MEL/Data Specialist at Creative Associates International

Project Summary:

The USAID-funded West Africa Trade and Investment Hub Project (hereinafter referred to as the Trade Hub) is a five-year, $140 million trade and investment facilitation activity that seeks to improve private sector competitiveness in West Africa through a market-based approach. By working in partnership with the private sector and fostering co-investments, the project will generate new private-sector capital investment into key sectors to create jobs and increase trade between the U.S. and West Africa, including through increased utilization of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). The project comprises of three main components:

1. Design and administration of a Co-Investment fund for private sector partnerships, including a portion for partnerships in Research and Development (R&D) towards innovating and modernizing practices in Nigeria across five targeted value chains;
2. Technical assistance (TA) that directly supports, coordinates, and engages with qualifying recipients (i.e., partners and grantees) to achieve USAID’s trade and food security objectives;
3. Urgently respond to the secondary economic impacts of COVID-19, notably to increase the access of working capital with financial actors, prevent job loss, and respond to supply shortages by scaling up local response.

Through this Co-Investment fund and technical assistance, the Trade Hub will improve companies’ abilities to expand business operations, increase productivity, and create jobs that build on the talents and aspirations of West Africa’s growing population. The Trade Hub will collaborate on specific commercial opportunities with firms, service providers, research organizations, as well as other business network actors to access private capital that will contribute to large-scale jobs, exports and investment, particularly with strong demonstrated or potential links to the U.S. companies and investors.

Position Summary:

The Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL)/Data Specialist will provide support to the MEL Director to design and implement the overall Project Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Plan for the West Africa based USAID project. The MEL/Data Specialist will lead the data management of the Activity by providing on-demand, accurate data analysis and visualization to support learning and adaptive management of the Trade Hub. 

Reporting & Supervision:

The position will be reporting to the Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Director, based in Abuja, Nigeria. The MEL/Data Specialist will provide technical support in all monitoring, evaluation, and learning activities of the Trade Hub across different countries of its implementation.

Primary Responsibilities:

• The MEL/Data Specialist will support the MEL Director in developing Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) systems, including data quality assurance procedures, and compiling, processing and analyzing activity performance data.

• Ensure regular and consistent documentation and that reporting deliverables are met timely and in compliance with USAID rules and regulations.
• Participate in the development of Annual Work Plan(s), prepare and annual updating of the MEL Plan in alignment with project’s expected deliverables and results;
• Maintain an up-to-date catalog of all project MEL tools and forms in electronic and hard copy data files;
• Ensure quality and streamlined data entry in Creative corporate web-based MEL platform MEDAL (Monitoring and Evaluation Database for Adaptive Learning);
• Coordinate with regional project’s field staff to receive grantees’ raw MEL datasets, populate MEDAL, building global dashboards, suggest changes and improvements to data structuring and collection;
• Analyze data and create user-friendly dashboards for the Trade Hub;
• Assist in the collection, storage, and analysis of accurate, high quality, and reliable data and GIS information, in particular, ensure performance indicators and output, outcome, and impact data are prepared and collected properly in targeted geographic and thematic areas;
• Identify in-country MEL training and STTA needs of grantees and ensure that these needs are met and provide training on MEL activities as needed;
• Ensure that partners submit reports within the agreed time schedule;
• Conduct project site visits to collect quantitative and qualitative data; including site visits for secondary verification of data results;
• Supports the project’s Collaborating, Learning, and Adapting (CLA) approach to monitoring and evaluation; and
• Perform other tasks as assigned by the MEL Director.

Required Skills & Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in International Development, Monitoring and Evaluation, Data Analysis, Database Management, Economic, Statistics, Agriculture, other relevant Social Sciences and/or equivalent combination of education and work experience is required. Master’s degree in any of these field will be an advantage.
• Minimum of Five (5) years’ work experience in relevant position in international development programming and implementing MEL systems for USAID funded projects in Economic Growth is required.
• Demonstrated qualitative and quantitative analytical and visualization skills, including command of statistics, sampling methodologies, and use of data analysis and visualization software such as Microsoft Excel, SPSS, STATA, NVIVO, PowerBI, etc.;
• Experience working across West Africa countries will be an advantage
• Demonstrated experience in MEL data analysis and report writing.
• Excellent interpersonal skills and teamwork;
• Proficiency in written and spoken English is required. Ability to communicate in French language will be an added advantage.
• Must be legally authorized to work in West Africa and willing to travel across the region.