Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist

Mercy Corps

Details / requirements:

Vacancy Announcement

Mercy Corps is an international, non-governmental humanitarian relief and development agency that exists to alleviate suffering, poverty and oppression by helping to build secure, productive and just communities. Mercy Corps began operations in Nepal in 2005, and since then has implemented projects in the sectors of agriculture, food security and nutrition, financial services, youth engagement, and disaster risk reduction/ climate change adaptation.

Mercy Corps currently invites applications from all potential Nepali candidates for the following positions:

BRIGE Monitoring & Evaluation Specialist - 1 (Kathmandu based) (Women candidates strongly encouraged to apply)

Please refer to nepal.mercycorps.org for the full position description before applying.

“Fostering a diverse and open workplace is an important part of Mercy Corps’ vision, and we encourage people from all backgrounds, especially women and members of disadvantaged groups are strongly encouraged to apply. Mercy Corps is an Equal Opportunity Employer”.

Interested candidates are requested to submit a CV and cover letter by December 05, 2015 to the address below. 

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted for an interview. Telephone enquiries will not be entertained.

Attn: Senior Human Resources Officer

[Please mention the title of the Position on the subject of the e-mail while applying]

Email to: jobs@np.mercycorps.org

POSITION DESCRIPTION

Position Title: Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist, Building Resilience through the Integration of Gender and Empowerment (BRIGE)

Duty Station: Kathmandu, Nepal

Position Category: Full-time AND Regular

Salary Level: 5-6

Current Employee: N/A

PROGRAM/DEPARTMENT SUMMARY:

Mercy Corps began operations in Nepal in 2005, and since then has implemented projects in the sectors of agriculture, food security and nutrition, financial services, youth engagement, and disaster risk reduction/ climate change adaptation. To date, this programming has reached nearly over 1.8 million people in 43 districts. Mercy Corps Nepal works to build the absorptive, adaptive, and transformative potential of vulnerable individuals, communities and groups across Nepal. The goal is attained through a systems-based approach to market development, financial services, disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation and youth engagement.

The BRIGE Program is a 2-year program funded by the Margaret A. Cargill Foundation (MAC Foundation) that seeks to build community resilience by increasing Mercy Corps’ capacity to better respond to gender-specific needs and vulnerabilities during complex and chronic crises. The program, within Mercy Corps’ overall resilience framework, seeks to identify and empower those groups at the community level which can serve as inclusive ‘drivers of resilience’.

Disasters and chronic stresses can undermine the foundations of communities, but may also provide opportunities to begin to transform deeply entrenched inequality and inequities. Although men, women, boys, and girls are all vulnerable to the impacts of disasters, women and youth are often exposed to additional barriers – such as constraints on their mobility or insufficient access to land, education, and finance – that decrease their capacity to adapt to adversity and contribute to change. At the same time, women, youth, and other vulnerable groups often have critical knowledge and skills that can help their households and communities respond to and recover from crises. The BRIGE program will support the aid community to better identify and utilize these untapped resources while empowering women and youth to be part of household and community decision-making. Ultimately, BRIGE seeks to empower women and youth and the community level groups that have the greatest potential of more inclusively representing, supporting, and empowering them as agents of resilience, thereby increasing the coping capacities of households and communities to manage the impacts of recurring disasters, slow-onset crises, climate change, and poor governance.

GENERAL POSITION SUMMARY:

The Nepal BRIGE Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Specialist will work as part of a small and dynamic team to support the development and implementation of sound program design, quality assurance and measurement plans, monitor BRIGE program activities and contribute to the program’s information management, research and learning agenda. The M&E Specialist will also work together with the country level Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) Unit to ensure cross learning, efficient collaboration, and contribution of the BRIGE program learning to all MC-Nepal country programs, particularly around gender, inclusivity, and resilience. She/he will also work with and through 3-4 participating Mercy Corps Nepal programs as implementers of the BRIGE tools and approaches.

ESSENTIAL JOB FUNCTIONS:

  • Contribute to new program start-up by working directly with the relevant program technical teams, Finance, Human Resources, and Operations, to develop and design tools including but not limited to assessments, results and logical frameworks, and inputs to proposals, Social Welfare Council (SWC) project agreements, and other design documents.
  • Work with BRIGE, other Program Managers, and M&E staff at program start-up to plan and develop M&E system, facilitate indicator plans, design data collection tools and methodologies, and conduct secondary research to inform baseline assessments and measurement frameworks both with the BRIGE team and the other participating Mercy Corps Nepal Program Managers and their M&E staff for smooth integration.
  • Monitor and review BRIGE program activities and implementation of the participating programs, including the assessment, audit, and organizational mapping process to understand how gender influences the needs, vulnerabilities, and capacities of community members and if current programs are adequately accounting for differential impacts of crises.
  • Contribute to the BRIGE program’s research and learning agenda. Assist in evaluation design and collection of statistical data. Measure data gathered against outcomes.
  • Champion the inclusion of qualitative data collection and analysis for both direct and supplemental measurements of program performance. Assist in the training of teams in appropriate methods for focus group discussion and key informant interviews and lead field-based qualitative data collection as needed.
  • Help champion the use of the XLS Form syntax to author data collection forms for the ODK Collect application for mobile devices. Create ODK forms for the program and train key program staff to create and edit forms. Work with the MEL Unit to develop a database protocol for each ODK form created that allows teams to migrate data from a cloud aggregator (like Ona.io) to a database. Assist the team in setting up appropriate summary statistics and relational calculations in the program database and link them to tracking dashboards. Help develop the appropriate work flow.
  • Work with the MEL Unit to perform reviews of existing tools and processes and provide guidance on improving them through alignment with logical frameworks, donor requirements, and Mercy Corps and international standards, including but not limited to the Mercy Corps Program Management Minimum Standards and the Design for Impact Guide, SPHERE Standards, Do No Harm, The Good Enough Guide, and Minimum Inter-Agency Standards for Protection Mainstreaming. Ensure incorporation and following of Alpha indicators from Mercy Corps’ Design for Impact Guide (DIG) in new tools developed during the design phase (Logical Frameworks).
  • Contribute to Annual Report, Results-to-Date, and communication of project/program results to stakeholders and beneficiaries.
  • Lead the capacity building of program and partner staff on design and M&E concepts through trainings and new hire orientation, including designing and delivering formal trainings.
  • Work closely with the country-level M&E Specialist, Director of Programs, and other M&E team members to develop and improve a country-level database and performance dashboard and use that to create regular internal and external data reports. Assist Program Manager and team to better understand and analyze their data.
  • Work closely with the country-level M&E Specialist to develop end-to-end data management systems and real-time data flow, utilizing appropriate software platforms for cloud aggregation, data processing and manipulation, and data visualization and utilization. This includes learning and testing new software platforms, as well as working with tech partners, to develop both project and country level information management systems.
  • Contribute to organizational learning by organizing and facilitating lessons learned workshops and documentation, review meetings, and evaluations (including representation and coordination with external evaluators and SWC evaluation teams and personnel).
  • Contribute to the Annual Results review, country program strategy, country program results framework and logical framework, and other country program-level M&E processes. This includes the development and management of a country-level tracking platform.
  • Contribute to piloting of organizational-wide Agency Measurement System (previously known as Mission Metrics processes), and compiling data for Agency Measurement System at the country level.
  • Work to create a dynamic, responsive M&E support unit across country programs through the considered participation and collaboration with all country M&E staff, through sharing of resources, time, and efforts as a percentage of their collective efforts.
  • Contribute to building a strong M&E community of practice among the Mercy Corps Nepal project portfolio and foster opportunities for learning, crosspollination, and collaboration.
  • Represent Mercy Corps Nepal in M&E and research forums with the broader humanitarian community as relevant.
  • As requested, contribute to organizing media visits or donor visits.
  • All team members are responsible for spending 5% of their work time in formal and/or non-formal professional learning activities in line Mercy Corps’ agency-wide Organizational Learning Initiative.
  • Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts towards accountability, specifically to our beneficiaries and to international standards guiding international relief and development work, while actively engaging beneficiary communities as equal partners in the design, monitoring and evaluation of our field projects.
  • 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: None

ACCOUNTABILITY

REPORTS DIRECTLY TO: BRIGE Program Manager

WORKS DIRECTLY WITH: BRIGE program team and partner staff, Mercy Corps Nepal MEL Unit, including expatriate MEL Specialist, BRIGE Program Director, BRIGE Nepal Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist, Nepal Director of Programs

KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCE:

  • A Master’s degree in evaluation, statistics, business, economics, development or related field strongly preferred
  • Strong team coordination, listening, and consensus building skills.
  • Experience in monitoring and evaluation within the development sector, specifically:
  • Experience with quantitative, qualitative and participatory research methods
  • Knowledge of data management and data analysis
  • Knowledge of project design, including project logical
  • Ability to present in front of groups, including presentations, orientations, meetings and conducting trainings.
  • Strong writing skills.
  • Strong computer and software skills, including MS Office, statistical software, data visualization platforms, and mapping software. A strong aptitude to research and learn new software platforms and technologies for data collection, management, analysis, utilization, and presentation.
  • Excellent oral and written English skills.

SUCCESS FACTORS:

Above and beyond all, the desire to help improve Mercy Corps’ programs and ultimately to help the people we are working with is the most important factor of success. Equally, a keen sense of teamwork will be vital, as the M&E Specialist must become a working partner of the of the overall program team without being seen as a “policeman.” The nature of the Monitoring & Evaluation Specialist position requires building consensus and being seen as adding value to project team efforts in order to be effective. A demonstrated ability to work quickly and accurately, meet deadlines and process information in support of changing program activities is necessary. In order to succeed, the M&E Specialist will need to be flexible and creative, believe strongly in accountability and transparency, and possess a strong sense of research ethics, including sensitivity towards people we are collecting data from and a desire for accuracy. Knowledge of – and passion for – the sectors in which Mercy Corps works (agriculture, microfinance, food security, youth, disaster management, natural resource management, climate change adaptation), with a keen sense of resilience, social capital, and inclusivity, as well as the ability to learn and adapt to new technological platforms, will also contribute to success.

SIGNATURES:

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Employee Date

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Supervisor Date

Overview

Category Development and Project
Openings 1
Experience Please check vacancy details.
Education Post Graduate / Masters in related field.
Posted Date 30 Nov, 2015
Apply Before 05 Dec, 2015
City Kathmandu