Senior MEL Specialist – Prosper Cashew at TechnoServe

Job Title: Senior MEL Specialist

Job Summary

• Under the overall guidance of the MEL Manager, the Senior MEL Specialist will perform the technical activities related to monitoring & evaluation for the project.
• She/He will serve as the primary point of contact for data collection and aggregation that supports project reporting and will provide inputs to inform project decision-making.

Program / Practice / Department Overview

• Prosper Cashew is a five-year, $30 million project funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture under the Food for Progress Program that aims to catalyze investment for the West African cashew processing sector by strengthening cashew processing facilities across Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Nigeria. Over five years, Prosper Cashew will bring about transformational changes in West African sector by improving processing capacity, bringing in investments enabling access to finance for processors and building marketing platforms to get global customers.
• The project expects to create more than 26,000 new jobs (at least 50% for women) and indirectly benefit more than 133,000 women, men, and children in West Africa, while increasing the share of raw cashew nut that is processed in the region from less than 10% to 50%. We are currently in our third year of implementation.

Primary Functions & Responsibilities
The Senior MEL specialist will support MEL implementation for the project, including:

• Execute a work plan for data capture and reporting against project performance indicators and emergent project information needs.
• Implement qualitative and quantitative methods to inform knowledge gaps.
• Participate in the data collection and management process from primary data source to final reporting, ensuring quality throughout.
• Contribute to the design of forms, surveys, and indices as well as the data management system.
• Ensure databases are updated regularly, ensuring coherence and alignment with TechnoServe data quality standards.
• Able to merge/munge data from a variety of sources, verifying its validity, to produce cohesive analysis.
• Perform regular data quality assessments, data cleaning and preliminary data analysis.
• Share and discuss findings to M&E team in order to help identify insights to inform project implementation strategy.
• Conduct field visits to understand the context and identify new areas of investigation.
• Provide technical assistance and training to field staff on their role in performing data collection, analysis, review, and use.

Provide inputs to data-driven decision-making:

• Actively participate in a culture of reflection and data use.
• Support the documentation of best practices.
• Produce information to share lessons learned and for advocacy purposes.
• Provide primary inputs (qualitative and quantitative) for periodic reviews of the project’s logical framework.
• Support information flows across the implementation team and the sharing and analysis of new information.
• Actively engage with field staff on areas for course correction, serving as a collaborative and reflective source of information to inform project progress.
• Contribute to the internal reports by drafting it with M&E findings.

Participate in the broader MEL ecosystem at TechnoServe:

• Attend capacity building meetings and other relevant events related to MEL.
• Support access and insight into the project’s M&E approach to facilitate the Impact Team’s assessment of the project against organizational standards and annual impact reporting.
• Provide inputs to lessons learned that are shared across the project and the broader TechnoServe community.

Basic Qualifications
These are the requirements that any qualified candidate must meet. Typically includes

• A Bachelor’s Degree with a minimum of 5 years MEL experience or a Master’s Degree with a minimum of 3 years MEL experience in a relevant field, such as economics or other social science, business administration, agronomy or relevant field and minimum of 3 years of experience in program management or implementing results-based M&E systems.

Preferred Qualifications:
Additional qualifications that would make a candidate more desirable.

• Experience working on USDA-funded projects in Nigeria.
• Experience working with an INGO.
• Experience working on an agronomy donor-funded project.

Required Languages:

• Excellent written and spoken English.

Travel:

• Willingness to travel to field locations.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:
This section should highlight the competencies that would make a candidate successful in the role such as:

• Strong interpersonal skill.
• Knowledge of donor (USDA) MEL requirements a plus (standard indicators, expectations for evaluations and reporting, etc.)
• Experience participating in the implementation of M&E methods and methodologies (such as qualitative, quantitative, and participatory methods.
• Knowledge of and capacity to learn data collection and analytical software (e.g. Commcare, Power BI, Excel, Looker Studio, Big Query, or others).
• Excellent written and oral communication skills and a capability to produce clear and concise reports.
• Strong skills in data management, cleaning, analysis, and interpretation; ability to present data in simple and straightforward graphs and tables.
• Take an inquisitive and creative approach to problem-solving.
• Time management skills.
• Inherent value and respect for voices of staff at all organizational levels, external stakeholders, and the women and men we work with.
• Ability to work well independently, and function effectively as a member of a geographically dispersed team.

Application Instructions:

The application deadline is on Not Specified. Qualified and interested candidates can: Click here to apply online. It is important to visit the official website (link found below) for detailed information on how to apply successfully for this vacancy.

Website:
Official Job Website: https://www.technoserve.org/fight-poverty/where-we-work/nigeria/