Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning Officer at The Science for Africa Foundation

Principal Duties and Responsibilities

Programme Planning Support:

• Contribute to the development and design of clear, relevant, and feasible MEL strategies to ensure clearly defined measurable indicators of outputs, outcomes, and impact in line with the SFA Foundation’s mission and strategy;
• Drive quality operationalization of the programmatic MEL strategies, with a focus on continuous improvement, adaptable evidence-based decision-making, and regular knowledge dissemination. This includes but is not limited to designing program MEL tools for data collection, verification, management, reporting, and data audits;
• Develop program and operational reporting templates that facilitate the acquisition and aggregation of information in programs, including input for impact-related success stories;
• Support the development and maintenance of an effective system for archiving MEL guidelines, tools, data files, analysis files, reports, and presentations for major activities undertaken.

Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting:

• Support the implementation of robust, efficient, and effective reporting frameworks that facilitate the acquisition and aggregation of knowledge and impact stories.
• In collaboration with Programme and MEL teams, contribute to reporting programme progress and key lessons including overall progress on achievement of results and project sustainability
• Working with the Communications team, take a lead in collating and disseminating relevant lessons learned in the course of programme implementation.
• Assist in the development of robust baseline, mid-term, and end-term evaluations and consultant recruitments as necessary.

Learning:

• Contribute to outcome and evidence-based strategic decision-making at SFA Foundation and promote a culture of evidence-based learning and adaptation;
• Participate in a multidisciplinary team to develop, implement and evaluate strategic plans to improve learning approaches at SFA Foundation.
• Support the Programme teams in developing strategies that enhance programmatic learning based on data collected and experiences noted during the implementation activities.
• Support the Programme teams in reviewing and revising theories of change, where necessary.
• Ensure proper documentation of innovative approaches and best practices for dissemination across SFA Foundation stakeholder groups.
• Coordinate mid‐term reviews and evaluation of program activities and ensure proper documentation of innovative approaches and best practices for dissemination and sharing experiences to promote repeat applications or scaling‐up in different community settings.

Training and Coaching:

• Build the capacity of project staff in monitoring, evaluation, and learning - specifically how to demonstrate impact
• Support the development of relevant training and coaching material to build the capacity of Programme staff and SFA Foundation grantees.

Communication and representation:

• Ably represent the SFA Foundation Programme teams in various local and international fora requiring liaison with current and potential implementing and funding partners.
• Support in gathering, summarising, and disseminating relevant technical updates on program planning monitoring, evaluation and operations research within the programmes;

Person Specifications

Academic Qualifications

• Minimum of a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics, Business Administration or any other related field;

Professional Qualifications

• Advanced certificate or training in MEL, statistics, data management or other relevant field.

Knowledge and Experience

• At least four (4) years of relevant experience in a pure monitoring, evaluation and learning function;
• Proven success in designing, implementing, and operating project MEL systems from project initiation to closeout stages
• Experience in managing MEL database systems
• Expertise in analyzing data using statistical software
• Proficiency in computer applications such as Microsoft Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint and Outlook express including financial and statistical packages

Key Attributes

• Resilience: Maintains a focus on key priorities and deliverables, staying resilient in the face of pressure
• Ability to work in an international and multi-cultural setting.
• Self-motivated, goal and deadline driven; proven track record to deliver the highest possible quality within set timeframes.
• Highly organized with an ability to balance working independently whilst engaging teams.
• Excellent interpersonal skills, and an ability to represent SFA at all levels and in different cultural settings.
• Ability and willingness to travel up to 30% domestically and internationally.
• High moral standing with impeccable integrity.

The documents should be saved in MS Word or PDF in the following format: Your First Name-Your Last Name-Document Name-Date (mmyy) e.g., Deus-Wan-CV-092022-SFA Foundation or Deus-Wan-CoverLetter-092022 -SFA Foundation.

All applications should be submitted by Wednesday, 26th April 2023.