Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning (MEL) Officer Full Time

PRACTICAL ACTION

ABOUT US

We are an international development organisation putting ingenious ideas to work so people in poverty can change their world.

We help people find solutions to some of the world’s toughest problems. Challenges made worse by catastrophic climate change and persistent gender inequality. We work with communities to develop ingenious, lasting and locally owned solutions for agriculture, water and waste management, climate resilience and clean energy. And we share what works with others, so answers that start small can grow big.

We are committed to advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment through all our work. This includes programmes, knowledge sharing, advocacy, external communications, and our own organisational development. At a minimum, we ensure that all our work is gender sensitive, seeking gender transformative approaches as our overall ambition and in accordance with context.

We’re a global change-making group. The group consists of a UK registered charity with community projects in Africa, Asia and Latin America, an independent development publishing company and a technical consulting service. We combine these specialisms to multiply our impact and help shape a world that works better for everyone.

OUR AIMS

We help people find solutions to some of the world’s toughest problems, made worse by catastrophic climate change and persistent gender inequality. Our aims are to:

• Make agriculture work better for smallholder farmers, many of them women, so they can adapt to climate change and achieve a good standard of living
• Help more people harness the transformational effects of clean affordable energy and reduce avoidable deaths caused by smoke from indoor stoves and fires.
• Make cities in poorer countries cleaner, healthier places to live and work.
• Build disaster resilience into the lives of people threatened by hazards – reducing the risk of hazards and minimizing their impact on lives and livelihoods.

PRACTICAL ACTION IN KENYA

In Kenya, Practical Action has a long history of addressing systemic barriers that prevent people from accessing energy that transforms their lives, helping communities and government make cities healthier and safer, making agriculture and markets work better for small holder farmers and supporting communities and government to become more resilient.

We use a mix of programming with communities and consultancy services with shapers of policy and practice to achieve our aims in Kenya, with offices in Nairobi, Kisumu and Kakamega.

ABOUT THE ROLE

Practical Action puts emphasis on a systems approach to design programs for maximum impact. This means that we constantly endeavour to influence systems through our transformative work and use our learning for advocacy, while taking strategic opportunity to promote climate technology as a cross cutting theme across all of our work.

The MEL Officer will support in designing and continuation of relevant MEL processes and tools in coordination with project delivery teams and any other relevant implementing partners. This will involve; developing and supporting use MEL systems to collect, aggregate and analyse data in addition to playing a partnership role in ensuring the compliance and reporting requirements of key stakeholders are met in full.

SCOPE

Title: Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning (MEL) Officer

Reporting to: Project Manager

Matrix management: Senior MEL Officer

Direct reports: N/A

Relationships:

Internal: Programme Delivery Teams, Impact & Influence Team, Business Development team, Communications team.

External: Strategic Partners relevant to PA strategies

Financial scope: N/A

Location: Nairobi

Grade: 5

Travel requirements: Frequent travel within geographic scope (and others as required)

Position Status: Full-time

ACCOUNTABILITIES

Leadership and Strategic Alignment

• Contribute to the development process of the strategic business plan (SBP), ensuring that change objectives are developed to achieve change in the lives of people that we work with.
• Provide data that supports routine quarterly and annual reporting of the SBP including reporting on the global indicators.
• Provide data on the global indicators and show progress against targets.

Strengthening Profile, Generating Funding and Managing Relationships

• Ensure that MEL, gender assessments and learning and reflection is built into proposals (log frames and budgets)
• Ensure learning from the Project delivery feeds into organizational profile strengthening through stories of change and impact reporting.

Delivering Quality

• Support the Senior MEL officer to develop project level MEL plans that ensure tracking the project results at different levels (outputs, outcomes and impact)
• Lead on delivering the Project learning agenda
• Work with communication teams to develop and share knowledge to both internal and external stakeholders/audiences, including print and electronic information
• Maintain the online project database and ensure regular data updates and data integrity for the Project.
• Effectively formulate, implement, and enforce proper data collection tools, processes and procedures for the Project.
• Monitor and evaluate overall progress on achievement of results including the sustainability of the project results.
• Aggregate and analyse data from across the Project interventions to contribute to management decision-making and donor reporting.
• Conduct field visits for data validation and to monitor the quality and completeness of data sets; coordinate data collection at project sites and ensure timely compilation and reporting of data
• Work closely with Project team and partners to ensure appropriate feedback mechanisms are incorporated into project
• Conduct project level review, learning and reflection sessions, as specified in the MEL framework as a key accountability mechanism
• Collate project learning along with ensuring effective knowledge management between departments and affiliates to ensure the whole organisation benefits from and applies programmatic learning.
• Support quality project baseline, mid and end evaluations (using PLA tools) and ensure findings are reflected on and evaluation management responses prepared.
• Ensure timely reporting: monthly, quarterly, annual and end of projects reports in accordance with donor requirements.

Sensitivity on Gender Equality and Social Inclusion:

Should have respectful beliefs regardless of their gender, age, sex, race, ethnic background, culture, different ability, nationality, religion, and marital status. Is sensitive and adaptable to gender and social inclusion and adopts inclusive practices. Responds and behaves appropriately in different situations.

Safeguarding

It is all staff’s shared responsibility and obligation to safeguard and protect populations with whom we work with, including vulnerable adults and children.

Practical Action believes that it is unacceptable for anyone to experience exploitation or abuse in any form, anywhere. All staff members undergo mandatory Safeguarding training and are expected to always commit/adhere to our Safeguarding Policy whilst working for or on behalf of Practical Action.

PERSON PROFILE

To be successful in the role, the ideal candidate should meet the following requirements:

Experience & Knowledge

• Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field (e.g., development studies, economics, statistics, social sciences).
• Minimum of 3 years work experience in knowledge management, monitoring and evaluating programs with an organization with a robust M&E component.

Essential

• Strong technical skills including use of PowerBI or Tableau.
• Good knowledge in using indicators at output, outcome and goal level and developing tools for measurement purposes.
• Strong experience in evaluation methodologies such as outcome mapping and Most Significant Change.
• Experience in integrating gender and inclusion into project design and MEAL aspects.
• Successful track record of implementing effective MEL systems, including experience in quantitative and qualitative data collection and management.
• Experience in gathering learnings and promoting their application.
• Proven analytical and problem-solving skills to understand the range and content of the organization’s thematic work and provide practical solutions to operational challenges.
• Commitment to and ideally an understanding of safeguarding.