M&E Officer

Job Title: M&E Officer

Sector: Monitoring & Evaluation

Employment Category: Fixed Term

Employment Type: Full-Time

Open to Expatriates: No

Location: Gbanga, Liberia

Job Description

Over 80 years ago, Albert Einstein helped create the International Rescue Committee (IRC). Today, we are a leading humanitarian and development organization working in more than 40 countries and 26 U.S. cities to help people whose lives and livelihoods are shattered by conflict and disaster to survive, recover, and gain control of their future. The IRC has been present in Liberia since 1996 serving as a lead partner in the health sector. The country program supports the Ministry of Health (MOH) in strengthening the health care systems and service delivery at all levels in accordance with the MOH national standards.

In recent years, IRC Liberia has deepened its commitment to supporting both local civil society organizations and community groups in their recovery efforts – first from the devastating civil war and now from the Ebola crisis.The Scaling Up Health Services Project presents an opportunity to bring these two critical elements together by strengthening civil society engagement in the delivery of health services and the rebuilding of health systems in Liberia.

Scope Of Work

The IRC has entered into a cooperative agreement with USAID to implement the USAID Community Health Activity Liberia.The USAID Community Health Activity is a consortium consisting of IRC, Last Mile Health (LMH), Community Safety Initiative (CSI), Development Education Network-Liberia (DEN-L) and EQUIP Liberia – will strengthen the Liberian community health system to provide health care services in hard-to-reach areas to support sustainable country ownership of community-based health services, through technical assistance and capacity building of Ministry of Health (MOH)/County Health Teams (CHTs). The project will increase the coverage of service providers in underserved districts and improve their capacity to deliver quality health services while strengthening CHTs and communities’ capacity to plan, manage and monitor health services.The project will directly work with local civil society organizations (CSOs) at the county and community level, providing them with funding opportunities and strengthening their technical and operational capacity to play a key role in service delivery.

USAID Community Health Activity Implementation Overview

USAID Community Health Activity is currently implemented in Lofa, Bong, River Gee and Grand Kru counties to assist in the decentralization process and ensure that county and community-level systems are equipped to deliver high quality community-based services in line with key MOH strategies. The project staff will work alongside MOH staff of the relevant units, and county officials in strengthening their capacity to effectively supervise and coordinate community-based health activities.

The project works with local CSOs who have experience in implementing community health services with geographic focus and experience in managing restricted funding in delivering quality community health care services. The activities also offers local CSOs funding opportunities through sub-award mechanisms, complemented by technical training and a comprehensive capacity strengthening activities that will see local organizations skills and knowledge being strengthen over the course of the 4-year period.

In early 2021 IRC has also won a grant from the Else Kröner Fresenius Foundation (EKSF). The project’s name is Scale Up Community Health Services (SUCH). It aims to support underserved and remote rural communities, improve access to health services through capacity building, provide essential medicines and promote health-conscious behavior together with community influencers. It is a complementary (matching cost) of the USAID Community Health Activity implemented only in Bong County.

IRC is seeking a Liberian National to serve in the role of M&E Officer for a 3-year EKSF project. The primary purpose of the project is to provide health care services in hard-to-reach areas while transferring ownership to the government by increasing coverage of CHAs in underserved districts, improving their capacity to deliver quality health services as well as strengthening CHTs and communities’ capacity to plan, manage and monitor health services.The M&E Officer will work under the supervision of the M&E Advisor and M&E Coordinator at the project office in Monrovia and indirectly/administratively report to the EKSF/SUCH Project Manager at the field office in the assigned county. S/he will also be supervised by the QA/Sr. M&E Officer of Bong County. S/he will be jointly work with the QA/Sr. M&E Officer to perform all quality assurance, monitoring and evaluation functions for the project activities in the Bong County.S/he will be supervised by the Sr. M&E Advisor and will work closely with the Sr. Community Health Coordinator.The M&E Officer with support from the QA/Sr. M&E Officer will provide guidance for the CHSSs and CHAs in the assigned county to ensure the validity of data being collected and reported with specific emphasis on consistency, accuracy, reliability, and timeliness.The M&E Officer is expected to collate and analyze iCCM data collected by the CHAs and CHSSs and accordingly update the project databases in consultation with the Sr. M&E Advisor and M&E Coordinator in a timely manner to ensure accurate and on-time reporting and program decision making.

Essential Functions

Specific responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

Monitoring And Evaluation

• Have a thorough understanding of the project M&E frameworks indicators and the USAID reporting requirements.
• Work closely with the QA/Sr. M&E Officer, M&E Coordinator and Project Manager to develop the plans and procedures for data collection and verification in the county.
• Ensure that iCCM and other relevant project indicators are incorporated and regularly updated in the project database.
• With support form the QA/Sr. M&E Officer facilitate capacity building for CHAs and CHSSs on the use of the CBIS forms; the data collection/verification procedures and reporting.
• Work with CHT M&E Managers and Data Clerks to ensure that they update the CBIS/HMIS data platform with CHSS/CHA Monthly Service Reports MSRs).
• Work with CHT M&E, CHSSs and CHAs to facilitate annual household registration and mapping, including population estimation in the catchment areas and for the entire districts and county.
• Support the CHT (including CHFP, HPFP, EHT, M&E Managers, Data Clerks, CHSSs, and County) to conduct joint data reviews to analyze trends and performance towards set targets, timeliness of data entry, report completeness and accuracy in CBIS/HMIS databases for the county, assess consistency with project data, and identify problems that need to be addressed.
• In liaison with the Sr. Community Health Coordinator and the County Pharmacists, support the tracking and reporting of commodity stock out levels by CHAs in the communities.
• Help CHTs to conduct quarterly DQAs and provide technical assistance for corrective action.

Area of consideration: This is a local position.

Key Working Relationships

Position Reports to: M&E Advisor

Position directly supervises:N/A

Indirect Reporting: M&E Coordinator, Community Health & Manager & QA/Sr. M&E Officer

Other Internal And/or External Contacts

Internal: Program Team

External: CHT, County M&E, CHSSs, CHAs & CHVs Partner organization

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Statistics, Economics, or a related field; equivalent experience may be substituted for graduate degree.
• Demonstrated knowledge tracking and analyzing project indicators and capture best practices and lessons learned to incorporate into project activities
• Significant experience working with CSOs partners, CHTs at the county level
• Knowledge and familiarity with clients with low literacy
• Strong negotiation skills and ability to develop relations with local counterparts, donors, and other stakeholders.
• Demonstrated innovation and success in gender-sensitive programming and implementation.
• Strong communication, both written and oral, including ability to review and provide feedback on sub-grantees reports.
• Problem-solving, multi-tasking, independent judgment, and time management, particularly in a multi-cultural environment.
• Able to respond rapidly to changing environments, yet remain productive, focused.
• Willingness to travel frequently to remote program locations, often for an extended period
• Strong computer literacy skills and experience working with Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and PowerPoint.

The IRC and IRC workers must adhere to the values and principles outlined in IRC Way –

Standards for Professional Conduct. These are Integrity, Service, Accountability and

Equality. In accordance with these values, the IRC operates and enforces policies on

Beneficiary Protection from Exploitation and Abuse, Child Safeguarding, Anti Workplace

Harassment, Fiscal Integrity, and Anti-Retaliation.

All IRC personnel must adhere to the values and principles outlined in IRC Way – Standards

for Professional Conduct. These are Integrity, Service, Accountability and Equality. In

accordance with these values, the IRC operates and enforces policies on Beneficiary

Protection from Exploitation and Abuse, Child Safeguarding, Anti Workplace Harassment,

Fiscal Integrity, and Anti-Retaliation.