three if space allows.
For more information, visit Food Security and Nutrition (FSN) Network.