Senior Associate, Monitoring & Evaluation at Aceli Africa

The Senior Associate will work closely with Aceli functional teams focused on financial incentives and technical assistance across all five countries in East and Southern Africa where Aceli is active.

Key Responsibilities:

Evaluation (50%)

• Support the implementation of Aceli’s Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) Strategy and Framework and update it annually.
• Collaborate with the International Growth Centre (IGC) and Busara Centre of Behavioral Economics to implement the evaluation of Aceli Financial Incentives and Technical Assistance program.
• Contribute to the design and implementation of enterprise and farmer-level surveys in partnership with 60 Decibels.

Learning (25%)

• Support the coordination of research commissioning by reviewing and providing input into proposals shortlisted by IGC under the Agri-SME Evidence Fund.  
• Consolidate evidence generated from evaluations and distill key learning from lender capacity building programs, climate and environment advisory initiatives, and other evaluation activities.
• Support the tracking of Key Performance Indicators and support the development of impact profiles of Aceli supported loans and SMEs receiving Technical Assistance.
• Support the drafting of learning outputs and case studies.

ESG and compliance (25%)

• Support the ESG assessment for lenders applying to join Aceli’s incentives programme and engage participating lenders to ensure compliance with Aceli’s ESG policy.
• Support Aceli’s Country Teams in Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia with outreach and training of lenders on Aceli’s ESG and Impact criteria.
• Coordinate the Climate & Environment (C&E) verification exercise conducted for SMEs registered by lenders as meeting C&E standards across Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda.
• Coordinate negative screening to ensure that all Aceli supported activities meet our ESG policy through mapping SMEs receiving TA and financial incentives on a monthly basis.

Qualifications

• A bachelor’s degree/equivalent in Agricultural Economics, Economics, Social Studies, Business Administration, or another relevant field.
• Minimum of seven (7) years of full-time monitoring and evaluation experience in a development finance context.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Strong ability exercise judgement, when necessary, apply critical thought process in activities and proactive problem solving.
• Go-getter who takes initiative and can work independently and collaboratively with a multi- country team in a rapidly evolving environment.
• Passionate about social impact and applying financial and business acumen to improve farmer livelihoods, food security, opportunities for women and youth, and climate resilience in Kenya.
• Familiarity with agri-finance and impact measurement in the Agricultural sector is an added advantage.
• Ability to translate complex ideas and make them accessible to diverse stakeholders.
• Mature professional who is culturally sensitive and upholds the highest standard for integrity that aligns with Aceli’s values.
• Strong experience and expertise of the Microsoft Office (MS Excel, MS Word, MS PowerPoint, etc.)