MEL Consultant

About the Van Leer Foundation
Founded in 1949, the Van Leer Foundation is an independent Dutch organisation working globally to foster inclusive societies where all children and communities can flourish. We bring together people with different perspectives and support them to achieve large-scale impact. Our support involves a unique combination of funding, networks, executive education, technical assistance and knowledge. We believe the major challenge is the transition to scale of support for babies, toddlers and those caring for them. By working together with governments, civil society, philanthropy, academia, international organisations and business, we find the best programmes and policies to improve children’s lives. We partner with them by providing funding, expertise, networks and support to scale these up for maximum impact.

Geographically, our investments are made in focus countries, selected to reflect global diversity in economic, geographic and cultural terms, and a global programme through which we engage strategic replication partnerships that span multiple countries, in some cases extending beyond our core set of countries. India is one of our focus countries.

Overview

The Van Leer Foundation is seeking a consultant to support our portfolio team in India with Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning activities. The consultant would report to the Principle Consultant, India and work in close collaboration with the technical partners and the VLF MEL Technical Lead.

Goals

• Provide technical advice to the VLF India team on a regular basis.
• Support the implementation of the monitoring, evaluation, and learning system for India’s portfolio, ensuring alignment with the global VLF MEL strategy, approach, and methodologies;
• Provide regular support for monitoring project indicators while tracking cumulative and performance indicators, contributing to our learning objectives from a process and impact perspective.
• Promote evidence-based learning and support feedback loops by conducting desk reviews, developing results frameworks, identifying indicators, and refining them;
• Support the establishment of a data collection and reporting system as well as the development of baseline and endline studies for project monitoring and evaluation;
• Support data collection exercises for all projects by providing initial support and guidance to the partners regarding best practices and techniques of data collection, in addition to supporting the reading of data and extracting learning to improve projects (the implementation partners will be responsible for collecting data, conducting pilots, and baseline assessments);
• Build capacity for technical partners and, if required, encourage the institutionalisation of an ongoing data collection culture within local partners and government;
• Support the dissemination of findings to relevant stakeholders, including bi-annual exchanges with MEL partners in other VLF core countries;
• Work in close collaboration with the VLF MEL Technical Lead to ensure alignment to global MEL strategy, approach, and methodologies, along with providing reporting updates as needed.
• Participate in regular meetings with the VLF programme team for project updates, the sharing of challenges and lessons learned, and to ensure that the monitoring framework remains effective and upto-date.
• Organise, in collaboration with the India team of VLF, at least one MEL meeting with the core stakeholders of VLF annually to promote learning across our partners.

Qualifications

Education and work experience
• Minimum of Master’s degree in International Development, International Relations, Social Sciences, Humanities, Psychology, or other field requiring significant research, analysis and writing.
• 8-10 years of relevant work experience related to MEL/research and reporting on cross-sectoral
programmes including demonstrated experience in developing and implementing MEL plans and/or research protocols, ideally in NGO or government contexts.

Core skills
• Good understanding of programme design, theory of change and/or logic frameworks.
• Knowledge of research methods with strong analytical abilities, including qualitative, quantitative, mixed-methods and impact data collection and analysis.
• Advantage if demonstrated experience in participatory evaluation methodologies
• Fluent in English and Hindi, strong written and spoken skill