Collaboration, Learning and Adapting (CLA) / Knowledge Management Advisor at Mercy Corps

General Position Summary

• Mercy Corps is seeking a Collaboration, Learning and Adapting (CLA) Advisor to manage the overall CLA components of a recently awarded 5-year, 30 million dollar Rural Resilience programme in the Northeast of Nigeria.
• The role will have a specific focus on resilience measurement and resilience learning.
• The Advisor is responsible for contributing to strategy discussions, providing technical assistance and developing successful mechanisms for learning across the program.
• The Advisor will use USAID’s CLA principles to effectively integrate real-time monitoring and learning back into the project strategy and program implementation and ensure knowledge is shared with the broader host country community.
• The Advisor will work in close collaboration with the MEL Manager and partners to ensure resilience-building efforts and their impact are effectively measured as well as lead the resilience learning agenda.
• In coordination with program directors and team members, s/he will be responsible for developing, coordinating, maintaining and constantly improving the program-wide CLA system, as well as implementing an internal CLA capacity-building strategy that trains and mentors staff and promote a culture of learning.

Essential Job Responsibilities
Technical Leadership:

• Collaborate with external evaluators on the design and roll-out of the program baseline and evaluations, while setting up effective systems for learning.
• Support teams in collecting sex and age disaggregated data and using gender-sensitive data collection methods to understand and respond to program results with diverse participants.
• Participates in the facilitation of country and sector-level strategic planning sessions, assisting program managers and senior management in the development of their annual plans.

Information Management:

• Works with the program and M&E teams to adopt a holistic program-level CLA system.
• Provides guidance, recommendations, and leadership to ensure that the CLA systems meet the needs of Programs Managers and Country Leadership and help address shortfalls in CLA that affect program implementation.
• Contributes to program design to ensure adherence to Mercy Corps’ resilience measurement and CLA best practices
• Develop program and operational reporting templates that facilitate the acquisition, aggregation and flow of information in programs.

Capacity Building and Mentoring:

• Develops and oversees the implementation of the M&E staff and partner capacity building strategy that promotes a culture of learning through systematic analysis and reflection of program data.
• 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.
• Work closely with Program Managers, Human Resources and Finance to ensure that M&E skills are incorporated into all program position descriptions and positions are budgeted for.
• Contributes to the knowledge management repository with best practices in M&E and ensure that it is accessible to all staff and partners.
• Create and sustain a work environment of mutual respect where team members strive to achieve excellence.

Internal and External Coordination:

• Active contributor and collaborator with regional and global counterparts to promote the use of M&E best practices.
• Strengthen linkages with other internal resources, including the LMS, Digital Library, Hub, and Connect, to enhance organizational learning where relevant to M&E.
• Maintain close working relationships with M&E counterparts in other relevant international NGOs, and local NGOs and associations in Nigeria.

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 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.
• Supervisory Responsibility: Learning and Comms Officer

Accountability:

• Reports Directly To: M&E Manager
• Works Directly With: Program Sector Managers, Program Managers, Reporting & Communications Officers, Program Director, Finance, and Operations teams. Coordinates with the HQ Program Performance team and the Technical Support Unit.

Knowledge and Experience

• BA / B.Sc in Development Studies, Research Methods, Statistics, Economics, Social Sciences, Monitoring and Evaluation, Project Management or other relevant field required. Postgraduate degree preferred.
• 4-5 years of active M&E work experience in emergency and development programming required with the proven use of program technology.
• Experience with a theoretical and practical background in M&E and skilled in participatory qualitative and quantitative M&E methodologies and techniques.
• Excellent quantitative skills and power user with Excel; Experience with Access, and statistical packages including Stata, R or SPSS and GIS tools like QGIS, ArcGIS or Google Earth Pro is preferred.
• Experience with data management including the ability to structure and collate data sets for ease of analysis.
• Experience of working on USAID programs preferred.
• Previous experience living and working in challenging or insecure environments.
• Fluency in spoken and written English required.
• Knowledge of Hausa and other local dialects is preferred.

Success Factors:

• A successful candidate will have a demonstrated ability to lead and communicate effectively with team members of varied work styles and cultures, follow procedures, and meet deadlines with flexibility and creativity in planning and problem-solving.
• S/he will have a proven ability to learn quickly, multi-task, prioritize, take initiative, and be accountable for results, understand the larger picture while remaining focused on the details, problem-solving, work within a complex and sensitive setting and to follow laws and security protocols.
• The most successful Mercy Corps team 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.