Monitoring Advisor - USAID/Nigeria MEL Support Activity

Title: Monitoring Advisor
Project/Team: USAID/Nigeria MEL Support Activity
Location: Abuja, Nigeria
Job Type: Full-Time
Number of Vacancies: 1

Background:
Navanti has a requirement for a Monitoring Advisor to work on a Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Support Activity program that will assist USAID/Nigeria in advancing its broader organizational learning and development efforts. This program will further strengthen the Mission’s capacity and performance in programmatic monitoring, evaluation, learning, collaborating, and adapting. The MEL Support Activity will closely align with USAID/Nigeria’s Country Development Cooperation Strategy (CDCS) and provide a broad range of specialized technical assistance, training, data gathering and analysis, field-based monitoring, evaluations and assessments, facilitation of organizational learning and adaptation initiatives, and short-term technical assistance.
The Monitoring Advisor will work with USAID/Nigeria staff, USAID implementing partners, and other key stakeholders including development partners in Nigeria, and USAID/Washington stakeholders. The main objective of the MEL Support Activity is to supplement and strengthen the Mission’s monitoring, evaluation, and learning capacity to enhance programmatic outcomes and comply with USAID policies and directives. The Monitoring Advisor will work on a technical team that will assist the Mission with strategy-, project-, and activity-level performance monitoring, evaluation, and learning including independent field-based monitoring, data quality assessments, data gathering and verification, impact and performance evaluations, assessments, collection of select country context indicators, organizational learning, and improving knowledge management. In addition, the activity will support short-term technical assistance for USAID programmatic objectives as needed where short-term technical assistance staff for learning are embedded in the Nigeria government systems that need the support. Navanti’s MEL Support team will help enable and ensure effective collection and use of relevant performance, context, and development-related data to inform the Mission on progress towards achieving USAID/Nigeria’s development objectives (DO) and enable proper oversight and adaptive management of USAID activities. This activity is expected to help support Nigeria on its Journey to Self-Reliance (J2SR), helping to build a highly qualified domestic cadre of MEL Specialists, including USAID staff, its own staff, staff of other USAID implementing partners, contractors, government counterparts, and other partners.

Core Responsibilities:

• Oversee and guide daily field support services requests including designing and reviewing MEL Plans, conducting DQAs, developing indicators, designing results frameworks, overseeing field monitoring and verification data collection, and feedback assessments.
• Oversee the supervision of MELSA field teams during FBMs and DQAs and provide quality control support to ensure high quality data are collected.
• Facilitate engagement and communication between the IPs and MELSA prior to and throughout the fieldwork.
• Develop and adapt data collection and sampling plans, site visit methodologies, and data collection protocols.
• Manage and coordinate the overall monitoring plans including developing concepts notes, activity budgets and provide technical assistance in developing Activity Monitoring Plan.
• Develop and maintain reporting templates, activity trackers and dashboards-facing the Mission.
• Write consolidated quarterly reports on site visits for the quarterly and annual reports.
• Provide an oversight coordination to all MEL Specialists assigned to the USAID/Nigeria technical offices for the conduct of DQA and FBMs.
• Supervise the Program Officer and the Interns
• Any other duties assigned by the COP/Management.

Minimum Qualifications:

• A Master’s Degree in development, evaluation, development analytics, economics, knowledge management or related field (a Master's is preferred, however, Navanti will consider applicants with a Bachelor's Degree + 10 years of experience, where that experience shows significant work as a monitoring advisor, helping to improve the monitoring process and improving on the quality of data obtained).
• A minimum of seven years of progressively responsible professional experience in monitoring and evaluation with monitoring and evaluation activities within complex international development contexts in one or more of the following areas - Health, Democracy, Governance and Conflict, Economic Growth, Education, and/or Agricultural Development.
• Strong quantitative and qualitative analytical background in cost-benefit analysis, econometric methodologies, or statistical systems.
• Ability to conduct field work in areas with hardship conditions, in remote areas, for extended periods of time.
• Excellent teamwork, interpersonal, verbal and written communication, presentation and facilitation skills.
• Fluency in English, written and spoken.