MEL Manager at TechnoServe Kenya

Program Description:

• TechnoServe is implementing the 3-year program, which seeks to advance education through skills development aimed at technical, enterprise development, financial literacy, and soft skills that young people need to launch, operate and grow microenterprises in the “Blue Economy''. For the purpose of this project, the Blue Economy is the sustainable use of ocean resources for economic growth, improved livelihoods and jobs while preserving the health of ocean ecosystems. Blue Biz will focus on the 5 coastal counties of Kwale, Kilifi, Tana River, Mombasa and Lamu counties in Kenya.
• The Program is designed to sustainably respond to the key constraints that young women and men face in starting and growing microenterprises in Kenya’s Blue Economy by affecting change at the systems level through engaging and catalyzing local actors. Constraints addressed include skills development, access to financial solutions and appropriate technology, links to markets, and enhanced networks and leadership, with specific plans tailored to the local context, core issues, and solutions identified by youth leadership.

Position Description

• The MEL Manager will provide the strategic direction for the development and maintenance of MEAL systems and the roll-out of new initiatives, while enforcing policies of effective data management practices. He/ She will work closely with the MEL Advisor and collaboratively with the program implementing team.

Key roles and responsibilities

Strategy and Design

• Provide strategic direction for the development and maintenance of MEAL systems and the roll-out of new initiatives.
• Enforce policies for effective data management within the program as guided by the wider organization policy.
• Formulate techniques for quality data collection to ensure adequacy, accuracy and legitimacy of data in the organization’s data management system.
• Devise and implement efficient and secure procedures for data handling and analysis with attention to all technical aspects.
• Manage and maintain a robust program database of beneficiaries, according to interventions they receive including training, finances and other interventions.
• Undertake statistical analysis of the program data, and identifying relevant trends, patterns and providing a summary of the key findings and necessary reports.
• Design and implement assessments, gender analysis, stakeholder analysis, organizational capacity assessments and other pre-program data collection and analysis.
• Responsible for compliance with applicable corporate and divisional or organizational policies and procedures
• Monitors and evaluates the effectiveness of the training curriculum by creating and implementing measures to track outcomes and ensure alignment with business objectives.
• Effectively communicates training gaps, metrics and project progress. Establish networks and relationships within and across functions to define training needs and current training progress within the organization.
• Ensure compliance with SOPs and regulations. The impact of non-compliance increases re-work, possible delays in clinical programs and possible loss of clinical data.
• Ensure the consistency of indicators and tools across all partners and sectors, as appropriate, maintaining a bank of key program indicators.
• Support programming staff to incorporate participatory methods into community-level MEAL systems and tools.
• Leverage lessons learned, best practices, program data, evaluations and other information to generate donor communication pieces, proposal annexes, success stories, case studies and other high-quality, results-based documentation.
• Work with the senior management team to identify and pursue strategic opportunities for program expansion.

Project Design and Organizational Learning

• Design and maintain the overall learning strategy with a focus on promoting knowledge acquisition, management, documentation, and dissemination.
• Ensure the program learning agenda aligns and complements TechnoServe learning strategy and objectives.
• Set up the appropriate learning system for the program (collection, analysis, documentation, dissemination).
• Support M&E and program management staff to facilitate learning events to ensure promising practices, success/failure factors, lessons learned, and recommendations are identified.
• Organize reflection sessions (after-action reviews, learning to action discussions, quarterly reflection sessions, etc.) with teams to collect lessons learned, and prepare related reports, capturing key successes and lessons learned within the project to promote adaptive management into program design and implementation.
• Conduct program field visits to understand and document program results, both successful and unsuccessful, for improved program quality.
• Organize assessment workshops and self-evaluation sessions for various program and development actors.
• Execute learning for adapting functions and tasks such as facilitating regular meetings, compiling lessons learned, sharing relevant information, and documenting processes.
• Work with technical leads to develop a learning agenda which will incorporate CLA strategies within each of the proposed technical activities.
• Supervise the implementation of action-based learning and other prospective, complexity-aware monitoring tools such as network analysis, most-significant-change, etc.

Project Implementation and Reporting

• Support the partner M&E officers in conducting case studies and operational research using new communication and information technologies.
• Contribute to donor reports through high quality project data interpretation and report inputs.
• Support/Lead the partner M&E officers to strategically prepare and review MEAL calendars and work plans.
• Organize the collection, analysis, documentation, utilization, and dissemination of best practices and lessons learned.
• Explore and establish working relations with well-known, reputable organizational research and consulting entities for collaboration and sharing of organizational management, learning, and performance knowledge (researched and tacit), effectively creating learning program partnerships.
• Conduct analyses of organizational culture and time management studies to illuminate opportunities for making advances in CLA and provide a baseline for tracking organizational learning and change.
• Coordinate with stakeholders on the implementation of diverse and adaptive knowledge sharing activities within and outside of the project.
• Assist the Partnerships Manager in facilitating collaboration with key stakeholders in sharing findings and gathering inputs to inform an adaptive management approach.
• Document the capitalization, sharing, awareness and mobilization of results from the project activities.

Partnership and Capacity Building

• Provide capacity building for field staff in learning, and monitoring and evaluation.
• Collaborate with the Partnerships Manager, partner M&E Officers and Regional MEL Advisor on the MEAL community of practice to share learning, resources, and support across programs.
• Coordinate with different levels of staff with both TechnoServe and partners on learning principles such as how to collect, analyze, document, utilize, and disseminate information.
• Collaborate with different program partners and stakeholders on advancing the strategic learning agenda
• Provide feedback to senior program and MEAL staff to improve the overall MEAL system and ensure quality implementation of MEAL activities.
• Provide mentoring to the program staff and partners to increase capacity and to achieve annual performance and development plans.
• Remain updated with developments among the Program’s MEAL community and worldwide MEAL trends and resources to ensure the Program MEAL team is applying TechnoServe MEAL guidance and policies appropriately and in a timely manner.

Required skills and experience

• Bachelor’s Degree in Statistics, Economics, Mathematics, or related field. Master’s degree preferred;
• At least 7 years of experience with MEL methods and approaches in an international development context, including designing, planning, and implementing MEL systems, analyzing and reporting using a logical framework, and other strategic planning approaches;
• Competence in managing and analyzing large datasets;
• Ability to develop well written, cohesive analyses and reports;
• Advanced proficiency with relevant software packages, including Microsoft Excel
• Data management skills –Must have a thorough and proven understanding of the principles of data management and administration;
• IT and database skills –familiar with modern databases and IT management systems;
• Analytical skills must be able to digest and analyze large amounts of data;
• Problem-solving skills must be able to tackle problems under pressure;
• Communication skills must have excellent verbal and written communication skills;
• Strong report writing and presentation skills;
• Knowledge of web-based surveys (e.g ONA, Kobo tool kit) is desirable;
• Strong interpersonal skills, including skills in coordination and the ability to work in teams.