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

Mercy Corps has been active in the Sahel since 2005, with ongoing programs in Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, and Mauritania. In these countries, Mercy Corps works primarily in the areas of resilience, food security, livelihoods, governance, conflict mitigation, and humanitarian response. Through these programs, Mercy Corps aims to stimulate economic opportunities, catalyze inclusive and accountable governance systems, boost local economies, and break the cycle of food and water insecurity while addressing the immediate, medium, and long-term needs of populations. Mercy Corps' work promotes resilience to shocks and stresses and enables individuals, households and communities to achieve inclusive, equitable and sustainable development. Mercy Corps' vision for change encourages the private sector, government, and civil society to work together to create meaningful and lasting change.

In Mauritania, Mercy Corps is based in Nouakchott and is operating the USAID-funded Nafoore Program, implemented in consortium with Counterpart International and ECODEV. In line with Mercy Corps global strategy and the national strategy in Mauritania, the Nafoore program aims to build the resilience of vulnerable young people to violent extremism, by increasing economic opportunities, empowering youth through civic engagement and participation and developing sustainable support networks for youth. The overall objective of the program is to increase the resilience of vulnerable Mauritanian youth in Nouakchott, Trarza and the southwestern regions of Hodh el Gharbi and Hodh el Chargui.

To achieve this, the NAFOORE Program plans to implement three objectives:

Increasing the income of vulnerable youth
Strengthen youth agency in their lives and communities
Expand safe and supportive youth social networks

Nafoore takes a facilitative approach, building the capacity of, and working through a network of local youth centers (hubs), youth serving organizations (YSOs comprised of CBOs and CSOs), and the “Nafoore Network”.

Mercy Corps works in partnership with the government, the communities of Mauritania, and in collaboration with other non-governmental organizations present in the country and youth participants to contribute to sustainable socio-economic development in Mauritania.

The Position

The Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Manager is responsible for leading the overall integration of monitoring, evaluation & learning for the program. S/he is responsible for facilitating a participatory process in order to develop Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning strategies and frameworks tailored to the program.

The MEL Manager shall manage the MEL team and work closely with the program’s partners, the Program Implementation Director and program team. The MEL Manager is responsible for ensuring that the program has a robust system in place to measure program results, has a rigorous monitoring system that is regularly collecting performance data, that partners have the skills to collect and report relevant data, and that monitoring, and evaluation data is being used to inform collaboration, learning and adaptation (CLA) priorities and programmatic decision-making. The MEL Manager must ensure a strong safeguarding and data protection approach to participant data. The program locations are distant from each other and in the two far-eastern Hodhs states are remote, leading to additional programmatic complexity, management and MEL.

Essential Responsibilities

MEL SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT AND MAINTENANCE

Facilitate indicator planning, design and negotiation with USAID on the M&E system development.
Work with the program team to define program indicators and targets for all program years, based on USAID guidance of standard required and applicable indicators (including DIS indicators); where applicable and desirable, include Mercy Corps Alpha Indicators or other innovative indicators to measure program impact.
Lead the program in the implementation, review and update of the detailed Activity Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning plan (AMELP), including design of data collection tools and methodologies, M&E workflow, data flow, data integrity, data quality assurance, database design and protocols, secondary research to inform assessments and measurement frameworks, and ensuring alignment with Mercy Corps and Industry standards.
Provide leadership and support to the Nafoore consortium partners on standardization and harmonization of performance indicators, program tools, and reporting mechanisms to ensure timely reporting.

MONITORING AND EVALUATION

Contribute to program-level M&E planning and oversight of MEL system implementation.
Ensure the program uses the necessary tools to collect and analyse data, inform and improve program implementation, as well as feed into Nafoore’s results measurement strategy, the broader Mercy Corps results reporting system (TolaData) and USAID’s Development Information Solution (DIS) system as relevant.
Champion the inclusion of qualitative data collection and analysis for both direct and supplemental measurements of program performance. Train teams in appropriate methods for focus group discussion and key informant interviews and lead field-based qualitative data collection as needed.
Coordinate assessments, evaluations and monitoring surveys in areas of operation. This will entail development of Scopes of Work, development of survey tools, training and management of data collectors, data analysis, report writing and facilitating results discussion.
Oversee the quality control of program data, including supporting the design of data collection, protocols that are rigorous, comprehensive, and aligned with program objectives, and leading on data collection, cleaning, verification, and validation.
Contribute to the development of regular program reports that summarize program data, analyze program performance, and identify areas for improvement.
Work with partners to increase their MEL capacity and develop individualized M&E plans that feed into the program’s overarching AMELP plan, and train and coach partners on data collection, reporting and using M&E tools.
Ensure compliance with the Mercy Corps minimum MEL standards as laid out in the organization’s Program Management Policy.
Promote the program’s compliance with gender equality, and social inclusion (GESI) and community accountability and response mechanism (CARM) policy and standards.

COLLABORATION, LEARNING AND ADAPTATION

Develop and implement the program’s Collaboration, Learning and Adaptation (CLA) Plan and learning agenda.
Build a collaborative network of relationships with implementing partners and other stakeholders to encourage learning networks that promote shared learning, aligned approaches, and mutual accountability to quality data collection and programming.
Lead periodic reflection sessions, and after action reviews with staff and implementing partners.
Contribute to the development and implementation of CLA strategies to further stimulate use of evidence for learning, strategic adaptive management, and high-impact programming.
Lead program coordination of dissemination (as part of the overall CLA Plan) through a developed and ongoing dissemination plan of program results and learning information. Contribute to program visibility and advocacy work. The dissemination plan will be a document by timelines of planned dissemination and learning.
Coordinate closely with implementing partners to ensure our activities and data are shared and synced up together and tell one cohesive story. This will form part of the dissemination plan.
Champion usage of M&E data to inform program implementation. This includes providing the program’s Chief of Party and Implementation Director with up-to-date information that can steer program implementation and maximize the team's ability to analyze and present impact to USAID, consortium partners, other stakeholders, as well as usage of that data to adapt the program as necessary.
Connect best practices and learning from within the program and across Mercy Corps countries to ensure an evolving and effective learning system for improving program implementation.
Work with the program team to capture lessons learned during program implementation and feed this information into thought leadership and learning opportunities and into ongoing program management and program design, including during after action reviews and lessons learned/CLA workshops.
Collect and compile impact stories and evidence from the program on a regular basis.
In coordination with the program team, drive the capacity building of program staff on design and M&E concepts through trainings and new hire orientation, including designing and delivering formal trainings. Design comprehensive orientation for all new staff.
Work with partners to establish a culture of learning and adaptation.

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Work closely with the organization’s regional performance & quality team to identify opportunities for automation and effective use of MEL technologies to increase efficiency in MEL practices. These may include the use of ONA or CommCare for data collection, use of PowerBI for dashboard development and use of applicable statistical data analysis software.
Serve as technical advisor for technology for data management systems and real-time data flow, utilizing appropriate software platforms for cloud aggregation, data processing and manipulation, and data visualization and utilization. This includes learning and testing new software platforms, as well as working with tech partners to develop both project and country level information management systems.
Assist teams in setting up appropriate summary statistics and relational calculations in program databases and link them to tracking dashboards. Help develop the appropriate workflow.
Understand, maintain and innovate the technical components (including hardware, software, database, etc.) of the MEL information and data management system that improves MC’s ability to implement quality programs through better collection, management, analysis and presentation of data, and represent impact to donor, government bodies, peer organizations and communities using standard technologies.

STRATEGY AND PLANNING

Work with the regional senior leadership team to develop and support the regional strategy.
Mobilize support services and risk management resources to enable country and regional leadership teams to execute their respective strategic priorities.
Lead the development and administration of regional and country level reports on key finance, operations and human resources indicators.
Manage and administer regional core budgets in coordination with regional and global leadership.
Lead on measurement and analysis of regional key performance indicators to inform strategic decision making.

REGIONAL SYSTEMS AND SUPPORT FUNCTIONS

Ensure that effective systems are in place in all country offices for the adequate management of human resources, financial and operational field support functions;
Review and support country team adherence to Mercy Corps and donor policies and procedures;
Capture and disseminate best practices on operations, finance and HR systems across country teams to ensure highest quality and standards.
Provide dedicated support to country teams in the event of an emergency or start up of a complex program that requires additional resources.
Collaborate with country finance leads in producing bi-annual master budgets.

**Supervisory Responsibility

**Program MEL team

**Accountability

**Reports Directly To: Chief of Party
Works Directly With: Program Implementation Director, Program Team, Implementing Partners.

**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

Master of Arts or Masters of Science (MA/MS) in international development, economics, statistics, peace and conflict studies, research methods, social sciences or similar; with at least five years of experience in progressively increasing M&E responsibility in international development projects with relevant subject matter and strong quantitative background. OR a Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science (BA/BS) in similar topics plus at least nine years of relevant experience.
The candidate must have experience in leading the M&E of a large project. Previous experience working on Conflict or Peacebuilding program is an added advantage.
Strong conceptual knowledge about theories of change, logic model, peace and security indicators, M&E plan, data quality assurance, data utilization, and gender integration into M&E.
Demonstrated experience and expertise in developing and operationalizing a comprehensive monitoring and evaluation plan.
Demonstrated expertise and experience in developing and operationalizing routine monitoring system designed to track both output and outcome indicators.
Strong quantitative background and demonstrated expertise in designing annual monitoring surveys including probabilistic sampling strategy and estimating sample size, developing appropriate weights, and analyze quantitative data.
Demonstrated expertise in designing qualitative studies, in-depth knowledge about qualitative sampling, and experience in using interview and interactive tools to generate qualitative information and analysis.
Experience in developing data quality assurance strategies, data management, and data visualization.
Demonstrated expertise and experience in data utilization strategies and can creatively think about active data sharing techniques.
Fluent oral and written communication skills in French and English are required.

Success Factors

The successful candidate will have a meticulous eye for data rigor, a commitment to program learning and adaptation, and a curiosity to drive for deeper understanding of the dynamics driving VE recruitment in Mauritania and the Sahel. S/he will be a team player and able to work comfortably in a matrix management structure, where flexibility and collaboration across partners will be essential. The ideal candidate will have a demonstrated ability to think critically across sectors and to understand how complex systems work to drive vulnerabilities. S/he will have strong written and verbal communication skills, and the ability to distill complex ideas into tangible and understandable data points and narratives to effectively tell the story of program impact. Above all, the ideal candidate will demonstrate an exceptional commitment to programmatic excellence, thrive in a team setting and have a good sense of humor to contribute to a dynamic working environment.

Living Conditions / Environmental Conditions

The position is based in Nouakchott, Mauritania and it requires up to 20% travel to the field to support programs, which may include travel to insecure locations where freedom of movement is limited and areas where amenities are limited. Housing for this role is in individual housing and staff will have access to good medical services and the living situation is of a high standard.

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.