Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Specialist

Project Description:

Empowering Local Systems in Agriculture (ELSA) is a 5-year project funded by USAID under the Farmer-to-Farmer Leader Award. ELSA aims to establish sustainable local systems that provide affordable and consistently available agricultural inputs and create inclusive market channels in the agricultural sector. To achieve this, ELSA will build implementing partners’ capacity and provide direct technical assistance (TA) to input suppliers to improve input distribution and value added businesses to increase market access. Venture37 will supplement this TA with co-investment grants for selected agribusinesses to reduce the risk of their investments.

Position Summary:

The Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Specialist is responsible for creating and maintaining a robust monitoring and evaluations system that meet USAID and project specific requirements for the ELSA project. The MEL Specialist will be responsible for developing and updating a MEL Plan, creating tailored data collection tools, training staff and partners, planning and overseeing data collection, ensuring data quality, processing and analyzing data for use in reporting and learning purposes, and leading adaptive management for the Project. The MEL Specialist will report to the Chief of Party with technical oversight from the Global Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Team from Venture37 headquarters.

Primary Responsibilities:

•  Lead the development of the MEL system for the project that includes innovate methods for measurement and update the system as necessary throughout the life of the project.
• Train and coach project staff, implementation partners, and market actor partners in their role in project monitoring, evaluation and learning.
• Develop data collection tools that can be used across partners and bespoke tools for specific partners, as necessary.
• Lead the development of a project learning agenda, with support from the project technical staff.
• Conduct internal surveys and learning studies, including developing a scope of work and sampling strategy, selecting, training and managing enumerators, data cleaning, analysis and reporting.
• Provide support to external evaluators hired by the donor, as applicable, including providing them with data, linking them to participants, reviewing their scope of work and evaluation report
• Manage a tablet-based, electronic data collection platform, including training staff and ensuring timely data entry and cleaning.
• Perform a regular review of data collection processes and submitted data to ensure quality, including review of all data submitted, field visits, and conducting annual data quality assessments.
• Lead regular learning and adaptive management events both internally and externally.
• Provide regular updates on project progress against key metrics to the Chief of Party for inclusion in donor reports, work planning, learning events, and the Venture37 Portfolio Achievement Indicators.
• Lead production of case studies that highlight individual stories of impact, supported by the MEL data.
• Assist project staff to use project data to report and disseminate evidence of project work to the wider community, USAID, Venture37, Host Government, and other external stakeholders.
• Plan and allocate appropriate resources to carry out all MEL work for the project in a timely and quality manner.
• Assist in the selection and management of consultants or other short term technical assistance supporting project MEL activities.
• Demonstrate the highest degree of integrity throughout all activities and raise any concerns with implementation quality immediately with the Chief of Party.

Required Skills and Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in economics, statistics, or related field.
• Minimum of 5 years of relevant and progressive experience designing and implementing MEL systems for donor-funded development projects in Lebanon.
• Experience conducting learning events and facilitating conversations to enable and encourage problem-solving and adaptive management.
• Excellent quantitative and qualitative research and analysis skills.
• Demonstrated ability in developing, managing, and trouble-shooting a large-scale tablet-based data and storage collection system, or other similar information databases using appropriate software applications, for data entry, analysis, and storage of quantitative data.
• Experience developing guidance and building capacity of others in monitoring and evaluation methodologies, tools and approaches.
• Ability to establish priorities and plan, coordinate and monitor tasks independently and proactively with minimum day-to-day oversight.
• Computer literacy and competency in Microsoft Office
• Proficiency in a statistical software (e.g. Stata, SPSS)
• Strong writing, reporting, and presentational skills.
• Professional proficiency in English and Arabic
• Ability to travel to the field

Preferred Skills and Qualifications

• Master’s Degree of equivalent in economics, statistics or other relevant field.
• Experience implementing MEL for agriculture-related projects
• Experience implementing MEL for USAID projects
• Proficiency in PowerBI and GIS software