Monitoring, Evaluation, and Research Manager at Helen Keller International

Background

• Helen Keller is seeking a candidate to provide technical lead for all M&E activities in the Nigeria country office and directly support, and implement innovative nutrition-specific and sensitive interventions, and generate evidence to enhance nutrition programming toward achieving the overall goal for an upcoming project.
• The project’s overall goal is to improve the nutritional status of vulnerable groups, with a particular focus on the first 1000 days of a child's life.
• This critical period, from conception to a child's second birthday, this project will specifically target children below two years of age, as well as pregnant and lactating women, living in selected states of Adamawa, Akwa-Ibom, Ebonyi, Kebbi, Sokoto, and the FCT.
• To achieve this goal, the project will focus on four specific objectives.
• The first objective is maternal supplementation duringthe prenatal stage, the focus is on improving the mother's nutritional status to ensure a healthy pregnancy and birth outcomes, which is critical for the child’s nutritional status, this will be followed by improved food access to families by promoting diverse and nutritious food production near the homestead.
• This will not only provide mothers with the necessary nutrients for a healthy pregnancy and lactation but also ensure that their children receive proper nutrition. Also, build the capacity and skills of frontline health facility workers.
• These workers play a crucial role in providing nutrition services to vulnerable groups, and by enhancing their knowledge, they will be better equipped to support caregivers in improving their children's nutrition.
• This objective also includes improving access to integrated management of acute malnutrition (IMAM) services, which is essential in preventing and treating acute malnutrition in children, and finally the promotion of essential nutrition action (ENA) and Essential Hygiene Actions (EHA).
• These actions aim to influence behaviors and practices related to maternal, infant, and young child nutrition, as well as water, sanitation, and hygiene.
• By promoting these essential practices, the project aims to improve the overall health and well-being of vulnerable groups.

Specific Responsibilities
Under the supervision of the Head of Programs and technical reporting to Regional Monitoring, Evaluation & Research Advisor, the M&E Manager will be responsible for the following:
Technical Support & Reporting:

• Develop and oversee the implementation of the Activity MEL Plan, including leading the development of MEL tools, platforms and methods that are appropriate to the scope, context, and technical requirements of the project.
• Take the lead in the design of research and evaluations, reviewing/developing relevant TORs, data analysis, and reviewing evaluation reports to inform project efforts in curbing the issue of malnutrition.
• Work with the HR to develop a standard MEAL structure for the organization.
• Oversee all assessments (baseline, midline, endline) and evaluation activities, including developing terms of reference and protocols for any externally commissioned work.
• Lead the collection, management, and analysis of qualitative and quantitative data, ensuring disaggregated data and the use of gender- and inclusion-related indicators to assess how the project is impacting different groups.
• Strengthen the availability and use of high-quality data for decision-making at all levels of the project. Integrate data analysis, reflection and interpretation and use with ongoing project activities, including gender and inclusion analysis.
• Develop strong stakeholder, participant, and community feedback and response mechanisms to ensure that program interventions are effective and accountable.
• Research, compile, write, and submit information, including results and their analysis, for project reports, including the quarterly and annual reports, and respond to requests for data from the donor and other stakeholders.
• Develop an electronic reporting framework to consolidate and review data across projects and design a user friendly interface to review data regularly, with support from regional colleagues.

M&E data collection and consolidation:

• Ensure robust reporting against the project’s M&E Plan, including general oversight of the data collection, consolidation, validation, and reporting efforts.
• Provide recommendations for improving data collection methods, especially for indicators assessed through the Annual Member Survey, to ensure data integrity and accuracy.
• Advise on solutions for data collection, validation, or interpretation challenges.
• Guide the project to ensure they share a deep understanding of the M&E plan and the project’s Theory of Change
• Advise and communicate timelines for data collection throughout the year, to align with established reporting efforts.
• Directly manage all M&E officers of the organization and guide other team members working with M&E data.

Learning:

• Ensure that programmatic learning and results are fully documented, shared, and used to drive adaptive management processes.
• Develop an annual internal report to assess progress against M&E indicators and lessons learned to feed into strategic planning.
• Organize workshops and trainings for staff to facilitate better engagement with the project’s plan, and to learn from the results.
• In collaboration with the Strategic Learning Advisor, develop and oversee the implementation of the project’s CLA plan, learning agenda and knowledge management system across all project components and partners.

Capacity building:

• Support the development of ME officers in field offices
• Coordinate, where appropriate, relevant training for fieldwork, data management, analysis, dissemination as well as monitoring and evaluation.
• Lead training and capacity building at the individual and organizational level in specific areas of expertise.

Qualifications

• Advanced Degree in Demography, Statistics, Social Sciences, Public Health, Health Information Management, or a related field
• A minimum of 8 to 10 years of progressively responsible experience in designing, implementing, monitoring, evaluating and learning tasks for health and/or development projects.
• Familiarity with international indicators and standard measurement tools in Nutrition as well as NHMIS and DHIS2 is required.
• Competency in MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and ACCESS, and a statistical software package (SPSS, EPI-INFO, STATA, SAS or similar).
• Demonstrated experience leading large scale data collection efforts, training enumerator teams, and organizing data collection
• Knowledge of data collection software (e.g. KoboCollect, ODK)
• Experience using data visualization software preferred (e.g. PowerBi)
• Demonstrated analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Ability to work with relevant government partners, USAID, other Donors, and implementing partners.
• Good verbal, listening, writing, and intrapersonal skills essential for effective interaction among several institutions and staff involved in a broad range of activities.
• Experience in organizing and facilitating systems strengthening, capacity development and mentoring processes.
• Fluent in English (written and oral communication).