Monitoring and Evaluation Officer, Isiolo at Plan International

ABOUT THE ROLE

The SDC-GBV Horn of Africa project, is a new 4-year project that will be implemented in Isiolo County. The project’s intermediate outcomes are (1) Women, men, girls, and boys increasingly recognise, prevent, report and address GBV, and 2) Governments, formal and informal WLOs at national and local levels deliver quality GBV prevention and responses. 

It will ride on the Gender and Inclusion Approach, which is a gender transformative and inclusive approach. This approach attempts to tackle root causes of vulnerability and inequality and promote equal rights whether in a humanitarian or more developmental context. The anticipated project activities implementation will consider the different needs of targeted girls and women and contribute for addressing the root causes of gender inequality and exclusion. 

The Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Officer will be charged with the responsibility of coordinating and managing the project related monitoring and evaluation activities in the selected sites of Isiolo. The role has an assignment to drive project Data Quality Assurance and specific data requirements for projects/programmes as well as tracking and reporting on project outcomes and impact of the project interventions. The role will ensure the Implementing partner is technically supported to required MERL management standards. The M&E Officer will enable documentation of project best practices, lessons learnt and project learning. He/She will work towards profiling project work and impact stories. 

ACCOUNTABILITIES AND MAIN WORK ACTIVITIES

Monitoring Implementation and M&E coordination at strategic level (20%)

• Support in the design and implementation of the monitoring and evaluation frameworks of the project and information system to track delivery against targets, outcomes and impacts
• Ensure the execution of functional M&E framework based on tracking of outcomes and impacts
• Ensure the activity monitoring logs are well kept in a quick and easy to access and retrieve
• Analysis of data collected for assessment of progress and areas of improvement and overall data management
• Support in developing monitoring tools to track project performance and ensure the partner is well supported to align to the standards, the Theory of Change and the M&E Plan
• Monitor and evaluate overall progress on achievement and sustainability of results
• In liaison with project team, coordinate periodic reporting, monthly, quarterly, half-yearly and annual progress on all project activities.
• Manage and conduct quantitative and qualitative monitoring, evaluations and studies among program beneficiaries and other stakeholders.

Quality improvement and standards (30%) 

• Track implementation of indicators and sets of measures of sustainability and success to generate reliable evidence for project improvement
• Uses on-going project monitoring and assessment reports, working closely with project teams to improve the quality of implementation and adapt project design.
• Provides input, information and statistics for quarterly, annual and other reports to Project Management 
• Employs data quality management standards through use of appropriate data collection tools, data management and analysis methods 
• Establishes and manages a performance monitoring and evaluation framework with specific goals, outcomes, inputs, outputs, processes, indicators, data needs and sources as well as reporting templates and frequency, for effective monitoring, reporting and updating of the progress of the project. 

Documentation, Data management, Learning and Knowledge management (30%) 

• Supports project team and partner to develop case studies, change/impact stories to inform projects achievements 
• Provide advice to the partners and project team on improving project performance using M&E findings.
• Leads and conducts analysis of quantitative data as well as qualitative data on all project inputs, outputs and outcomes to inform project management
• Dissemination of Monitoring Reports for internal and external audiences
• Supports the Project Manager to respond to Senior Management or donor data queries in an -accurate and timely manner
• Ensures all the data is disaggregated by sex, age and disability and that all the studies are gender responsive 
• Responsible for supporting from a gender perspective, data collection, analysis and utilization across all programs at the hub level, based on the standard tools. 
• Facilitates and supports the documentation of best practices and lessons learned from project outputs for audiences within and outside Plan International
• Leads the project team in developing case studies and change stories periodically. 
• Identifies and documents interventions and initiatives, and knowledge management products that can be replicated or scaled up.

Capability Strengthening through knowledge sharing, networking and coaching (10%)

• In liaison with the Project Coordinator, reviews M&E findings and best practices and disseminates information to stakeholders to facilitate evidence-based planning, learning and informed decision-making
• Promote individual, Organizational and Implementing Partner learning through systematic reflection processes, documentation, dissemination and knowledge management. 
• Support coaching and training of project staff and partners for improved MERL practices in response to needs. 
• Builds, maintains and engages in internal and external MERL partnerships and networks.
• Builds capacity of the project implementation team, including partner in M&E data collection, analyses, verification and reporting

Safeguarding Children and Young People (Safeguarding) and Gender Equality and Inclusion (GEI) 5%

• Understands and puts into practice the responsibilities under Safeguarding and GEI policies and Plan International’s Code of Conduct (CoC), ensuring that concerns are reported and managed in accordance with the appropriate procedures.
• Leads the orientation of programme staff to ensure that they are properly inducted on and understands their role in upholding Plan International’s safeguarding and GEI policies;
• Ensures that Plan International’s global policies for Safeguarding Children and Young People and Gender Equality and Inclusion are fully embedded in project design, during implementation and as principles applied in day-to-day work of Programme team; 
• Ensures that Plan Kenya contributes to Plan International’s global efforts to ensure safeguarding and GEI, including making sure that relevant reporting and data are submitted.

Others (5%)

• As assigned by the supervisor

TECHNICAL EXPERTISE, SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGE

Qualifications/ experience essential:

• Minimum of a University Degree in Social Science, Economics, Statistics, Development studies or any other related field from a recognized university. 
• At least 3 years of demonstrated successful coordination of M&E functions and experience 
• Grounded understanding of qualitative and quantitative methodologies in research and evaluation 
• Experience with database design and management including advanced use of Excel and data analysis and entry packages including at minimum SPSS, Stata, R, Epiinfo, Atlas-Ti, CSpro and the use of KOBO Collect platforms for data collection 
• Experience in Gender programs and their application into the design, monitoring, and evaluation in development projects and programs is an added advantage, 
• Strong demonstrable levels of knowledge of and experience with gender sensitive research design, performance monitoring, impact evaluation, and / or social research methodologies
• Demonstrated experience on Impact reporting

Qualifications/ experience desirable: 

• Evidence of experience in development of longitudinal real time data bases including online application for management of data 
•  Experience in advising / coaching individuals, teams and / or organisations in M&E system design, research methodologies, research design
• Previous experience with mobile data collection (Kobo, ODK, CsPro) and GIS mapping an asset 
•  Experience in the application of MER systems and frameworks including theory of change and logical frameworks 

Languages required

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills in Kiswahili and English. Northern dialect is an added advantage.