Worku Ambelu

Mr. Ambelu has over 20 years of development work expertise. Mr. Ambelu possesses a wealth of knowledge in project theory of change, logic model design, monitoring, evaluation, Learning, planning, statistics, assessment, research and project coordination activities in different organizations. In the recent past he worked to Management Systems International to a USAID Learning Project run by a consortium as Director of Evidence. Previously Mr. Ambelu was working to the Department for International Development (DFID/FCDO) in Ethiopia at the capacity of Evaluation and Statistics Advisor. He was responsible Leading and taking forward DFID Ethiopia’s approach to data, evidence and evaluation, contributing to business case design and programme review for DFID Ethiopia’s high spend, high risk programmes and numerous other activities. He worked as a Senior Evaluation Manager for the USAID Ethiopia Performance Monitoring and Evaluation Service (USAID/EPMES) project/activity implemented by Social Impact - a consulting firm where Worku had been responsible to lead the overall evaluation activities and provided oversights on monitoring and learning activities. He lead budget preparation of the activity mainly evaluation budgets, led the design and implementation of the monitoring, evaluation and learning tasks of the EPMES Activity. Mr. Ambelu provided leadership on evaluations that involve consultants drawn from different disciplines and expertise. He also participated in tool development, data analysis and report review of Graduation with Resilience to Achieve Sustainable Development (GRAD) final evaluation, Community Managed Disaster Risk Reduction (CMDRR) final evaluation, Ethiopia Gender Analysis and Youth Potential baseline survey. Additionally, Mr. Ambelu was a team member of a three-phase cohort study of the Youth Potential project, final evaluation for Strengthening Ethiopia’s Urban Health project, Crop Availability and Market Study (Belmon determination), Challenge Tuberculosis final evaluation and several other evaluations. Worku also coordinated the recruitment process of consultants by preparing appropriate job descriptions for team member and team leader positions, shortlisting and screening consultants. Additionally, he prepared level of effort for consultants and participated in the preparation of budget for the evaluation projects. Worku also participated in the review of USAID/Ethiopia’s Country Cooperative Development Strategy (CDCS. Mr Ambelu also prepares training materials specifically in areas such as evaluation and data analysis methods and provided trainings on same as part of the MEL training organized by EPMES/USAID activity and delivered to USAID/Ethiopia implementing partner staff and USAID staff. He also provides training on indicator development and type of indicators. Before joining Social Impact, Mr Ambelu was working at the capacity of M&E Expert for the UN-World Bank/VNG International Consulting firm-on a program called Promoting Basic Services -Ethiopia Social Accountability Program 2 (ESAP2) and the objective of this program was to capacitate citizens and citizen groups to hold service providers and government officials for the basic services they provide accountable including: Agriculture, Education, Health, Water and Sanitation, and Rural Road sectors. Mr. Ambelu was monitoring if implementing partners had equipped citizens, service providers and government officials with the necessary capacity such as assessing the aforementioned basic services against the service standards, check if proper tool utilization in identifying service issues are being utilized (this includes the application of community score card, citizen report card, participatory planning and budgeting, and public expenditure and tracking survey tools). FGDs were intensively used as ongoing evaluation tool to identify the implementation status of projects by different implementing partners and to identify opportunities and challenges. Furthermore, Mr. Ambelu had intensively involved in the review implementing partners baseline, midline and endline surveys/evaluations instruments and sampling methods and review of draft reports resulted from such survey/evaluation undertakings Prior to that, Mr. Ambelu was working with World Learning Inc. holding a position of Monitoring and Evaluation Manager to lead the overall M&E issues for the School Community Partnership Serving OVC affected by HIV/AIDS in Primary schools project. Mr. Ambelu spearheaded a wide variety of tasks from conducting annual and baseline surveys, developing database systems, producing survey/research reports and also training staff on M&E, data management, indicator development, etc. Additionally, between 2002 and up until 2008, Mr. Ambelu also worked at World Learning Ethiopia gaining experience in a variety of positions such as M&E specialist and also as a Database manager. While working at the capacity of Monitoring and Evaluation Manager he directly supervised Monitoring and Evaluation specialists and data clerks; also he supervised 4 monitoring and evaluation assistants at the time he had assumed the position of Monitoring and Evaluation specialist and Database Manager Positions at different times. Mr. Ambelu assumed the Monitoring and Evaluation specialist and Database Manger positions for the USAID –Community Government Partnership program that was implemented by World Learning and other partners to enhance quality and equity in primary education. He worked at the capacity of Monitoring and Evaluation officer position for the health PEPFAR project called CASCADE (Communities and Schools for Children Affected by HIV/AIDS). Mr. Ambelu in addition to his regular M & E responsibility had also served as a Coordinator for the CDA (Complementary drought Assistance Program)-a USAID funded program as a response for the 2004 drought in the country. Hence, Worku has extensive experience in school based programs and coordination of emergency programs. Before re-joining the World Learning in 2012, Mr. Ambelu was working to the Population Council as a Research Coordinator working on Poverty, Gender, Youth, HIV/AIDS and Reproductive Health programs. His role in the organization included facilitating baseline, end line and impact evaluation surveys/research protocols, coordinate data collection, and coordinate data entry, preparing data entry templates, developing sampling methodology, sampling respondents, producing data tables, interpreting results, producing reports and disseminating findings. The youth survey, Mr. Ambelu coordinated, focused on a range of youth issues such as Education, Livelihoods, Access and Utilization of Services, Participation and Parent- Child relationships, Female Genital Mutilation and Male Circumcision, Alcohol and Chat/Khat, etc. This includes both qualitative and quantitative data analysis and report writing. In that Youth and Gender Survey Mr. Ambelu that covered 7 regions of Ethiopia, Worku produced three of the regional reports including Addis Ababa, Benishangul Gumuz, and Afar. He also contributed in the production of service statistics and routine monitoring reports. Most importantly, Mr. Ambelu’s research findings gave informed policy makers and project implementers to take different actions. Mr. Ambelu began his NGO work in World Learning Inc. in 2002 where he was recruited as M & E assistant Specialist for Amhara regional office. He was responsible for the overall M & E activities of the region including conducting baseline surveys, annual surveys, training of data collectors (School Development Agents), coordinating monthly performance data collection and data entry and producing quarterly reports for the project called Community and School Partnership Program (CGPP). Latter in 2005, He was transferred to the head office in Addis Ababa and took the position of Database Manager. He then held the position of Assistant M&E Manager (M & E Specialist) position for the CASCAID (Communities and Schools affected by HIV/AIDS) project. Worku resigned from World Learning in 2008 to take the position of a Research Coordinator in the Population Council. Starting his career with the Development Bank of Ethiopia, Mr. Ambelu was responsible for the planning, report preparation and appraising of bank financing projects. He was also assigned to follow all insurance cases of the collaterals as well as the bank’s fixed assets. Mr. Ambelu has served in a range of activities including data analysis and report writing, developing data entry screening on EpiData, data collection tool development (qualitative and quantitative), qualitative and quantitative data collection in various offices such as UNICEF, SNV through Bager Safe environment for health consulting firm, and Aflatoun international. Mr. Ambelu has a strong statistical background receiving his M.Sc. and B.Sc. degrees in the field of Applied Statistics from the Addis Ababa University and is also well trained in different statistical and qualitative software. Mr. Ambelu is married and fathered three children. Mr. Ambelu had taken several courses in micro economics, macroeconomics and Econometrics as part of his under graduate and post graduate studies.