MEL Lead-OTL

Work Arrangement: In-person

Job Description

The International Rescue Committee responds to the world’s worst humanitarian crises and helps people to survive and rebuild their lives. Founded in 1933 at the request of Albert Einstein, IRC offers life-saving care and life-changing assistance to refugees forced to flee from war or disaster. At work today in more than 40 countries and in 22 U.S. cities, IRC restores safety, dignity, and hope to millions who are uprooted by conflict or disaster. IRC leads the way from harm to home.

CONTEXTUAL BACKGROUND

The IRC has been present in Nigeria since 2012 when the organization responded to flooding in Kogi state. In February 2014 the IRC moved into Adamawa State in NE Nigeria to provide humanitarian interventions through a multi-sectoral, integrated approach for conflict-affected populations. IRC Nigeria now operates a country office in Abuja and field offices in Mubi and Yola of Adamawa State, Maiduguri and Monguno of Borno state, and Damaturu of Yobe State. Currently, IRC Nigeria implements programs for primary health care, nutrition, environmental health, women’s protection and empowerment, protection, child protection, education, food security & livelihoods.

USAID’s Opportunity to Learn (OTL) is a 5-year project that aims to address the immediate education needs of out-of-school children (OOSC) and youth in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states, through safer new and existing non-formal education, while laying the groundwork for sustainable improvement of education systems at the community and government levels. The OTL goal is to ensure out-of-school children and youth in Northeastern Nigeria are safely able to gain foundational skills, including literacy, numeracy, and social and emotional skills, to progress to higher levels of education, training, and/or engagement in the workforce.

Job Overview/Summary:

This is a strategic role within the USAID supported Opportunities to Learn (OTL) Project in IRC Nigeria that works closely with the program team to improve program quality, providing MEL technical leadership, to program design, planning, monitoring, evaluation and learning commitments to the project. Core responsibilities includes ensuring the OTL project has a strong MEL system in place, implemented as intended and reported to support program technical leadership and other consortium partners to deliver desired outcomes and impacts.

The MEL lead reports directly to the chief of party and coordinates closely with the IRC Nigeria MEAL Coordinator.

Major Responsibilities:

Design and development (30%)

- Ensure establishment and maintenance of routine monitoring systems, presentation of findings and building related staff competencies - Support team in development of detailed monitoring plans that: i) provide an indicator matrix, ii) map MEL roles and responsibilities of project and support staff, iii) consider ethical and safe collection and storage of data, iv) consider data quality audits, v) consider storing, protecting and sharing project documents, and vi) consider end of project learning review. - Work with Result area leads and support staff to develop TORs for needs assessments and surveys. - Conduct needs assessments and other survey in new locations and provide reports. - Accountable for selecting/defining sampling strategy.

Monitoring and evaluation (30%)

- Work with team to determine which monitoring activities will take place and which data collection methods will be used to ensure their adequacy and appropriateness. - Work with MELSA to ensure smooth conduct of monitoring activities and DQA - Accountable for providing consistent, supportive supervision as necessary to meet monitoring objectives and ensure data quality. - Work with MEL team and support staff to track progress on action points related to implementation and MEL activities - Provides inputs from survey and assessment data for tracking of overall progress on the OTL project.

Information management and reporting (20%)

- Accountable for providing technical leadership on information management across states - Accountable for data aggregation and reporting - Accountable for the conduct of CLA activities including Pause and Reflect, Knowledge management, etc. - Support dissemination of learnings and reports to stakeholders - Support in design of appropriate materials for learning

Staff capacity building (15%)

- Support in training of staff in data collection methods, management, analysis and action techniques. - Accountable for the implementation of client responsiveness mechanism (CRM) in OTL operation sites - Coaching and mentoring of MEL staff on Accountability Monitoring and Evaluation, Learning (AMEL), and Collaborating Learning and Adapting (CLA) activities. - Training of staff in new MEL and CLA approaches

Knowledge management and learning (5%)

- Accountable for conducting data quality audits of project & programs to identify and resolve systemic problems affecting data quality, and documenting and storing findings in project files on Box. - Provide oversight on CLA activities especially on Knowledge Management & Pause and Reflect. - Oversight for surveys, assessments and discrete learning documentation. - Others duties as may be allocated by supervisor.

Key Working Relationships:

- Position Reports to: COP Position directly supervises: Reporting Specialist, MEL Officer(s), CLA senior officer - Indirect Reporting: Data assistant/intern Other Internal and/or external contacts: - Internal: Program lead, Result area leads, Specialist, Managers, Senior Officers, Officers - External: MELSA, USAID team, Partner organizations, stakeholders

Qualifications

- Bachelor’s degree; over seven years of experience in designing and leading complex MEL programs. - Five years of experience on USAID programs; experience on education projects preferred. - Strong understanding of education metrics and processes needed to build MEL capacity of organizations, particularly youth-based CBOs and CBMCs on data collection, transparency, and use. - Deep understanding of MEL ICT4D tools and ways to utilize data for decision-making. - Knowledge of CLA is a MUST - Excellent report writing and presentation skill

Standards for Professional Conduct:

- The IRC and IRC workers must adhere to the values and principles outlined in IRC Way - Standards for Professional Conduct. These are Integrity, Service, and Accountability. In accordance with these values, the IRC operates and enforces policies on Beneficiary Protection from Exploitation and Abuse, Child Safeguarding, Anti Workplace Harassment, Fiscal Integrity, and Anti-Retaliation - IRC is an Equal Opportunity Employer IRC considers all applicants on the basis of merit without regard to race, sex, color, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status or disability. - The IRC and IRC workers must adhere to the values and principles outlined in IRC Way - Standards for Professional Conduct. These are Integrity, Service, and Accountability. In accordance with these values, the IRC operates and enforces policies on Beneficiary Protection from Exploitation and Abuse, Child Safeguarding, Anti Workplace Harassment, Fiscal Integrity, and Anti-Retaliation. - IRC et les employés de IRC doivent adhérer aux valeurs et principes contenus dans le IRC WAY (normes de conduite professionnelle). Ce sont l’Intégrité, le Service, et la Responsabilité. En conformité avec ces valeurs, IRC opère et fait respecter les politiques sur la protection des bénéficiaires contre l’exploitation et les abus, la protection de l’enfant, le harcèlement sur les lieux de travail, l’intégrité financière, et les représailles.