MONITORING, EVALUATION AND LEARNING OFFICER (MEL) – Kenya

PRACTICAL MEASURE

ABOUT US
We are an international development organization that implements clever ideas so that people in poverty can change their world.
We help people find solutions to some of the world’s toughest problems – challenges that are exacerbated by catastrophic climate change and persistent gender inequality. We partner with communities to develop ingenious, sustainable and locally implemented solutions for agriculture, water and waste management, climate resilience and clean energy. And we share what works with others so that answers that start small can make a big difference.
We are committed to gender equality and women’s empowerment in all our work, including programs, knowledge sharing, advocacy, external communication and our own organizational development. At a minimum, we ensure that all our work is gender sensitive and aim for gender-transformative approaches as our overall goal and in line with the context.
We are a global change-maker group, comprising a UK-registered charity with community projects in Africa, Asia and Latin America, an independent development publisher and a technical consultancy service. We combine these specialisms to multiply our impact and shape a world that works better for everyone.

Our goals
We help people find solutions to some of the world’s toughest problems, exacerbated by catastrophic climate change and persistent gender inequality. Our goals are:
• Improve agriculture for smallholder farmers, many of whom are women, so that they can adapt to climate change and achieve a good standard of living.
• Help more people benefit from the transformative impact of clean and affordable energy and reduce preventable deaths from smoke from stoves and indoor fires.
• Make cities in poorer countries cleaner and healthier places to live and work.
• Build disaster resilience into the lives of people at risk of hazards – reduce the risk of hazards and minimise their impact on lives and livelihoods.

PRACTICAL ACTIONS IN KENYA
In Kenya, Practical Action has a long history of removing systemic barriers that prevent people from accessing energy that can transform their lives. We support communities and governments to make our cities healthier and safer, improve agriculture and markets for smallholder farmers, and help communities and governments build resilience.
To achieve our goals in Kenya, we use a mix of programming with communities and consultancy services with policy and practice makers. We have offices in Nairobi, Lodwar and Kisumu.

ABOUT THE ROLE
Practical Action values ​​a systems approach to develop programs with maximum impact. This means we continually strive to influence systems through our transformative work and use our learnings for advocacy, while also seizing strategic opportunities to advance climate technology as a cross-cutting issue in all our work.
The MEL Officer reports to the Senior MEL Officer and supports the development and maintenance of relevant MEL processes and tools in coordination with project delivery teams and all other relevant implementation partners. This includes developing and supporting the use of MEL systems to collect, aggregate and analyze data and taking a partnership role in ensuring full compliance and reporting obligations of key stakeholders.

RESPONSIBILITIES
Leadership and strategic direction
• Contribute to the Strategic Business Plan (SBP) development process and ensure change objectives are developed to create change in the lives of the people we work with.
• Provide data to support the SBP’s routine quarterly and annual reporting, including reporting on the global indicators.
• Provide data on global indicators and demonstrate progress towards targets.

Strengthen your profile, generate financing and maintain relationships
• Contribute to the proposal development process by participating in proposal design workshops.
• Ensure that MEL, gender assessments and learning and reflection are integrated into the proposals (log frames and budgets)
• Ensure that lessons learned from program delivery are incorporated into strengthening the organizational profile through change reports and impact reports.

Deliver quality
• Support the Lead MEL Officer in developing project-level MEL plans/logframes that ensure tracking of programme results at different levels (outputs, outcomes and impacts).
• Maintain the online project database and ensure regular data updates and data integrity.
• Effectively formulate, implement and enforce appropriate data collection tools, processes and procedures for the project.
• Monitor overall progress towards achieving results, including the sustainability of project outcomes.
• Aggregate and analyze data from all project interventions to contribute to management decision making and reporting.
• Conduct on-site visits for data validation and monitor the quality and completeness of data sets; coordinate data collection at project sites and ensure timely compilation and reporting of data.
• Work closely with the project team and partners to ensure that appropriate feedback mechanisms are integrated into the project.
• Conduct review, learning and reflection sessions at project level as defined in the MEL framework as a key accountability mechanism.
• Consolidate project learning while ensuring effective knowledge management across departments and subsidiaries to ensure that the entire organization benefits from and applies programmatic learning.
• Support high-quality baseline, interim and final evaluations of projects and ensure that results are reflected and evaluation management responses are prepared.
• Ensure timely reporting: monthly, quarterly, annual and project completion reports according to funder requirements.
• Ensure that gender and social inclusion are mainstreamed in MEL.
• Support program and communications teams in documenting impact/success stories.

Sensitivity to gender equality and social inclusion:
Should hold respectful views regardless of gender, age, race, ethnic origin, culture, different abilities, nationality, religion and marital status. Is sensitive and adaptable with regard to gender and social inclusion and applies inclusive practices. Reacts and behaves appropriately in a variety of situations.

PERSONAL PROFILE
To be successful in this role, the ideal candidate should meet the following requirements:
Experience & Knowledge
• Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field (e.g. development studies, economics, statistics, social sciences).
• At least 3 years of professional experience in knowledge management, monitoring and evaluation of programs in an organization with a robust M&E component.

Essential
• Strong technical skills, including use of PowerBI or Tableau.
• Good knowledge of using indicators at output, result and objective levels and of developing tools for measurement purposes.
• Extensive experience with evaluation methods such as result mapping and most significant change.
• Experience in integrating gender and inclusion into project design and MEAL aspects.
• Successful track record in implementing effective MEL systems, including experience in quantitative and qualitative data collection and management.
• Experience in gathering knowledge and promoting its application.
• Proven analytical and problem-solving skills to understand the breadth and content of the organization’s thematic work and provide practical solutions to operational challenges.

A detailed job description can be found here:JD-Monitoring-Evaluation-Learning-Officer.pdf (practicalaction.org)