MEL Director at Creative Associates International

Background:

Creative Associates International is a dynamic, fast-growing global development firm that specializes in education, economic growth, democratic development and post-crisis stabilization. Based in Washington, D.C., Creative has a field presence in more than 25 countries with a strong client portfolio that includes the U.S. Agency for International Development and the State Department, among others. Since its founding in 1977, Creative has earned a solid reputation among its clients and is well-regarded by competitors and partners alike.  

Position Summary:

The objective of the West Africa Trade and Investment Hub Activity is to improve private sector competitiveness with a focus on increasing the agricultural productivity and profitability of smallholder farmers in Nigeria, and promoting West Africa’s regional and international trade. The Activity comprises of three main components: (i) design of a Competitiveness Fund for private sector partnerships; (ii) administration of the Competitiveness Fund to develop private sector partnerships and provide grants; and (iii) technical assistance (TA) that directly supports, coordinates, and organizes qualifying recipients (i.e., partners and grantees) to achieve USAID’s trade and food security objectives. The Trade Hub contributes to both USAID/Nigeria’s Feed the Future objectives related to increasing the agricultural competitiveness of smallholder farmers in Nigeria as well as USAID/West Africa’s objective to increase broad-based growth and resilience.

Reporting & Supervision:

Reporting to the COP, the Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Director is responsible for all MEL activities for the Trade Hub. The MEL Director supervises the MEL Managers based in Nigeria and Senegal and oversees the work of all MEL staff and consultants across the region. The Director must ensure that all activities are performed in line with the USAID Feed the Future evaluation policy, as well as the ADS and monitoring and learning best practices.

Expected Outcomes:

• Delivers MEL plan meeting all requirements by USAID;
• Maintains learning agenda for the project;
• Achieves MEL deliverables; and
• Ensures timely completion of quarterly and annual progress reports and annual workplans.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Provides broad support on MEL design and implementation, monitoring strategies, partner organizations, and organizational capacity assessments;
• Manages the project's web-based M&E database, ensuring quality and streamlined data entry in the Creative corporate web-based MEL platform MEDAL (Monitoring and Evaluation Database for Adaptive Learning);
• Leads the process of analyzing data and creating user-friendly dashboards in Power Bi (in MEDAL);
• Reviews and updates performance monitoring plans;
• Works with the MEL team in maintaining MEL systems already in place, including data quality assurance procedures, processing, and analyzing of activity performance data;
• Ensures regular and consistent documentation and that reporting on deliverables is met on time and in compliance with USAID rules and regulations;
• Leads the development of the Annual Work Plan, Quarterly Reports and Annual reports.
• Prepare and annually update the MEL Plan in alignment with project’s expected deliverables and results;
• Ensures on-time entry of all Trade Hub MEL data into DIS and/or other USAID database systems;
• Supports the MEL team in monitoring project activities, outputs and progress towards anticipated results;  
• Leads the process of MEL data collection, storage, and analysis, in particular, ensure performance indicators and output, outcome, impact and GIS data are prepared and collected properly in targeted geographic and thematic areas;
• Identifies and provide in-country MEL training and ensure STTA needs for Trade Hub MEL and grantees are met;
• Works with the MEL team to conduct project site visits to collect and validate quantitative and qualitative data, including site visits for primary verification and confirmation of data results;
• Collaborates with the Gender & Social Inclusion Manager to integrate gender and youth data into MEL by identifying key GESI indicators and ensuring lessons learned are collected to inform future program design and implementation;
• Supervises and coordinate with the Environmental Compliance (EC) Manager to collect, store, and analyze EC data to report on EC and it’s indicators;
• Supports the project’s Collaborating, Learning, and Adapting (CLA) approach;
• In coordination with the COP, reports to USAID on specific MEL progress and DIS and other USAID system data entry; and
• Performs other tasks as assigned by the COP.

Required Skills & Qualifications:

• At least a Masters’ degree in program evaluation, business, economics, statistics, international development, or a related field (or, alternately, a Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field and 5 additional years of relevant experience);
• At least 8 years’ technical experience in developing and implementing MEL and results-based management for USAID-funded projects, of which 4 years should have been supervisory experience.
• Experience working in multiple West Africa countries preferred.
• Experience conducting primary data collection exercises required, including using both qualitative and quantitative techniques.
• Excellent computer skills, particularly with Microsoft Excel, SPSS, Nvivo and other statistical packages as well as familiarity with GIS concepts and packages.
• Demonstrated experience in MEL report writing.
• Excellent interpersonal and teamwork skills;
• Excellent spoken and written communication skills in English and ideally in French as well.
• Willingness to travel across the region (up to 25%).
• Experience working in Nigeria is required.