USAID’s Office of Food for Peace
recently awarded funding to a Mercy Corps-led consortium of Kenyan and
international partners for a 5-year Development Food Security Activity (DFSA)
in Turkana and Samburu Counties of Kenya. Through a phased approach that
emphasizes evidence gap analysis, as well as partnership, learning, and
co-creation with government, civil society, communities, and the private
sector, the NAWIRI program aims to drive sustained reductions in acute
malnutrition in both counties. Mercy Corps’ consortium brings together the
global leadership, research capacity, technical expertise, and implementation
experience necessary to partner with local institutions to test, adapt, and scale evidence-based solutions.
The
program requires a robust county-centered design with government leadership,
active engagement from communities, the private sector, and civil society.
Together we will sustainably
reduce persistent acute malnutrition for vulnerable
populations in Turkana and Samburu counties.
General Position Summary
The Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E)
Coordinator is a key position for program quality assurance, accountability,
documentation and learning. The position holder will lead the NAWIRI team in
planning and execution of monitoring and evaluation activities at the county
level while ensuring quality in accordance with accepted standards, providing
essential feedback for learning, accountability and decision making. S/he will
be responsible for program adaptive management agenda, collaborate, learn and
adapt with program and county team in rolling-out a responsive M&E system
that can provide updated and relevant information for reducing persistent acute
malnutrition at county level. Support internal capacity building of program and
County staff on monitoring and evaluation activities as well as strengthen the
existing systems to be able to produce reliable data and support platform for
data use for decision-making. S/He will manage day-to-day implementation of
M&E activities at county level as highlighted in the M&E Plan, ensuring
effective field-level collaboration, and promoting a culture of M&E for
learning and adaptation.
Essential Job Responsibilities
Strategy & Vision
- Seek the active collaboration of consortium
partners, County government and relevant stakeholder in M&E including
harmonization of available system to sustainably and effectively track
persistent acute malnutrition.
- Assist in creation of favorable learning
environment involving all stakeholders for data use and evidence based
programing at County level.
Program Management
- Coordinate with consortium partners and
Country governments to strength county specific monitoring and evaluation
needs and systems.
- Conduct M&E capacity needs assessment for
project and Country staff and roll-out M&E capacity building
activities with support from M&E Manager.
- Ensuring implementation of M&E plan at
county level including data collection, entry, analysis and use for
decision-making.
- Responsible for managing quality standards
across the consortium and county level in terms of data
collection systems and process of evidence generation to inform adaptive
management.
- Create and instill an M&E culture that
promotes the learning and self-critical skills of program staff in the
pursuit of project excellence.
- Support County Program Directors and other
technical leads in the preparation of quarterly/annual activity reports
and verification of reported data.
- Support County planning process including
County CIDP, technical review meetings and sector specific data management
processes like NDMA, MoH and others.
- Plan and conduct Routine Data Quality Assurance
(RDQA) in collaboration with County staff for the reported data to ensure
adherence to USAID/ Mercy Corps data quality standards.
- Develop data products/visualization for
distribution and use during project/ county monthly meetings.
- Support rolling out and management of project
community accountability and reporting system (CARM) at county level.
- Ensuring constant and consistent management of
project and County MIS systems and use of mobile technology for data
collection
Team Management
- Create and maintain a work environment where
mutual respect among team members prevails and where the pursuit of
individual and collective excellence is valued.
- Promote individual accountability and
commitment by clearly and regularly communicating expectations and providing
constructive feedback.
- Train project and county team members on their
M&E responsibilities and how to use the tools developed.
- Conduct team performance assessment and
monitor team development plan.
Representation
- Develop the necessary relationships and
partnerships with consortium partners
- Identify, build and manage trusted
partnerships with consortium agencies, local government and other
stakeholders
- Effectively communicate the program’s best
practices to build Mercy Corps’ positive image with development
stakeholders
Security
- Ensure compliance with security procedures and
policies as determined by country leadership.
- Proactively ensure that team members operate
in a secure environment and are aware of policies.
Organizational Learning
- As part of our commitment to organizational
learning and in support of our understanding that learning organizations
are more effective, efficient and relevant to the communities they serve,
we expect all team members to commit 5% of their time to learning
activities that benefit Mercy Corps as well as themselves.
Accountability To Participants
- 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.
- Team members are expected to conduct
themselves in a professional manner and respect local laws, customs and
MC’s policies, procedures, and values at all times and in all in-country
venues.
Supervisory Responsibility
- County M&E Officers from all Consortium
Partners.
Knowledge and Experience
- Minimum of 5 years of experience in
international relief and development programs, with 3+ years in field
postings, and 3+ years working for an international agency on monitoring,
evaluation, and learning.
- Strong leadership skills, ability to
coordinate huge M&E teams including working with consortium partners
and county government M&E structures.
- MA in social science, international
development, agriculture or relevant field (with coursework in M&E,
research and evaluation methodologies, statistical analysis or
organizational development) or similar field of study.
- Experience working with country M&E
system, building country M&E capacity and knowledgeable of required
diplomacy required working at county level.
- Strong technical expertise including passion
for handling large amounts of data and transforming it into compelling
visualizations that facilitate analysis and decision-making. Demonstrated
understanding of intermediate statistics and the ability to summarize,
generalize, and make predictions from large data sets.
- Substantial background in project management,
including experience leading program design, implementation, and
monitoring and evaluation.
- Field experience in developing practical,
useful, timely monitoring systems, both at the program- and country-levels
that promote use of data for adaptive management and learning.
- Experience working with complex/large USAID
funded project and familiarity with USAID/FFP M&E guidance and
requirement is an added advantage.
- Comfort working with qualitative and
quantitative methodologies for data collection and analysis.
- Exceptional analytical and problem-solving
skills and experience with statistical/graphical software or spatial
software.
- Proven experience with current technologies,
such as web-based data management and analysis tools, digital data
collection, mapping, Google applications, data visualization, interactive
dashboards, etc.
- Experience in building iterative learning
systems or feedback loops and approaches in human-centered design are
strongly valued.
- Significant experience in facilitating
learning and capacity building across teams.
- Ability to design and conduct data quality
assurance and use of the result from the assessment result for
decision-making and project adaptability.
- Excellent skills in using the following data
analysis software; SPSS, EXCELL, STATA and Tableau
Success Factors
The ideal candidate will have a strong
curiosity for understanding and working effectively within the complex
cultural, political, security and social environment of Kenya. S/He will
be an excellent communicator and multi-tasker, and able to work in ambiguous
situations. S/He must be able to demonstrate a commitment to promoting a
culture of critical inquiry and learning be tolerant and flexible, and able to
work in difficult and stressful environments and follow procedures. The
successful candidate will be focused on team-building and capacity-building of
county staff; be a strategic thinker and have strong skills in
design,monitoring and evaluation of development programs.
Applications will
be reviewed on a rolling basis. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.
Female candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.
Mercy Corps does not charge any fees at any stage of the
recruitment process.
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