Monitoring and Result Measurement Intern at Mercy Corps

Location: Yola, Adamawa
Requisition Number: MONIT002020
Location: Yola, Adamawa
Employment Type: Internship
Duration: 12 Months
Job Category: Monitoring & Evaluation
Reports directly to: MRM Officer
Works directly with: MRM Officer, Intervention Leads.

Program / Department Summary

• Mercy Corps Nigeria was established in 2012 to respond primarily to growing humanitarian needs in the Northeast. With a strong and growing team of over 200 staff, Mercy Corps is currently serving over 600,000 beneficiaries across the country with programming in Lagos in the South; Kaduna, Benue, Nasarawa and Plateau in the Middle Belt; Kano, Yobe and Borno in the North. Programs include girls’ education and financial inclusion, community peacebuilding, market-based livelihoods and a multi-sector humanitarian response that has a strong emphasis on WASH, Shelter, Cash and Protection. With the vision of a Nigeria in which all people are empowered, engaged, resilient and secure, Mercy Corps Nigeria focuses on the root causes of conflict, governance, humanitarian response, and market systems development.
• Working with a diverse funding base that includes the United States Agency for International Development
• (USAID), UK Department for International Development (DFID), United Nations (UN), European Commission (EC), and several foundations, Mercy Corps empowers people to recover from crisis, build better lives and transform their communities for good. In 2019, Mercy Corps was awarded a five-year, $30 million USAID funded Rural Resilience Activity in Nigeria’s northeastern states.
• The purpose of the Rural Resilience Activity is to sustainably move people out of chronic vulnerability and poverty.
• The Rural Resilience Activity will enable individuals and communities to engage in strong and sustainable market systems rather than continuing to rely on humanitarian assistance and faltering with each new shock.
• The Rural Resilience Activity is a five-year, $45 million USAID-funded Program in Nigeria’s northeast.
• The purpose of the Rural Resilience Activity is to sustainably move people out of chronic vulnerability and poverty.
• The Rural Resilience activity will enable individuals and communities to engage in strong and sustainable market systems rather than continuing to rely on humanitarian assistance and faltering with each new shock.
• To achieve this purpose, the Activity will have four components and four cross-cutting elements:
  • Component 1: Provide up-to-date evidence for the selection of market systems, livelihoods and employment opportunities that contribute to inclusive and resilient growth and improved nutrition.
  • Component 2: Stimulate market systems growth and diverse economic opportunities (Pull activities).
  • Component 3: Build capacity to take advantage of market systems opportunities (Push activities).
  • Component 4: Sequencing, layering, integrating (SLI), and collaborative learning to improve activity effectiveness, sustainability, and scale.
  • Component 5: Supporting Market Resilience to COVID-19 Shocks.

General Position Summary

• This role will support and monitor the USAID funded Feed the Future Nigeria Rural Resilience Activity - Strengthening Market Systems to build resilience in North-East Nigeria.
• The Activity will be implemented through a Consortium led by Mercy Corps with support from IFDC and Save the Children across the states of Adamawa, Gombe, Borno and Yobe in North-East Nigeria.
• RRA will facilitate economic recovery and growth in vulnerable, conflict-affected areas by promoting systemic change in market systems.
• This will ensure long-term improvement to markets that will sustainably move over 90,000 households out of chronic poverty.
• The consortium is using a resilience-focused market systems development (MSD) approach to sustainably transform the North-East by strengthening and integrating markets.
• This will restore and enhance social capital and trust, among stakeholders particularly at-risk populations such as women and youth, to engage in the markets.
• Under the direction of the MRM Officer, the MRM Intern will provide support to the project team learning and reflection processes, leading discussion on participant’s feedback.

Essential Job Functions

• Assist program team to ensure Rural Resilience Activity progress according to the developed schedule and the implementation work plan.
• Assist Intervention Officers in developing monitoring plans for intervention with private sector actors within their market actors.
• Assist program strategies by providing data on intervention performance in a timely and accurate manner.
• Support intervention officers in gathering relevant information of their various interventions, identifying knowledge gaps and developing strategies to fill those gaps.
• Collect farmers Household-level data with support from data collectors on a quarterly basis.
• Assist progress monitoring, data collection, result measurement and follow up and quality assurance program data.
• Support field level tracking of both quantitative and qualitative data.
• Assist supervision of data collectors and ensure data quality.
• Support supervision of participants registration, community mobilization, sensitization, and stakeholder identification.
• Provide daily/weekly/monthly reports and participate in regular check-ins to update the Rural Resilience Activity program on current developments happening in and around the interventions areas in the Market System.
• Support the Monitoring functions in the implementation of relevant surveys, assessments, data collection etc. for on-going monitoring and reporting.
• Assist documentation and filing of Means of Verification for program data.
• Support learning-to-action events, reflections sessions and work closely with the learning and communication team to identify and document different case stories and communication stories.
• Support any other MRM tasks and functions as and when required.
• Support with any other duties assigned.

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 toward 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:

• None

Knowledge and Experience

• BA / B.Sc / HND in relevant field or other similar field or equivalent preferred in development, management, economics, or another relevant field
• Willingness to learn in a fast-paced work environment amongst a dynamic team.
• Ability to work independently in the field and show initiative. Demonstrated attention to detail, ability to follow procedures, meet deadlines and work cooperatively with team members.
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills; ability to develop good relationships with a wide range of actors required.
• Good organizational skills, ability to make recommendations for improvement and contribute to overall program strategy
• Ability to write clear and concise reports in English, knowledge of Hausa is a plus
• Willingness to travel throughout the different project areas.
• Experience in conducting training and workshops is desirable.

Success Factors

• The successful MRM intern will skillfully assist the implementation of RRA activities within time, scope, and budget.
• The successful candidate will be an effective communicator, with dedication towards community work, commitment to work long hours in the field conditions with limited access to resources.
• S/He should be familiar with the terrain in Gombi, Hong, Mubi North, Mubi South, Song, Yola North, and Yola South in Adamawa state.

Living Conditions / Environmental Conditions

• The position will be based in Yola, Adamawa State, Nigeria and requires frequent travel to other field locations. Considering the frequent travel from/to different field locations, this position will require flexibility in terms of accommodation and logistics.
• Housing in the field will be in hotels. Security in the field locations requires additional vigilance and accessibility will be reassessed continuously.
• The location is not eligible for hardship and R&R benefits. Given the nature of the response, working hours require flexibility and working through weekends/evenings might be necessary.