Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Adviser at British High Commission Nairobi

This is a stretching and fulfilling for the British Embassy Mogadishu (located at the British High Commission in Nairobi).  It is a programme-funded post which will play an essential role in the delivery of the Somalia Monitoring Programme III (SMP III).

SMP III is a four and a half year programme with two components. The first is a Statistical Capacity Building component, with the Somali Administration, and involves support to design, deliver and use large-scale surveys and Censuses. The second component, and the one which this role will support, is Third-Party Monitoring (and Learning) of UK (FCDO) programming in the field, to ensure that our activities deliver the UK’s expected outcomes and impacts in Somalia. The main aim of the role is to bridge the relationship between FCDO and the TPML supplier (Tetra Tech partnering with Consilient), ensuring that outputs meet FCDO’s needs and are of strong technical quality and comply with FCDO programme management rules.

The role will support delivery of all five workstreams of the TPML contract:.

• Verifications – both light-touch/assurance focused, and more in-depth/learning-focused.
• Lessons learned reports – which will bring together findings from verifications and identify patterns.
• Rapid evidence reports/generation – which will focus on cross-cutting themes/issues relevant to our suite of programmes.
• MEL capacity building – working with our implementing partners to support MEL system development, indicator selection, application of appropriate tools and methods.
• Knowledge management – support a knowledge management platform where verification reports, evidence products and lessons-learned summaries can be stored, shared, and which draws teams’ attention to key issues.

The programme is currently in inception phase, which will run until the end of August  2022. The implementation period will begin in September 2022.

The role will be based in Nairobi, sitting for 80% of the time with  the TPML supplier and the remaining 20% of the time with the British Embassy Mogadishu’s (Nairobi-based), Accountability and Results Team.

Reporting to the Senior Responsible Officer of SMP III and Monitoring and Evaluation Adviser for Somalia the post-holder will need to be proactive and flexible to respond to changing business needs especially as new programmes under the Somalia portfolio that are in scope for TPML come onboard.

In this role you will be responsible for:

• Providing support to develop annual workplans which ensure that the needs of FCDO teams are being met. This will involve facilitating conversations between FCDO programme teams, BEM cross-cutting advisors and leadership, and the supplier.
• Quality assuring TPML products (verification methodologies/approaches, rapid research methodologies) from a technical perspective, as well as through the lens of whether they are meeting FCDO needs.
• Ensuring that MEL capacity-building plans focus on areas of concern to the FCDO, as identified by programme teams and by the MEL adviser.
• Supporting learning and lesson-sharing that arises from TPML findings.
• Assessing whether these lessons are being appropriately applied by FCDO teams.
• Reporting against the TPML components of the SMP III logframe – and ensuring that the logframe remains relevant and fit-for-purpose.
• Attending the the FCDO’s Independent Monitoring Network and the TPM donor working group, to gather and share lessons about TPML contracts.
• Contributing to the FCDO’s statistics and/or evaluation cadre.

Essential qualifications, skills and experience  

• Excellent written and oral communication skills.
• Ability to prioritise and manage competing workloads and demands in a large and complex environment.
• Ability to establish and maintain strong relationships with others and work confidently with a wide range of key stakeholders.
• Strong technical proficiency in a range of evaluation and social research methods.
• Experience providing technical assistance, capacity development and/or enhancing learning for evaluation or other types of research.
• An established track record and proven professional experience in using and advising on monitoring results/impact and development evaluation.
• Desirable qualifications, skills and experience  
• Experience of working in highly political and high risk environments (e.g. FCAS) including M&E of political programmes.
• Programme management experience.  
• Experience of working on TPML.