MERL Officer at ACDI/VOCA

Job Summary: The MERL Officer shall play an essential role ensuring that fellow technical staff have a clear guidance and support on USAID MERL requirements. He/she will coordinate MERL activities of the grant partner organizations in the program regions of operations (Turkana, Samburu, Marsabit, Isiolo, Wajir, Garissa, Makueni, Kitui and Taita Taveta)

In addition, the MERL Officer is expected to contribute fully to the overall objectives of the RLA activity, conducting him / herself in a proper manner at all times as a representative of the program, and is responsible for the safe keeping and care of program assets assigned to his/her care.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

• Coordinate, and plan all field data collection and reporting in accordance with established guidelines, and analyze data collected for assessment of progress and areas of improvement.
• Monitor routine project progress through routine documentation of project activities.
• Responsible for regular routine and timely project progress report development and updating of project MEL Systems.
• Develop and maintain overall MEL Plans and frameworks for assigned programmes and projects.
• Identify and track achievements and accomplishments against set performance targets. Train and mentor local grant partner staff on project reporting needs.
• Regularly inform the project implementation team on impacts of the project towards achieving overall RLA project goals.
• Ensure use of correct project documentation during implementation of supported activities.
• Participate in the preparation and implementation of special studies (e.g. Baseline surveys, impact evaluation, midterm review etc.) This includes, protocol development, drafting data collection tools, conducting analysis and drafting reports.
• Ensure that the standard operating procedures (SOP) and guidelines regarding MEL are developed and updated where necessary.
• Track implementation of work plan activities (targets vs achievement) and provide regular feedback to project teams.
• Develop and manage the project ‘s Performance Monitoring Plan (PMP) in collaboration with project staff and partners.
• Support technical staff in M&E functions i.e. guide reporting processes & consolidate program reports.
• Ensure that project performance and accountability data is collected, analyzed and disseminated on a timely basis during quarterly, semi-annual and annual reporting of results.
• Prepare and lead learning activities within projects to ensure promising practices, lessons learned, and recommendations are identified, documented, disseminated, and used to improve program quality.
• Perform any other duties as may be required by the MERL Manager.

Qualifications:

For the above position, the successful applicant should have the following:

• Degree from an accredited university in M&E, economics, international development, or related field.
• Qualification in Project Management or M&E will be an added advantage.
• Have knowledge and relevant work experience of not less than 4 years; and
• Analytical skills and high proficiency in computer knowledge are critical for this role.