Senior Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) Specialist at DAI

Start date: November 2020 – August 6, 2025
Background:
The purpose of the five-year (2020-2025) “State Accountability, Transparency and Effectiveness” (“State2State”) Activity is to increase the accountability, transparency and effectiveness of selected state
and local governments (LGAs) in Nigeria. This will be achieved by: strengthening governance systems (with a focus on public financial management [PFM] and procurement, as well as monitoring and evaluation)
related to the delivery of services in key sectors (basic education, primary health care, and water, sanitation and hygiene [WASH]); increasing government responsiveness to citizen needs and priorities; and
improving government and civil society capacity to manage conflict (through work on prevention, mitigation and reconciliation with the same sectoral partners, not stand-alone assistance to the police or judiciary).
State2State will achieve this purpose by facilitating the strengthening of subnational governance systems in a sustainable manner, supporting the efforts of local reformers and building on locally-derived solutions
including, to the extent possible, reforms already working in other parts of Nigeria.
Position Objectives:
The Senior MEL Specialist will support the Director of Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (DMEL) in the
oversight of all M&E and learning activities, including data collection, monitoring, and reporting.
Responsibilities:
The Senior MEL Specialist will:

• Oversee the execution of the M&E strategy, ensuring interventions are rooted in local context and serve as learning platforms for future interventions.
• Work closely with DMEL and MEL Specialists to ensure the strategic and functional integration of all MEL activities as well as active collaboration with donors, other implementers, and local counterparts.
• Oversee MEL activities, provide technical direction and support to the design process and ensure results for contract activities.
• Will undertake, with DMEL guidance, investigations of reform issues and possible solutions.
• Support DAI’s adaptive systems approach and facilitate reviews of whether initiatives, once launched, are achieving expected results.
• Assist with timely rapid scans of the political economy, conflict, and PFM, and measure State2State impact within states.
• Lead data collection and analysis of project results and indicators and assemble data required on a recurrent basis to track program performance.
• Verify data, conduct audits of collection procedures and perform data checks.
• Support M&E training of staff and assist in cultivating a culture of learning.
• Ensure office cooperation with internal/external data quality assessments and that activity information is shared in a timely and appropriate manner.

Reporting:
The Senior MEL Specialist (Bauchi Main Office) reports to the Director, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning
(DMEL) and works with colleagues across units and teams.
Minimum Requirements:

• Master’s degree in any the following or related fields: social science, international development, evaluation research, statistics, and economics.
• At least 9 years of experience in designing, managing and implementing results-based MEL activities.
• Candidate should ideally possess experience in democracy and governance sector projects, especially USAID-funded projects, highly desired. Experience in tracking and submitting M&E data is required
• Experience working with government (national, subnational and local) and civil society strengthening in Nigeria is highly desirable
• Ability to work collaboratively, foster goodwill, and build coalitions with relevant sectoral agencies, groups and organizations
• Technical skills in analyzing quantitative and qualitative data, with excellent organizational, oral and written communications skills in English.
• Progressively responsible experience in monitoring and evaluation of democracy and governance programs and working with development agencies and organizations, government officials, civil society
• leaders, community leaders, project beneficiaries and project staff.
• Extensive knowledge of reporting procedures, best practices, guidelines, and tools for monitoring, evaluation and learning, including impact evaluation.
• Ability to conduct research and documentation.
• Experience using USAID Monitors for quarterly and annual data reporting.
• Supervisory skills, and ability to work well on a team.
• Proficient in Microsoft programs, i.e., Excel, Word, PowerPoint, etc., and the ability to use various commercially available statistical software programs.
• Strong attention to detail is required