POSITION TITLE: Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) Director
POSITION LOCATION: Juba, South Sudan
REPORTS TO: Chief of Party
POSITION SUMMARY:
Winrock is seeking Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Director candidates for an anticipated agricultural resilience project in South Sudan. The USAID-funded Increasing Community Resilience through Agriculture in South Sudan project will build off of USAID’s past investments in the agricultural sector, increasing the amount, variety, and quality of nutritious food bought and sold at local markets. It also aims to create more jobs on farms and at markets and promote healthy eating and feeding behaviors for families. The position is contingent upon receipt of donor funding.
Essential Responsibilities:
• Provide technical leadership for MEL to the project team to ensure USAID MEL requirements are met on timely basis and guide data collection, management, analysis and visualization, and reporting progress towards indicator targets and results – based on both quantitative and qualitative inputs.
• Lead Collaborating, Learning and Adapting (CLA) approaches throughout implementation;
• Lead knowledge management and sharing activities within project, with USAID, other implementing partners, and local government agencies;
• Coordinate efforts across technical teams to package and document evidence and learning from project activities to inform sequencing, layering and integration with complementary donor programs;
• Collaborate with complementary donor programs to document learning and impact from coordinated activity implementation;
• Build capacity of MEL and technical staff, partners and key stakeholders in these areas, and ensure compliance;
• Design and develop the monitoring, evaluating, learning, and research plan for the project, including selecting and defining indicators, setting targets for all indicators, planning data collection methods, tools, and reporting formats; and lead MEL plan revisions as needed.
• Lead process of data verification and review of data source documentation;
• Develop and put in place efficient and accurate data collection and analysis system and procedures that include efficient processes for collecting and analyzing data and ensuring data quality; and conduct internal DQAs
• Co-facilitate quarterly Pause and Reflect sessions to capture learning, introduce improvements, and achieve meaningful results;
• Oversee internal research and evaluation efforts of the project, from the design stage to sharing findings as well as preparing for external evaluations;
• Work with local partners to ensure application of high-quality MEL activities and data collection
and provide ongoing supervision and technical assistance to partners, as needed;
• Participate in Winrock International’s Community of Practice;
• Work closely with the field team and project staff to ensure annual workplans are aligned with the
MEL plan to meet annual and LOP targets;
• Collaborate with communications team to visualize and disseminate important findings.
Qualifications:
Education:
Advanced degree in social sciences, such as statistics, public health, public policy, economics or a related field, and/or specialized training/certification in monitoring & evaluation
Work Experience:
• Minimum 10 years of professional experience managing and implementing complex MEL systems
for international development projects, preferably with USG funded projects;
• Experience managing large MEL databases and conducting timely data analysis and developing
reports. SQL database experience preferred;
• Experience in both quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis;
• Experience designing, testing and managing surveys required;
• Experience with capacity building in MEL required;
• Experience with mobile data collection strongly preferred;
• Proven record of designing and implementing data collection tools including surveys;
• Experience in similar positions focused on agriculture, household resilience, and/or nutrition,
strongly preferred
• Experience in South Sudan strongly preferred.
Skills:
• Familiarity with USG donor MEL requirements;
• Strong training design, training delivery, and facilitation skills;
• Strong research or survey design experience;
• Excellent written and oral communication skill in English;
• Familiarity using technology for data collection, management and analysis
• Proficiency in word processing, database management, statistical analysis, survey, and
presentation software (Microsoft).
• Excellent organizational and team management skills
All interested candidates shall submit their applications (maximum 5 pages including resume, two references and one-page cover letter) in English via this careers page: https://www.winrock.org/join-us/careers/job-openings/?gh_jid=5017174002&gh_jid=5017174002 . The deadline for submission of applications is January 31, 2021. Qualified applicants will be contacted by Winrock.