Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning Manager - Haiti

About Mercy Corps

Mercy Corps is powered by the belief that a better world is possible. To do this, we know our teams do their best work when they are diverse and every team member feels that they belong. We welcome diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and skills so that we can be stronger and have long term impact.

The Program / Department / Team

Mercy Corps helps communities develop their own ideas to solve Haiti’s most daunting problems by using innovative approaches to bring Haitians new social and economic opportunities and to make their country more secure, productive, and just. Established in January 2010, Mercy Corps Haiti has offices in Port-au-Prince, Jeremie and Miragoane and more than 80 staff implementing programs in economic development, agriculture, natural resource management and humanitarian response. Mercy Corps’ economic development work is guided by the principles of pro-poor development and demand-driven strategies. Mercy Corps takes a progressive approach to development that leads communities and entrepreneurs from relief to sustainable livelihoods to resilience.

On August 14th, 2021 a magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck Haiti creating widespread destruction, impacting over 130,000 households, and causing over 12,000 injuries and 2,200 casualties. Mercy Corps’ team in Haiti responded immediately, implementing our SMS emergency alert system to provide  communities with critical information, as well as distributing Non-Food Items (NFIs) to meet families’ urgent needs including: personal hygiene, food preparation and light and thermal comfort for their shelters.

The Position

The Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Manager is a key position in Mercy Corps responsible for cross-cutting programmatic information management, monitoring and evaluation, ensuring that information collected is reflected upon, used to improve ongoing programs and is incorporated into high quality reports and proposal development.  The MEL Manager will be responsible for developing (in partnership with project staff), coordinating, maintaining and improving the nation-wide M&E system, as well as training M&E staff in each office.  In addition, the position holder is responsible for ensuring that the reports generated by each field office are timely and of a high quality and that the data can be validated.  This will be achieved through staff capacity building and necessary training.

Essential Responsibilities

STRATEGY AND PLANNING

• Develop country MEL strategy, provide leadership to field offices from baseline to endline evaluations to coordinating post-distribution monitoring activities and leading individual program level M&E systems that inform and improve each program.

• Lead and develop an M&E team country team, assigning tasks to M&E officers to maintain a robust MEL system that improves the country’s ability to analyze and represent impact to donors, government, colleague agencies, and communities themselves.

• Participate in country management meetings and country-wide strategy sessions.

REGIONAL SYSTEMS AND SUPPORT FUNCTIONS

• Use existing MC resources train M&E and program teams on monitoring and evaluation and report writing.

• Build the capacity of all relevant team members to develop and maintain an excellent M&E system, including training on Tola (digital tool developed by MC) and the periodic reflection and analysis of program monitoring data to disseminate learning.

• Develop plans to mentor and coach staff to build their capacity to enable them to develop excellent reports and other documents.

• Lead efforts to establish an M&E unit working out of Port-au-Prince that will facilitate M&E for all programs and collaborate closely with Program Managers in developing and establishing of the M&E system, one that serves the needs of the overall of the country portfolio and its field officers.

• Support all country programs independent M&E efforts to ensure high quality M&E at the program level as well as build a nationwide system that captures and presents results at a national level.

• Design and maintain a M&E system with utility and program quality in mind, providing managers and their teams real time information that can steer program implementation as well as informing donors and strategic program direction and that helps strategize future interventions.

• Work with senior management to address shortfalls in M&E that affect program implementation and conduct internal DQAs.

Supervisory Responsibility

Sr Deputy MEL Manager and MEL field assistants

Accountability

Reports Directly To: Director of Programs

Works Directly With: Deputy Director of Programs, Program Managers, MEL Department, Finance Manager, Operations Director (and associated Managers), CARM department, HQ based desk teams, and TSU staff, regional humanitarian response team.

Accountability to Participants and Stakeholders

Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts toward accountability, specifically to our program participants, community partners, other stakeholders, and to international standards guiding international relief and development work. We are committed to actively engaging communities as equal partners in the design, monitoring and evaluation of our field projects.

Minimum Qualifications & Transferable Skills

• BA/S or equivalent, preferable in statistics, business administration or international development. MA/S in relevant field strongly preferred.

• 5-7 years of experience (4-6 for Manager) in the areas of program development and monitoring and evaluation, including relevant experience building and managing an M&E system and team, relevant experience supervising qualitative and quantitative data collection and data validation exercises, and building staff capacity.

• Must have extensive training skills and experience working with a variety of donors, especially USAID.

• Excel and Word skills are essential; data collection instruments such as Kobo, Power Bi

• Ability to manage and meet deadlines.

• Ability to work independently on multi-task load.

• Excellent Communication and organizational skills.

• Internationally recognized qualification in project or program management or a commitment to obtain the qualification in the early months of work.

• Knowledge of Sphere standards and other training in humanitarian response preferred.

• Fluent in French and Creole. English is desirable.

Success Factors

The ideal candidate will have a strong curiosity for understanding and working effectively within the complex cultural, political, security and social environment of Haiti.  He/She will be an excellent communicator, multi-tasker and able to work in difficult and stressful environments.  The successful candidate will be focused on team-building and capacity-building of national staff; be a strategic thinker, have strong analytical skills in design monitoring and evaluation of development programs and maintain a sense of humor.

Living Conditions / Environmental Conditions

The position is based in (Port-au Prince, Haiti); however, it requires up to 40% travel. The population of Port au Prince (PaP) is estimated at around 2.5 million people.  Although infrastructure is fairly poor in the capital, comfortable housing with water and electricity are readily available. There is reasonable access to most consumer goods, although they can be expensive. PaP offers many places to eat in all price ranges, as well as shops, and supermarkets which are comparable to a US supermarket.

Based on the fluctuating security context due to gang violence, movements can be restricted on short notice. Walking is not possible in most cases, however, weekend getaways to the mountains or the beach are an option, security permitting. Self drive is permitted, however driving can be challenging and traffic is often very heavy.

Travel by car and air to field sites will be required and offer more secure and stable conditions. Mobile phones and cellular service are widely available. Internet is available in all Mercy Corps offices. There are a number of health services available with evacuation options for serious illnesses.

Ongoing Learning

In support of our belief that learning organizations are more effective, efficient and relevant to the communities we serve, we empower all team members to dedicate 5% of their time to learning activities that further their personal and/or professional growth and development.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

Achieving our mission begins with how we build our team and work together. Through our commitment to enriching our organization with people of different origins, beliefs, backgrounds, and ways of thinking, we are better able to leverage the collective power of our teams and solve the world’s most complex challenges. We strive for a culture of trust and respect, where everyone contributes their perspectives and authentic selves, reaches their potential as individuals and teams, and collaborates to do the best work of their lives.

We recognize that diversity and inclusion is a journey, and we are committed to learning, listening and evolving to become more diverse, equitable and inclusive than we are today.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Mercy Corps is an equal opportunity employer that does not tolerate discrimination on any basis. We actively seek out diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and skills so that we can be collectively stronger and have sustained global impact.

We are committed to providing an environment of respect and psychological safety where equal employment opportunities are available to all. We do not engage in or tolerate discrimination on the basis of race, color, gender identity, gender expression, religion, age, sexual orientation, national or ethnic origin, disability (including HIV/AIDS status), marital status, military veteran status or any other protected group in the locations where we work.

Safeguarding & Ethics

Mercy Corps is committed to ensuring that all individuals we come into contact with through our work, whether team members, community members, program participants or others, are treated with respect and dignity. We are committed to the core principles regarding prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse laid out by the UN Secretary General and IASC and have signed on to the Interagency Misconduct Disclosure Scheme**.** We will not tolerate child abuse, sexual exploitation, abuse, or harassment by or of our team members. As part of our commitment to a safe and inclusive work environment, team members are expected to conduct themselves in a professional manner, respect local laws and customs, and to adhere to Mercy Corps Code of Conduct Policies and values at all times. Team members are required to complete mandatory Code of Conduct elearning courses upon hire and on an annual basis.