As a development professional, I have experience in research, communication, program management across international organisation, think tank and consultancy positions in Islamabad and Lahore. My expertise is in quantitative data analysis, particularly in the field of education.
Performance Evaluation of the DFID/FCDO’ s Punjab Education Sector Programme II (PESP II)
● Conducted desk review and qualitative interviews of stakeholders to evaluate technical assistance provided to the School Education Department, Government of Punjab over the COVID-19 period.
● Finalized the Review of Education Sector Performance study, presented findings in the final evaluation workshop, and supported the development of communication products for wider dissemination.
Food Security and Nutrition Information System (FSNIS) Project at the Ministry of National Food Security and Research (MNFS&R)
● Analysed and collated secondary data on food security, nutrition, food prices, and agriculture from various sources. Studied literature on food security and nutrition, global food outlook and agriculture outlook.
● Prepared analytical products, such as weekly price bulletins and chapters for the Pakistan Overview of Food Security and Nutrition report, in close collaboration with FSNIS stakeholders.
● Drafted site layouts, sample graphs and food price dashboards, as part of the development of an online FSNIS database. Provided quality assurance and coordinated with the website vendor for timely progress.
● Supported FAO projects, including data analysis for a Desert Locust assessment in affected districts.
Performance Evaluation of the FCDO’ s Punjab Education Sector Programme II (PESP II)
● Updated the Review of Education Sector Performance study, which mapped Punjab’s progress on participation, learning outcomes and school level indicators, in line with the conceptual framework. Conducted quantitative analysis of new rounds of secondary data.
● Drafted Community Study by collating qualitative data from mothers, community leaders and schools in selected schools in Rawalpindi and Bhakkar. Supported the development of communication material from this source.
• Updated the Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Plan for the USAID Training for Pakistan - III (TFP) Project, in line with the revised scope of work. Finalize the logical framework, and develop related data collection instruments required by this plan.
• Engaged closely with the IT team for design, development and implementation of the TFP Management Information System.
• Supported the design, quality development, and production of all TFP reports (quarterly, annual, and other reports), assessments, surveys, and studies.
• Supported the communications team in content development and management of the USAID Pakistan Alumni Association.
• Drafted quantitative instruments (teacher questionnaire, classroom observation and school information sheet), field protocol documents and sampling framework for the school study, as part of the FCDO's Punjab Education Sector Programme II (PESPII) evaluation.
• Conducted data quality assessment exercise on selected survey and administrative datasets (such as the Punjab EMIS) according to the World Bank and UNESCO’s Framework for Assessing the Quality of Education Statistics, as part of the PESPII evaluation.
• Identified and calculated indicators from the selected datasets to measure the performance of Punjab’s education system during the PESPII period. Tracked trends in school participation and learning across gender, income, location and school level factors. These indicators were analysed through the conceptual framework in the World Development Report 2018.
• Collected primary qualitative data by conducting interviews with district education officials, government head teachers, and key informants from the Punjab Education Commission and Quaid-e-Azam Academy for Educational Development.
• Analyzed and presented school level data in tables and charts for the school leadership and autonomy (SL&A) project report. Assisted in coordinating the dissemination workshop.
• Assisted in the development of health-related research proposals, particularly on the issue of childhood stunting, through literature reviews and grant writing.
● Analyzed quantitative survey data and compiled project monitoring and evaluation baseline, and endline reports. Analyzed qualitative data (focus group discussions and key interviews) for a Balochistan context analysis which focused on four districts of this province.
● Drafted the 2016 annual report by gathering data from activity situation reports, monitoring surveys, external evaluations, focus group discussions and case studies. Categorized annual progress within Concern’s understanding of extreme poverty – lack of assets, inequality, and risk and vulnerability.
● Compiled monthly security and grants updates, and monthly situation reports of ongoing projects and their activities by coordinating with finance, administration and programs departments.
● Edited external reporting and communications content including proposals, lessons learnt documents, survey tools, case studies, along with monitoring, quarterly, and final narrative reports for emergency and development projects.
● Edited internal reporting and communications content such as meeting minutes for monitoring and evaluation working group and program meetings.
• Conducted meta-research on public research priorities of the institute, namely urban studies, human capital and women in the UAE, with the Qualitative/Quantitative team.
• Pooled conventional social science literature through open source platforms and various databases and organized it through data management tools such Mendeley and Zotero.
• Coded research based on sub-categories, keywords, level of analysis and methodology, tracked thematic patterns and identified key researchers, institutions and gaps in the academic literature.
• Compiled this research into annotated bibliographies that evaluated an article’s strength, weakness, use of data, methodology and placed it in comparison to the rest of the field.
• Executed administrative tasks such as taking meeting minutes, translating field notes, making phone calls along with compiling and editing project progress reports in the Programs department.
• Documented the Journalists for Human Rights Ceremony, Land Reform Forum and Ending Torture Seminar events and assisted the logistics team.
• Researched Participatory Research Communication Appraisal (PRCA) methodology and developed a mock project plan for the district of Rajanpur.
• Mentored a group of six interns for two weeks.
• Composed and conducted client satisfaction surveys based on the institutional policy, with a team of interns.
• Interacted with micro finance clients through field visits to gain data for survey research and case studies.
• Assisted branch expansion research through data entry and report writing on new projects such as the education initiative.