MONITORING AND EVALUATION (M&E) ADVISOR, SOMALIA

CARE seeks a Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Advisor for the anticipated USAID-funded Resilience Food Security Activity (RFSA) in Somalia to improve and sustain the food and nutrition security of vulnerable populations. This Activity will work at the individual, household, community, and institutional levels to address the underlying causes of food insecurity and malnutrition and strengthen transformative opportunities. The Activity is intended to strengthen resilience in populations vulnerable to acute, chronic hunger, and malnutrition; recurrent shocks, stresses, and crises; and to reduce the need for ongoing or future emergency food assistance.

The M&E Advisor will provide technical expertise and leadership to generate and analyze quality evidence and data through monitoring, assessments, and evaluations. The M&E Advisor is a technician with demonstrated experience in building or strengthening monitoring systems, quantitative and qualitative analysis, survey and sample design and effectively promoting evidence-based program management.

This activity is expected to be a five-year program in the $60-80 million range.

This is a Key Personnel position, subject to USAID approval. It is also subject to project award and funding. National and international candidates are encouraged to apply. This position will be based in Mogadishu. This is an unaccompanied post location.

Responsibilities:

• Develop overall framework for project MEL systems including requirements, reporting, baseline, and evaluation surveys.
• Develop and monitor the project monitoring plan to systematically document project performance for technical leads and leadership team.
• Ensure alignment of M&E and Learning activities with program goals and annual work plans, contributing to the development of both.
• Conduct field visits for data validation, to monitor the quality and completeness of data sets.
• Coordinate data collection at project sites in order to monitor program quality, engage in adaptive decision-making, and support course corrections where required.
• Capture and document lessons learned to champion scale-up and disseminate best practices.
• Ensure timely and accurate submission of project reports to donors, including progress against targets set in the award agreement and annual work plan, and quarterly and annual reports.
• Provide technical leadership and support to project and partner staff in planning and implementing MEL systems and activities, data-based program decision-making, and results reporting.
• Conduct assessments, mid-term, final project evaluations to identify gaps, trends and areas for improvement and develop recommendations for learning and knowledge sharing.
• Develop and lead knowledge management systems to capture, document and share lessons learned best practices through various forms including facilitating communities of practice and social networking, to enhance organizational learning.
• Build and maintain strong partnerships and productive working relationships with internal teams, collaborative learning lead, partner organization and external stakeholders to promote collaboration and knowledge exchange.
• Represent the organization in relevant networks, conferences, and events to stay informed about industry trends and best practices.

Qualifications:

• Master’s degree or above in a quantitative or highly-relevant field (economics, agricultural/development economics, statistics, biostatistics, nutrition, or other relevant subject with significant training in quantitative methods required.
• 7 years of relevant experience with multi-sectoral programs, including 5 years of field experience required.
• Senior experience in international development as MEL director, program director or in a senior management role on large ($60M+) humanitarian or development projects.
• Experience with M&E for graduation or other multi-sectoral, integrated programs required.
• Knowledge of Theory of Change, logic models, food security indicators, M&E plans, data quality assurance, data utilization, and gender and youth integration into M&E; and experience and expertise in developing and operationalizing a comprehensive M&E plan.
• Because this Activity builds on evidence from randomized controlled trials (RCTs), and may include randomized evaluation of innovations to the core model, the M&E Advisor should have experience with RCTs, either as a member of an implementing organization whose program was evaluated with an RCT, or as a member of a research team conducting a RCT.
• Demonstrated commitment to principles of Gender Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, as evidenced in previous management positions and programming.
• Demonstrated commitment to Prevention of Sexual Exploitation and Harassment (PSEAH).
• Fluency in English required.