MEL Officer 354 views0 applications

Pact seeks a Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) Officer for the USAID-funded Strengthening Youth and Women’s Civic Participation Project. The project aims to increase collaboration, sustainability, and resilience of civil society and independent media to advance the inclusion, participation and leadership of youth and women in Sudan. The activity will apply locally led, problem-driven, adaptive approaches. This program will be starting Y2 of an anticipated five-year activity, with a dramatic shift in the operating context since the program startup in Khartoum in October 2o22. This position will be based in Nairobi, Kenya with occasional travel in the East Africa region, and potentially relocating to Khartoum, Sudan if and when the context and operating environment become more conducive.

Reporting to the MEL Director, the MEL Officer will provide strategic guidance, vision, and management for successful monitoring, evaluation and learning of the program. S/he will contribute to the development, implementation, and revision of the Annual MEL Plan, provide technical direction and support to MEL activities, ensure accurate and compelling reporting of results for program activities, and ensure activities align with Pact’s quality standards for MEL in close coordination with Pact’s Learning, Evidence, and Impact (LEAP) Team based in Washington, DC.

Key Responsibilities

• Contribute to the implementation of the project’s MERL system
• Support the maintenance of MEL systems including MEL plans, performance indicators, data collection & reporting tools, data management systems and standard operating procedures (data quality management plan)
• Develop and disseminate relevant M&E tools and formats and lead the provision of M&E specific technical training
• Work closely with partners to establish their internal MERL systems, M&E plans, and data quality management
• Ensure supportive supervision of all partners in monitoring and evaluation procedures, data collection tools, and data management practices in alignment with the MEL Plan
• Support data collection, collation, storage, analysis, and reporting, ensuring that data is of high quality and audit worthy
• Conduct Routine Data Quality Assessments (RDQA) and implement corrective actions to improve data quality and accountability of staff and partners
• Support evaluations including designing and executing internal baseline, midterm and endline assessments as appropriate, and support the implementation of learning activities, with Pact’s DC LEAP Team
• Support external evaluation processes, including drafting evaluation ToR and selection of firm, and managing the consultants in alignment with award
• Develop and maintain accurate information in a project database, as well as accurate and timely electronic files
• Support calculation and reporting of Pact’s Global Indicators through imPact, Pact’s instance of DHIS2, and calculation and reporting of project data into impact
• Support data analysis, writing, and review of the results and learning sections of program reports in collaboration with program staff, before submission to donor and ensure consortium partners’ compliance with internal data quality requirements and timely submissions for reporting
• Help ensure the project’s MEL systems and outputs meet minimum quality standards.
• Contribute to the development of various research designs and other research related activities including tools preparation, training of research assistants, data collection supervision, data analysis (qualitative & quantitative), and reporting
• Provide MEL capacity development to partners
• Employee complies with all company policies and procedures, including completing all compliance training topics by the deadline to satisfy each and receiving the corresponding acknowledgment statement that the training has been completed
• Other tasks as assigned

Basic Requirements

• Master’s degree in statistics, demographics, public policy, international development, economics, or a related field with five (5) years work experience or bachelor’s degree with at least seven (7+) years work experience
• A minimum of five years of professional experience in a senior M&E position responsible for implementing M&E activities of international development projects is required
• Demonstrated success in designing, implementing, and operating project M&E systems from project initiation to closeout stages is required
• Demonstrated experience in strategic planning and performance measurement, including indicator design, target setting, reporting, database management, and developing M&E and/performance monitoring plans, is required
• Demonstrated experience in designing and administering data collection tools, conducting data entry, data cleaning, and data processing & analysis is required
• Knowledge of and experience with key democracy, human rights, governance programming indicators and USAID data collection and reporting systems
• Demonstrated relevant technical skills in analyzing and interpreting quantitative and qualitative data and packaging the findings
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office programs, i.e., Excel, Word, PowerPoint, etc., and the ability to use various commercially available statistical and data visualization software programs e.g. STATA, R, PowerBI, Tableau
• Demonstrated experience managing and providing ongoing training to M&E field officers and/or sub-awardees is required
• Knowledge of the major evaluation and research methodologies (e.g., qualitative, quantitative, mixed method, and impact) and data collection and analysis methodologies are required
• Experience with data quality assessments and oversight
• Demonstrated to work well on a team and with various partner organizations
• Fluency in English is required

Preferred Qualifications

• Knowledge of key evaluation methods such as Outcome Mapping (OM) and Most Significant Change (MSC)
• Fluency in Arabic is desired
• Knowledge of the political, social, and economic context of Sudan
• Sudanese nationals strongly encouraged to apply