Job offer: Chargée de suivi et d'évaluation

Job offer: Chargée de suivi et d'évaluation

Job title: Monitoring and Evaluation Officer- West and Central Africa

DESCRIPTION

The African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) is a leading international conservation organization focused solely in a variety of ecosystems across sub-Saharan Africa, including rainforests, mountainous regions, wetlands, savannas, the Sahel and more. AWF is committed to being a quality-of-service oriented, programmatically focused, cost-effective, learning organization that explicitly stresses the promotion of wildlife and wild lands conservation in a modern Africa. The commitment is expected to provide AWF and its partners with an ability to reach more people with greater and more measurable impact. Within this context, this MEAL Officer will provide technical support, leadership and guidance to AWF with a focus on the West and Central Africa countries where AWF has presence regarding all matters pertaining to MEAL. The MEAL Officer will work with the rest of the MEAL team to build capacity in the region by identifying and supporting the implementation of program/project MEAL models that are effective and cost-efficient tools for institutional learning to support improved and more unified program quality.

Purpose

The purpose of this position is to strengthen AWF’s MEAL capacity through Conservation Strategy, Knowledge Management and Impact Unit. Although this will be part of the intuitional team, the MEAL Officer will be primarily responsible for supervising the team of MEAL activities and efforts with programme staff in West and Central Africa. The MEAL Officer will keep abreast of state-of-the-art MEAL approaches to ensure the use of technically appropriate MEAL models and information systems.

Position Summary

This position will be based within the AWF’s Cameroon office in Yaounde and work as part of the team of the African Wildlife Foundation to support a culture and practice of reliable planning, monitoring, evaluation and reporting (MEAL) in West and Central Africa. This includes developing and coordinating monitoring and evaluation (MEAL) systems and events within the AWF Cameroon, DRC & Niger offices and among its partners, building the capacity of partners in MEAL, and promoting MEAL knowledge transfer internally and externally to AWF. Should AWF open a new office in the West and Central Africa, the officer will include it in his/ her engagements. This is an exciting and dynamic role for the right individual who will ensure that MEAL systems and capacity building effectively serve AWF and partners, adhering to AWF guidelines and policies.

Key Job Responsibilities

The work to be accomplished by the successful individual shall consist of the following:

Developing and Maintaining the Enabling Environment for MEAL (20%)
Serve as AWF West & Central region focal point for MEAL, coordinating MEAL implementation, capacity building, sharing and learning of AWF and partners deliverables;
Develop good working relations with programme staff in West & Central Africa to ensure that MEAL remains a high priority in AWF programs;
Provide leadership, guidance and support to MEAL efforts among other program staff who are keen to develop more strategic approaches to improving MEAL within their program in the region;
Ensure MEAL technical assistance is available to sectoral units within Cameroon;
Support AWF in their dialogue with key donors, by providing timely and up-to-date evidence to ensure that AWF’s MEAL activities are meaningful and impactful;
Ensure adoption, customization and use of all MEAL guidelines and tools by all programs in the region.

Building Staff Capacity in MEAL (30%)

Support the design of AWF MEAL training events based on the AWF project management framework;
Provide hands-on technical assistance to staff in designing, monitoring, evaluating and reporting for all programs/ projects;
Introduce and/or maintain MEAL forums among AWF team members in Cameroon and its stakeholders, both partners and beneficiaries, to discuss and support quality programming and accountability standards;
Routinely perform quality assurance and control checks of MEAL work, overseeing the recording and reporting of progress and performance of the operation compared to targets
Ensure that lessons learned from program/project MEAL to improve future program selection, design and implementation. This includes liaison with external organizations to identify and distribute good MEAL practices in MEAL and contribute to knowledge sharing
In consultation with line manager, design, develop and implement a strategy in line with AWF initiatives for supporting partner organizations in MEAL related activities;

Strengthening Management Information Systems in the region (10%)

Support and contribute to the development/ updating of the Project Management Information System through documentation, implementation and coordination of standardized MEAL activities in the region;
Collaborate with program staff to identify their MEAL related needs and allocate resources accordingly;
Establish an inventory of reliable, secondary data sources of key statistics to contribute to MEAL, and to reduce the use of time and resources in primary data collection, as well as the negative impact (assessment fatigue);
Develop and implement a mechanism to collaborate with program staff in the region in monitoring and assessing the performance of programs in the region.
Train and support staff in the use of the M&E system and tools as they are implemented or developed

Direct Technical Support (40%)

Provide direct technical support to AWF country offices in West & Central Africa and their partners in developing performance indicators and MEAL plansin line with AWF KPIs and BSCs;
Ensure that monitoring visits are meaningful and capture evidence sought and fed into the PM System for management decisions;
Utilize the collaborative, learning and adapting approach to continually assess project progress and inform project management decision-making
Work with program staff and partners to develop a framework to monitor and evaluate the progress and impact of all AWF programs in the region.
Ensure compliance with set systems, processes and reporting

Research, Assessments, Surveys and Evaluation

Liaise with the HQ staff to ensure that management systems and all new and ongoing projects adhere to accountability requirements by initiating baseline surveys for new projects/ programs and conducting relevant evaluations for ongoing projects to meet AWF standards
Ensure that AWF learns from all final evaluations of completed projects for decision making and improvement of project designs
Lead and/or coordinate all country or regional assessments, evaluations and performance evaluation tasks including planning and reporting on the same
Coordinate and participate in the development of terms of reference for external surveys and consultant recruitments/selection
Ensure timely planning and initiate all pre and post intervention assessments, surveys, After Action Reviews, Post Activity Monitoring and Real Time Evaluation of programs Lead and support research activities and project baselines and indicators in WCA

OTHER : Please note that above is not exhaustive and you may be required to undertake any other relevant responsibilities and tasks

REQUIREMENTS

A Master’s in a social science field related to conservation and development;
At least 5 years of progressive responsibility in conservation and development programs, including significant time in a MEAL capacity;
Thorough familiarity with principles and current approaches to monitoring and evaluation of conservation and or development programs using both quantitative and qualitative methods;
Experience in capacity building program staff, in facilitating training and in selecting and managing consultants desired
Conducting and/or supervising needs assessments and surveys, and quantitative data analysis
Social research methodologies, including highly-developed analytical and communication skills and the ability to assimilate and process information for wide-ranging audiences
Professional fluency in English and French. Fluency in other local languages an advantage
Good writing ad reporting skills
Demonstrated ability to transfer knowledge to diverse audiences through training, mentoring, and other formal and non-formal methods;
Excellent interpersonal, organizational and written/verbal communication skills, including in cross cultural settings;
Ability to engage and motivate staff in a challenging program area;
Ability to work effectively under pressure and to organize and prioritize competing activities;
Ability to work effectively in a team-oriented environment;
Flexibility, patience, dedication and creativity;
Willingness and ability to travel to remote and sometimes physically challenging locations
Strong computer skills (MS Office Suit, SMART, MS Project, STATA, SPSS, R-Programming).

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