Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Manager - Uzbekistan

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.

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The Program**

Mercy Corps Uzbekistan implements the five-year McGovern-Dole Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program funded by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). The program works to improve literacy and promote healthy dietary practices among preschool children and their communities in Karakalpakstan and Surkhandarya.

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The Position (General Position Summary)**

The Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Manager is a key position in the Mercy Corps Uzbekistan team who is 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 consistently high-quality reports and proposal development.

The MEL Manager will be responsible for developing (in partnership with project staff), coordinating, maintaining, and constantly 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.

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Essential Responsibilities**

Strategy & Vision

• Lead and develop an M&E team country team and the M&E officers in developing and maintaining a 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.

Program Management

• Use existing MC resources to train M&E and program teams in 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.
• Plan and lead all MEL activities including the baseline, midterm and final evaluations, and develop standards for data collection.
• Update MEL and project management systems to reflect program progress and needs; enforce proper usage of these systems by program staff.
• Collect, analyze and validate information and data on the performance indicators
• Present data analysis and periodic reporting in consultation with technical staff
• Ensure that lessons learned throughout the project are captured and communicated to internal and external stakeholders through appropriate channels
• Liaise with various stakeholders and project-related donors on relevant program MEL concerns.
• Lead on the community accountability efforts of the office, including adaptation and implementation of organization’s commitments to community engagement

M&E System Development

• Design and maintain an 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 program interventions.
• Design digital monitoring forms, including coding xls forms, deploying data collection using mobile data collection tools and conduct quality assurance, analysis and review of incoming data.
• Work with senior management to address shortfalls in M&E that affect program implementation and conduct internal DQAs.

Grants/ Reports Management

• Regularly conduct project site visits to provide hands-on training to field staff on how to capture and organize information for accurate documentation and reporting.
• Assist the program implementation team in timely and accurate reporting to donors.
• Coordinate with a variety of teams, HQ, Finance, and Program Directors and Country Director to ensure that reports are timely, high-quality, and responsive to donors.

Monitoring and Evaluation/ Assessments

• Assist in designing programs that incorporate Mercy Corps’ standards on design, monitoring, and evaluation.
• Play a central role in all evaluation, design and implementation and developing the capacity of a national team to conduct internal evaluations.
• Supervise all sub-contractor involved in data collection activities including the baseline, midterm and final evaluation teams, and review their standards for data collection.
• Lead in design of thematic studies and researches, including identifying research questions, developing scope of works, select research companies and review the results of the study.

Team Management

• Develop the capacity of the team, deepen understanding of their roles and assist with career development.
• Assist team members with information, tools, and resources to improve performance & reach objectives.
• Promote accountability, communicate expectations, and provide constructive feedback informally and formally via regular one on ones and performance reviews.
• Create and sustain a work environment of mutual respect where team members strive to achieve excellence.
• Play an active role in hiring, orienting and leading team members as necessary.

Supervisory Responsibility
M&E Senior Officers, Officers, and Assistants.

Accountability
Reports Directly To: Chief of Party/Country Director
Works Directly With: Technical team, operations team, regional managers, Regional PaQ+ Advisors, Country Leadership (SMT)

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
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• BA/S or equivalent, preferable in business administration, public administration, or international development. MA/S in relevant field strongly preferred.
• Minimum 5-7 years of experience in program development and monitoring and evaluation, including relevant experience managing an M&E system and team, relevant experience supervising data collection and data validation exercises, and building staff capacity.
• Experience working in similar M&E roles in Uzbekistan highly preferred.
• A minimum of 4 years of experience in monitoring and evaluation management for international development programs required, with a preference for USG donor experience
• Must have extensive training and management skills, including at least 3 years supervising multi-person M&E teams.
• Demonstrated experience in experimental design of evaluations, mobile data collection, digital form coding (odk/ona/kobocollect), using data analysis and visualization tools.
• Experience with ArcGIS or other geographic information system preferred but not required.
• Ability to prepare clear and concise reports.
• Basic mathematical skills and able to perform job specific mathematics with experience in statistical analysis and statistical software.
• High degree of computer literacy; Excel and Word skills are essential.
• Fluency in written and oral English and Russian required; Uzbek fluency a plus. Must be able to read and interpret documents and communicate with others as necessary to perform job duties effectively.

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 Uzbekistan. He/She will be an excellent communicator, multi-tasker, and able to work in ambiguous situations. He/She will be a tolerant and flexible individual able to work in difficult and stressful environments and follow procedures. The successful candidate will be focused on team building and capacity-building of national staff; be a strategic thinker, have strong skills in design monitoring and evaluation of development programs and maintain a sense of humor.

Living Conditions / Environmental ConditionsThe position is based in Tashkent, Uzbekistan and it requires up to 30% travel to support regional offices, which may include travel to areas where amenities are limited.

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

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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.

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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.