Mercy Corps is a global humanitarian aid agency engaged in transitional environments that have experienced some sort of shock: natural disaster, economic collapse, or conflict.
Director of Strategic Learning (DSL)
General Position Summary
The Director of Strategic Learning (DSL) is a key position in the AgriFin Accelerate program responsible for developing and leading cross-cutting programmatic information management, monitoring and evaluation, ensuring that information collected is reflected upon, used to improve ongoing program implementation and sectoral learning, and is incorporated into consistently high quality reports and communications products to drive ecosystem-level impacts.
Essential Job Responsibilities
Strategy & Vision
- Lead strategy related to program learning and impact assessment, including selection and management of strategic partners and consultants for MEL, ensuring high quality implementation and strong internal and external learning outputs.
- Lead learning for the AFA technical matrix team and senior management team, comprised of country directors and regional experts in financial services, technology product development, digital capacity building and agriculture.
- Lead work with program partners (banks, MNOs, etc.) to establish responsive joint learning agendas which serve both partner and program needs, with well integrated data collection planning and implementation.
- Lead on MEL plan development for all partner engagements, developing tailored learning agendas and Research, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) activities that inform and improve each intervention, as well as feed into the overall AFA learning program.
- Take leadership role in designing and implementing all learning events and engagement with learning partners and communities of practice, working across program team, partners and required consultants.
- Work closely with the program donor, the MasterCard Foundation, and its designated Learning Partners to communicate and promote learning as a part of the Foundation community of grantees, including assigned learning partners in digital finance and agriculture.
- Lead design and implementation of evaluations and assessments as outlined in the program proposal and work plans, drawing on appropriate research and survey tools and incorporating Mercy Corps’ standards on design, monitoring, and evaluation.
- Develop and maintain an overall MEL system with utility and program quality in mind, providing managers and their teams real time information that can steer program implementation as well as informing donors and strategic program direction and that helps strategize future program interventions.
Program Management
- Serve on the senior management team and work with the Program Director to design and lead management meetings and strategy sessions.
- Set and manage MEL program budget, developing quarterly work plans and budget allocations on an ongoing basis in consultation with the Program Director.
- Lead and support the MEL team, including the M&E Manager and Program Data Officer.
- Lead and manage annual completion of country benchmark surveys
- Lead and manage all required donor reports and program evaluations for the MasterCard Foundation and Mercy Corps.
- In the absence of the Program Director, serve as acting program director.
Team Management
- Create and sustain a work environment of mutual respect where team members strive to achieve excellence.
- Promote accountability, communicate expectations and provide constructive feedback via regular performance reviews.
- Provide team members with information, tools and other resources to improve performance and reach objectives.
- Contribute to country team-building efforts, help team members identify problem-solving options and ensure the integration of all team members into relevant decision-making processes.
Influence & Representation
- Identify, build and manage collaborative partnerships with consortium partners, sub-grantees, donors, local governments and other stakeholders.
- Communicate effectively to ensure overall project targets and donor obligations are met.
- Lead development and implementation of the program communications strategy, working in close coordination with the AgriFin Senior Leadership Team (director, country managers and finance) and in cooperation with the program donor and assigned consultants.
- Play a leadership role in development of grant and management reporting, ensuring that materials are timely, high quality and responsive to donors and partners.
- Ensure that program-learning outputs are developed at the highest standard, including annual farmer benchmarks, case studies, impact studies, blogs, slide shares and other.
- Ensure the program website and social networking communications channels are regularly updated with relevant content and properly managed.
- Play a leadership role in developing AFA and participating in learning events, including workshops, conferences and annual learning events per country.
- Serve as leading program representative at conferences and events relevant to our learning agenda and ecosystem change objectives.
Organizational Learning
- As part of our commitment to organizational learning and in support of our understanding that learning organizations are more effective, efficient and relevant to the communities they serve, we expect all team members to commit 5% of their time to learning activities that benefit Mercy Corps as well as themselves.
Accountability to Beneficiaries
- Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts toward accountability, specifically to our beneficiaries and to international standards guiding international relief and development work, while actively engaging beneficiary communities as equal partners in the design, monitoring and evaluation of our field projects.
Supervisory Responsibility
Monitoring & Evaluation Manager, Product Data and Information Manager, Related Consultants
Accountability
Reports Directly To: Agri-Fin Accelerate Program Director
Works Directly With: Country Directors, Technical Matrix Team, Finance Director, Partner Organizations, Donor, Donor’s Learning Partners, Ecosystem Stakeholders
Knowledge And Experience
- At least 7 years’ experience in digital financial services, with demonstrated thought leadership through publications and other relevant activities
- Strong experience in research, monitoring and evaluation tied to development programming, oriented toward economic development and technology-enabled programming
- Strong demonstrable understanding of burgeoning trends and ideas in the M&E field
- MA/S or equivalent in Social Science, Management, International Development preferred
- Demonstrated experience designing, developing and implementing M&E systems, including data management platforms, data collection tools, survey design, evaluations, etc.
- Experience using monitoring data and feedback loops to regularly reflect, iterate and improve programs
- Extensive experience working with a variety of donors, preferably in Africa and strong demonstrated writing, presentation and communications ability, with experience in use of social networking and other digital channels
- History of working effectively with private sector, government and development partners
- Demonstrated ability to support complex programming and meet deadlines
- Experience living and working in East Africa region is preferred
- Fluency in written and spoken English essential
More Information
- Job City Nairobi
