Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning

Chemonics seeks a Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Director for the USAID Empower Southern Africa (ESA) project. ESA is a 5-year regional program that covers South Africa, Lesotho, Eswatini, Botswana, Namibia, Angola, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, Madagascar, Comoros and Sao Tome and Principe. The primary purpose of ESA is to increase the availability of, access to, and use of affordable, reliable, sustainable and clean energy in Southern Africa in order to reach measurable development outcomes. Measurable development outcomes include economic growth, reducing poverty, improving livelihoods, and increasing inclusive access to electricity-enabled services in such areas as health, education, sanitation and food security. This position will be based in Pretoria, South Africa. We are looking for individuals who have a passion for making a difference in the lives of people and communities around the world.

**Responsibilities include**:

- Lead the development of the ESA’s MEL Plan, ensuring that it aligns with contract requirements and client objectives by providing overall technical leadership for all MEL activities and reporting, including routine process monitoring, data collection, data analysis, data quality, timeliness, and reporting
- Ensure MEL activities are in line with the USAID Evaluation Policy and regularly provides as-requested MEL data to the client in a timely manner
- Lead the design and operation of the program’s MEL systems to ensure standardization across country programs in indicators, data collection, and reporting
- Oversee the collection of and reporting on program management, output, and outcome indicators by the country programs
- Lead the strategy and design of the research agenda, support the field team in refining and finalizing the project’s results framework, theory of change, and development hypothesis during work planning sessions
- Ensure the creation and dissemination of program learning through strategic communication
- Serve as the primary MEL liaison to a diverse group of stakeholders, including the Chief of Party (COP), the Deputy Chiefs of Party (DCOPs), U.S. national and state government counterparts, African government counterparts, private sector associations, civil society organizations, and other key U.S. and African companies and organizations
- Ensures sex-disaggregation of all person-level indicator to inform various project activity interventions
- Develop budget estimates for MEL tasks and ensure that all Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs), services agreements, or other contractual arrangements with partners stipulate their responsibilities for data collection and monitoring
- Supervise MEL Specialist to ensure execution of all MEL activities
- Perform other duties as assigned by the Deputy Chief of Party-Program Support

**Qualifications**:

- A master’s degree or higher in statistics, research methods, information systems, or a related advanced degree
- At least eight years of experience of M&E systems development and implementation across multiple countries and for complex projects
- Expertise in quantitative and qualitative methodologies, research, management information systems, reporting, data quality assessments, and data analysis and visualization
- Expertise in data analysis and using tools such as MS Excel and statistical packages
- Experience managing and building capacity among a diverse team of professionals remotely and in-person
- Ability to convey results to non-technical stakeholders, and to generate interest in the use of MEL results and help staff to make programmatic improvements desired
- Demonstrated ability to establish and develop working relationships and a high level of trust with public/private organizations as well as prepare regular and ad hoc reports, activity documentation and briefing papers
- Demonstrated experience in strategic planning and using innovative approaches to solve complex problems
- Experience supervising staff and overseeing MEL activities for USAID funded contracts, across multiple countries preferred
- Demonstrated versatility, leadership, and integrity
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills in English

**Application instructions**:
Chemonics is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate in its selection and employment practices on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, political affiliation, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, disability, genetic information, age, membership in an employee organization, or other non-merit factors.

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