DIRECTOR, MONITORING, EVALUATION, RESEARCH AND LEARNING At CARE

CARE seeks a Monitoring, Evaluation, Research & Learning Director (MERL Director) for the USAID-funded Market Based Resilience for Marginalized Populations (MB-RMP) activity. The activity seeks to accelerate economic recovery in south-west Somalia by increasing individual, household, community, and systemic resilience through rural and urban economic diversification. This procurement is $65 million over 5 years. This position is contingent upon award and funding. International candidates are encouraged to apply.

Application Deadline: Friday December 10, 2021

The MERL Director is responsible for leading the design and implementation of all monitoring, evaluation and learning activities. The Director must ensure that all activities are in line with the Agency Evaluation Policy, as well as the ADS and monitoring and learning best practices. The Director will support technical staff in MERL functions and manage any MERL-related staff. The Director will lead the design and execution of research and learning activities, including incorporating Development Evaluation, return on investment, resilience measurement and market mapping approaches. They will ensure capacity building of local organizations and local project staff in execution of MERL activities.

Primary Responsibilities :

• Develop and lead MERL-related activities, plans, tools and staff.
• Facilitate project and organizational learning, adaptation and effectiveness.
• Develop the overall framework for the project’s M&E systems, in collaboration with USAID and senior project staff, including requirements, reporting, baseline, and evaluation surveys. Develop and monitor the project’s PMP to systematically document project performance for project technical leads and the project leadership team.
• Ensure the alignment of research and M&E activities with program goals and contribute to the development of annual work plans to identify project targets and ensure inclusion of M&E activities.
• Monitor project activities and tracking these activities against the results framework.
• Conduct field visits for data validation, to monitor the quality and completeness of data sets. Coordinate data collection at project sites to monitor program development and ensure timely compilation and reporting of data. Capture and document lessons learned; champion the scaling up best practices.
• Generate monthly indicator reports and tracking progress against key indicators.
• Ensure timely and accurate submission of project activities to donor, including progress against targets set in the award agreement and annual work plan, quarterly, and annual reports.
• Provide technical leadership and support to project and partner staff in planning and implementing MERL systems and activities, data-based program decision-making, and results reporting. Supervise, mentor, and build capacity of project MERL staff.
• Develop and implement effective monitoring tools and approaches to demonstrate the effectiveness of project interventions.
• Support the Chief of Party in coordinating the mid-term and final project evaluations.

Qualifications:

• Master’s degree in business, economics, statistics, international development, or a related field or a bachelor’s degree in a relevant field and 2 additional years of relevant experience.
• A minimum of 8 years technical experience in developing and implementing MERL activities of which at least 2 years in a leadership role.
• A minimum of 5 years developing country work experience preferably including experience in/on fragile or post-conflict environments.
• Experience leading Developmental Evaluation (DE) approaches.
• Experience setting up MERL teams with diverse cultures and enabling direct report to unlock their full potential.
• Demonstrated research experience, through peer-reviewed publication or documentation, in Somalia or similar contexts required.
• Familiarity with Participatory Learning and Action and other qualitative and quantitative research approaches.
• Proven leadership experience in organizational and peer-to-peer learning, capacity strengthening, and collaborative learning and adaptation.
• Demonstrated ability to build and maintain partnerships and productive working relationships with a wide variety of stakeholders.
• Demonstrated understanding of return on investment analysis preferred.
• Demonstrated commitment to principles of Gender Equity, Diversity, Inclusion.
• Ability to translate complex and complicated ideas into easily accessible and understandable concepts and/or messages particularly for Somali audiences; knowledge of tools for communicating program learning.
• Excellent verbal and written English language communication skills.
• Ability to travel to program areas as may be required and as the security and Covid-19 situation