Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Specialist - Health at Social Impact (SI)

Project Objective

• The purpose of this five-year project is to support USAID/Nigeria staff and partners to implement more efficient, effective, and transparent activities by improving:
  • USAID and Implementing Partner’s (IP) capacity to achieve expected results;
  • USAID’s understanding and tracking of activity and project performance; and
  • Mission and activity ability to collaborate, learn and adapt (CLA). 

Position Description

• SI is seeking two full-time, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Specialists who will contribute to the implementation of activities for this project in support of the USAID/Nigeria Health Office with a focus on water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH), malaria, maternal and child health, family planning, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and other health issues.
• The MEL Specialists should possess a strong familiarity with the health sector and experience across the MEL spectrum, including conducting a variety of monitoring, evaluation, and learning activities.
• These positions will be based in Abuja and the MEL Specialists will serve on a full-time basis throughout the five-year year period of performance. 

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with the Senior Monitoring, Evaluation, and CLA Leads to contribute to the implementation of MEL activities.
• Help to support the integration of MEL into learning and continuous quality improvement efforts. 
• Monitoring Responsibilities: Participate in activity case studies, site visits to monitor activities, and conduct data quality assessments (DQAs).
• Conduct review of an existing project- and activity-level MEL plans and recommend refinements to USAID/Nigeria’s MEL plan. 
• Assessment/Evaluation responsibilities: Manage and/or participate in evaluation teams, including conducting data collection throughout Nigeria, data analysis, and report writing. Conduct and/or support analyses and assessments as needed, including but not limited to assessments for the midcourse stocktaking for the 2020-2025 CDCS and any successor CDCS, Political Economy Analysis, Gender Analysis, etc.
• CLA responsibilities: Support training USAID, Government of Nigeria, and implementing partner staff on MEL.
• Facilitate and/or support multiple learning events bringing together a variety of stakeholders.

Other Responsibilities:

• Provide timely inputs and quality deliverables for all assignments.
• Develop program recommendations based on qualitative and quantitative data.
• Develop dissemination plans for reporting and sharing findings with USAID/Nigeria.
• Other ad hoc MEL activities, as required.

Qualifications

• Master's Degree in Health or a related field and a minimum of five years of relevant experience in health, or Ph.D / Master's Degree and four years of relevant experience in health. 
• Demonstrated technical expertise in one or more of the following areas: WASH, malaria, maternal and child health, family planning, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, or other health-related fields in Nigeria.
• Experience conducting MEL activities related to health including: development of MEL plans at the activity and project level, monitoring activities, data quality assessments, evaluations, MEL training and capacity building, implementing learning agenda activities, as well as other MEL technical activities.   
• Strong qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis skills. Proficiency in relevant software such as SPSS, Stata, NVivo, or others preferred.
• Substantial experience working with USAID and local stakeholders in managing evaluation processes.
• Knowledge of and hands-on experience with the USAID program cycle and evaluation policy. 
• Excellent communication, writing, facilitation, and presentation skills. 
• Fluency in spoken and written English is required. 
• Demonstrated ability to manage high-level relationships with partner organizations and implementing partners.