Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Advisor

MEL ADVISOR, POSITIVE YOUTH ENGAGEMENT PROGRAM

Position Advertisement
Location Jerusalem/West Bank/Gaza
Position Status Full-time

THIS POSITION IS CONTINGENT ON FUNDING AND WILL BASED IN EITHER EAST JERUSALEM OR RAMALLAH

About Mercy Corps
Mercy Corps is a leading global organization powered by the belief that a better world is possible.
In disaster, in hardship, in more than 40 countries around the world, we partner to put bold solutions
into action — helping people triumph over adversity and build stronger communities from within.
Now, and for the future.

Program / Department Summary
Mercy Corps has been working in the West Bank and Gaza since the 1980s, delivering emergency response, education and psychosocial support for children, and skills and vocational training. Since 2008 it has been investing in information and communications technology training with the aim of increasing start-up participation in tech entrepreneurship activities, and particularly providing support for youth in this field.

General Position Summary
The Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Advisor for Positive Youth Engagement – a five-year, multi-million dollar youth development program funded by USAID – will work closely with the COP and USAID to monitor activity progress and findings to improve activity performance. The MEL Advisor will have a major focus on promoting achieving results in all areas ensuring that responsible staff of key activity results are poised to deliver planned results/deliverables on schedule. This will include providing technical leadership to advance Mercy Corps’ principles, policies and best practices in monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL), through the provision of guidance, tools, resources, capacity building and technology. S/he will be responsible for cross-cutting programmatic information management, monitoring and evaluation, ensuring that information collected is reflected upon, used to improve ongoing programs, and is incorporated into consistently high quality reports and proposal development. In coordination with sector managers and team members, s/he will be responsible for developing, coordinating, maintaining and constantly improving the MEL systems, as well as implementing an internal M&E and ICT capacity building strategy that trains and mentors M&E staff and promotes a culture of learning.

Essential Job Responsibilities

TECHNICAL LEADERSHIP
-Contribute to program design to ensure adherence to Mercy Corps’ Program Management at Mercy Corps (PM@MC) standards, including reviewing lessons learned from past programming, development of logical frameworks, use of standardized indicators and documentation methodologies.
-Provide leadership and training in the development of M&E Plans, M&E tools, survey design, methodology, data analysis, and other services as may be required for program monitoring and evaluation.
-Support research and learning initiatives in partnership with the program sector teams.
-Assist in the recruitment of competent M&E program staff and organize the program teams to perform M&E activities. Build the capacity of all relevant team members to develop and maintain an excellent M&E system, including the periodic reflection and analysis of program monitoring data.
-Provide guidance, recommendations, supervision, and leadership to ensure that the MEL systems meet the needs of programs and managers.
-Address shortfalls in monitoring, evaluation and information management that affect program implementation, to ensure MEL systems meet reporting requirements and have feedback loops for learning.
-Ensure MEL and program teams use the necessary M&E systems and tools to inform and improve each individual program, as well as feed into a broader data management system.

MANAGEMENT OF DATA AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS
-Work with the program and M&E teams to adopt holistic M&E systems for youth programs to more accurately collect, monitor and verify program activities, facilitate using programming data for decision making.
-Provide guidance, recommendations, and leadership to ensure that the M&E systems meet the needs of Programs Managers and helps address shortfalls in M&E and data management that affect program implementation.
-Review project/program reports to ensure that reports contain accurate, clear, and high-quality data.
-Refine program and operational reporting templates to facilitate the acquisition, aggregation and flow of information in programs.

TEAM MANAGEMENT
-Develops and oversees implementation of the M&E staff and partner capacity building strategy that promotes a culture of learning.
-Build the capacity of all relevant team members to develop and maintain an excellent M&E system, including regular reflection and analysis of program monitoring data for real time decision making.
-Promote accountability, communicate expectations and provide constructive feedback via regular performance reviews. Supervise, hire and orient new team members as necessary.
-Create and sustain a work environment of mutual respect where team members strive to achieve excellence.

INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL COORDINATION
-Strengthen linkages with other internal resources, including the Digital Library, Hub, Connect, and Slack to enhance organizational learning where relevant to Program Performance.
-Participate in M&E-related working groups and maintain close working relationships with MEL counterparts in other relevant international NGOs, and local NGOs and associations in the West Bank and Gaza.

ACCOUNTABILITY TO BENEFICIARIES
-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.

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.

Supervisory Responsibilities: MEL Staff

Accountability
REPORTS DIRECTLY TO: Deputy Chief of Party
WORKS DIRECTLY WITH: MEL Staff, Program Managers, Reporting & Communications Officers, Finance, and Operations teams.

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Knowledge and Experience
-A Master’s Degree with coursework in fields related to project monitoring, evaluation and adaptation from lessons learned of development activities, such as statistics, international development, anthropology, applied research or field methods;
-5-7 years of relevant monitoring and evaluation experience, demonstrating increased level of responsibility;
-Experience managing a team and remote management experience beneficial.
-Previous experience living and working in challenging or insecure environments.
-Proven ability to work productively with a variety of stakeholders to run participatory processes and meet tight deadlines with an emphasis on producing quality products.
-Excellent computer skills, including experience with: Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher, NViVO, SPSS, Access, SQL, and any other statistical packages.
-Proven ability to articulate technical information clearly and effectively to both technical and non-technical audiences;
-Demonstrated experience in successfully translating data and findings into activity recommendations;
-Strong interpersonal, oral and written communication skills;
-Full professional proficiency in spoken and written English is required. Must be able to use the language fluently and accurately, and be able to read all styles and forms on all levels pertinent to professional needs;
-Professional proficiency in spoken and written Modern Standard Arabic is desired, but not required.

Success Factors
The successful candidate will have an ability to interact effectively with international and national personnel both in a technical advisory and training capacity and will also have an ability to support programmatic objectives with timely and meaningful information. A demonstrated ability to multi-task, meet deadlines and process information in support of changing program activities is essential, as is an impeccable, professional standard of M&E and reporting and a willingness and ability to ensure compliance with Mercy Corps and donor policies and procedures. The Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Advisor must be willing to travel regularly to Mercy Corps project sites.

The most successful Mercy Corps staff members have a strong commitment to teamwork and accountability, thrive in evolving and changing environments and make effective written and verbal communication a priority in all situations.

Living Conditions / Environmental Conditions
This is an accompanied post residing in Jerusalem with regular travel to the West Bank and Gaza.
The position will be based in Jerusalem. It requires frequent visits to the West Bank and Gaza. In Jerusalem there is individual accommodation with full freedom of movement and excellent amenities. In Gaza there is shared accommodation with freedom of movement depending on the security situation.

Mercy Corps Team members represent the agency both during and outside of work hours when deployed in a field posting or on a visit/TDY to a field posting. 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.

Given the nature of the context, working hours require flexibility and working through weekends/evenings might be necessary.

Interested candidates are encouraged to submit a one page cover letter and their CV by e-mail to

[email protected]

no later than Friday, 5 January 2018
Only short-listed candidates will be contacted.

Please indicate in the email subject; MEL Advisor
No application will be accepted if the email subject is not mentioned in the email subject line.
Please apply separate application for each position you are interested in.