Senior Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability & Learning (MEAL) Officer

SENIOR MONITORING, EVALUATION, ACCOUNTABILITY and LEARNING (MEAL) OFFICER

Location Marsabit

Position Status Full-time, Regular

Salary Level:

Current Team Member: N/A

About Mercy Corps

Mercy Corps is powered by the belief that a better world is possible. To do this, we know our teams do their best work when they are diverse, and every team member feels that they belong. We welcome diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and skills so that we can be stronger and have a long-term impact.

Program / Department

Mercy Corps began working in Kenya in 2008 and has built a robust and diverse portfolio working to enable Kenyans affected by poverty, climate change, resource scarcity and conflict to be healthy, and productive and to drive peace and development of their communities. To do this, we deliver integrated programming to strengthen market and governance systems, innovate urban youth employment opportunities, respond to climate-related shocks, address the root causes of conflict, and build the resilience of vulnerable populations – in particular youth, women, adolescents, and marginalized communities.

Mercy Corps is seeking a Senior Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, and Learning (MEAL) Officer for our Mobility and Movement- Cross border Resilience in Moyale program (MM-CBRM). MM-CBRM seeks to enhance the effectiveness of conflict prevention and mitigation, disaster risk reduction and management, and resilience building in cross-border communities in selected border areas in the Horn of Africa. The program is led by Life and Peace Institute in consortium with Mercy Corps, ALCHA, and Pastoralist Concern

The Position

The Senior Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, and Learning (MEAL) Officer position plays a key role in Mercy Corps’ Program quality assurance, accountability, documentation, and learning team specifically supporting the MM-CBRM program. The position holder will support the program in planning and execution of monitoring and evaluation activities, ensuring quality following accepted standards, and providing essential feedback for learning, accountability, and decision-making. The Senior MEAL officer will be responsible for providing internal capacity building for program staff on monitoring and evaluation activities as well as review and development of necessary tools that feed into the needs of Mercy Corps and donor reporting requirements.

Essential Responsibilities

STRATEGY INPUT AND OVERSIGHT

• Support development and implement monitoring and evaluation tools.
• Play key role in the development of intervention designs, sector strategies and M&E frameworks.
• Support inputs into program review documents.
• Support the refining of the program logic and approaches, to adequately incorporate Monitoring Evaluation and Learning (MEL) considerations
• Lead the design, testing and rolling out of all MEL system components for the MM-CBRM

RESULT BASED MONITORING & EVALUATION

• Validating and verifying core indicators against the different sources of information.
• Review, validation, and analysis of incoming results data from grantees;
• Visit sites and partners to collect supplementary data, stories and conduct qualitative research both independently and in teams.
• Work with the Program Manager and other staff to ensure that activities are implemented on plan and progress towards targets is not compromised through regular planning and review meetings;
• In conjunction with the PaQ team, s/he will plan, coordinate and supervise all assessments and evaluations for the MM-CBRM program. This will entail development of Scopes of Work, development of survey tools, trainings and management of data collectors, report write and facilitating results discussion (or recruit and supervise evaluation consultants where necessary);
• Coordinate reporting with consortium partners, specifically tracking deadlines, ensuring adherence to monitoring formats and requirements, ensuring reporting quality and accuracy, and periodic report writing, editing, and submission.
• Develop Data Quality Assessment Plan
• Actively participate in any additional evaluation M&E activities including but not limited to baseline surveys, mid-term, end line surveys, evaluations, household’s surveys
• Ensure adherence to program management minimum standards in carrying out his/her duties, advising and supporting other staff in the same as required.

LEARNING

• Regularly document and share all learnings from program implementation.
• Maintain an up to date database that reflects progress and program indicators.
• Facilitate regular reflection and analysis of program monitoring information that feeds into programming and learning, for adaptive management – Contribute to learning/research agenda

CAPACITY BUILDING

• Build the capacity of grantees to develop and maintain an excellent M&E system;
• Support timely production of weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual donor reports based on agreed performance indicator.
• Build the capacity of all relevant team members to implement program-monitoring tools, accurately enter program data into relevant databases, and enable them to develop excellent reports and other documents
• Facilitate regular reflection and analysis of program monitoring information that feeds into programming and learning, for adaptive management – Contribute to learning/research agenda

PROGRAM ADVISORY

• Maintain an active advisory role with the program team to help guide them towards robust and relevant data collection.
• Actively participate in all implementation, providing advice and feedback for quality results at any point.
• Establish and maintain strong working relationships with partners and government departments.
• Participate in on-going MEL advisory and support for all MM-CBRM program staff and local partners;
• Advise and support the process of testing and adopting relevant technologies for improving the efficiency of the program’s MEL function. This will include supporting rollout of Mobile Data Collection (Ona), GIS/GPS technologies for Mapping, and managing MCK’s internal data management platform TolaData.

OTHER

• Conduct himself/herself both professionally and personally in such a manner as to bring credit to Mercy Corps and to not jeopardize its humanitarian mission.
• Other duties as assigned.

Supervisory Responsibility

Enumerators from time to time.

Accountability

Reports Directly To: Country MEL focal.

Works Directly With Project Coordinator, Program Officer, PaQ team, Director of Programs

Accountability to Participants and Stakeholders

Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts toward accountability, specifically to our program participants, community partners, other stakeholders, and to international standards guiding international relief and development work. We are committed to actively engaging communities as equal partners in the design, monitoring and evaluation of our field projects.

Minimum Qualification & Transferable Skills

• Must hold at least a bachelor’s degree in social science, Statistics, Business administration or relevant field
• At least 4 years of program monitoring and evaluation experience
• Should understand concepts and demonstrate skills in monitoring and evaluation, project cycle, results chain and frameworks, participatory monitoring
• Should be able to design and implement surveys, have knowledge of commonly used probability and purposive sampling techniques
• Must have good writing and analytical skills
• Should have knowledge of quantitative and qualitative data collection and reporting techniques. S/he should understand and be able to apply basic measures of central tendency and spread
• In addition to Microsoft Excel, the incumbent should demonstrate fluency in the use of at least one data management software including MS Access, SPSS, and STATA.
• Must be fluent in both spoken and written English.

Success Factors

A successful Senior MEAL Officer will have the ability and curiosity to work comfortably and effectively. S/he will be an excellent communicator, and multi-tasker, with the ability to work effectively in complex environments. S/he must have the confidence and humility to work effectively with a diverse group of people – as well as be sensitive to political and cultural nuance.

Living Conditions / Environmental Conditions

The position is based in Marsabit. It requires more than 70% of travel to areas in remote villages where amenities are limited.

Ongoing Learning

In support of our belief that learning organizations are more effective, efficient and relevant to the communities we serve, we empower all team members to dedicate 5% of their time to learning activities that further their personal and/or professional growth and development

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

Achieving our mission begins with how we build our team and work together. Through our commitment to enriching our organization with people of different origins, beliefs, backgrounds, and ways of thinking, we are better able to leverage the collective power of our teams and solve the world’s most complex challenges. We strive for a culture of trust and respect, where everyone contributes their perspectives and authentic selves, reaches their potential as individuals and teams, and collaborates to do the best work of their lives.

We recognize that diversity and inclusion is a journey, and we are committed to learning, listening and evolving to become more diverse, equitable and inclusive than we are today.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Mercy Corps is an equal opportunity employer that does not tolerate discrimination on any basis. We actively seek out diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and skills so that we can be collectively stronger and have sustained global impact.

We are committed to providing an environment of respect and psychological safety where equal employment opportunities are available to all. We do not engage in or tolerate discrimination on the basis of race, color, gender identity, gender expression, religion, age, sexual orientation, national or ethnic origin, disability (including HIV/AIDS status), marital status, military veteran status or any other protected group in the locations where we work.

Safeguarding & Ethics

Mercy Corps is committed to ensuring that all individuals we come into contact with through our work, whether team members, community members, program participants or others, are treated with respect and dignity. We are committed to the core principles regarding prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse laid out by the UN Secretary General and IASC. We will not tolerate child abuse, sexual exploitation, abuse, or harassment by or of our team members. As part of our commitment to a safe and inclusive work environment, team members are expected to conduct themselves in a professional manner, respect local laws and customs, and to adhere to Mercy Corps Code of Conduct Policies and values at all times. Team members are required to complete mandatory Code of Conduct e-learning courses upon hire and on an annual basis.