Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Associate

PROJECT BACKGROUND

The Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) is a treaty-based international, inter-governmental organization whose mission is to support and promote strong, inclusive, and sustainable economic growth in developing countries and emerging economies. GGGI operates in over 40 countries to deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals and the Nationally Determined Contributions to the Paris Agreement.

• GGGI has a unique in-country presence and prominent role as an independent, trusted advisor and strategic development partner embedded in Member and partner governments. These advisors are directly engaged with national governments in setting the strategic direction for national program development guided by a Country Planning Framework with the Government. GGGI’s operating model maximizes the potential to translate green growth strategies and policies (especially economic policies) into green investment plans, mobilizing green finance commitments needed to bolster support for low-carbon and climate-resilient economic development and institutional solid capacity development.
• GGGI, in collaboration with the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources of the Government of the Dominican Republic, is rolling out a multiyear technical assistance program to the Government of Dominican Republic titled “Mobilizing International Climate Finance and Private Investments for Low-Carbon Development in the Dominican Republic.” The program, funded by the Green Climate Fund (GCF) Readiness and Preparatory Support Program, aims to enhance the institutional capacity, strategic frameworks, and project pipeline of the Government of the Dominican Republic to increase the mobilization of national and international climate finance and private investments for the implementation of the nationally determined contribution (NDC) and low carbon development.
• In its updated NDC, submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Government of the Dominican Republic commits to cut emissions by 27% by 2030, compared to business as usual (BAU) scenario.1 The achievement of this target is heavily dependent on external finance from development partners and developed economies. The country´s unconditional greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction target is just 7%, with the remaining 20% reduction conditional on external financing. The government estimates that the achievement of its NDC mitigation target will require investments in the measure of US$ 8,916,950,000.2
• The significant investments and efforts required for the Dominican Republic to adapt to and mitigate climate change risk were hampered by the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact, which deteriorated the country´s economic outlook, leaving little fiscal and policy space to pursue priority climate change adaptation and mitigation initiatives.  As a result, the Government of the Dominican Republic, under the leadership of the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, has embarked on an ambitious effort to increase the efficiency of its climate finance ecosystem by diversifying the country´s donor engagement, accessing underutilized climate funds and developing new and innovative finance mechanisms to de-risk mitigation and adaptation projects in an attempt to mobilize finance from the private sector to contribute an estimated 71% of the investments required to meet the country´s unconditional mitigation targets.3
• The GGGI program aims to support the Government of the Dominican Republic’s climate finance efforts by delivering a set of complementary workstreams:
• Developing the Dominican Republic´s National Climate Finance Strategy to plan, enable, and guide the access and use of domestic and international climate finance as mandated by the country´s NDC.
• Increasing the Dominican Republic´s institutional capacity to access international climate finance by supporting the accreditation of two candidate Direct Access Entities (DAEs) and the establishment, operationalization, and capitalization of a National Financing Vehicle tasked with receiving, holding, and distributing climate finance from international sources to national priority projects.
• Supporting the Dominican Republic´s capital market´s readiness assessment and advancing go-to-market activities for a sovereign green bond issuance and debt for climate swap transactions to raise affordable long-term finance earmarked for climate change adaptation and mitigation projects and programs.
• Greening the Dominican Republic´s banking sector by providing technical assistance to local financial institutions to integrate environmental and social standards into their processes, procedures, and instruments, increasing the availability of green finance for private sector-led low-carbon projects.
• Increasing the Government of the Dominican Republic’s institutional capacity to integrate environmental, social, and climate change considerations into public-private partnership (PPP) processes and projects.
• Expanding and materializing the country’s ecotourism potential and contributing to post-COVID economic recovery and nature conservation.
• Providing strategic guidance to close the growing mismatch between educational services and the job market, focusing on green job creation and entrepreneurship by developing and implementing the country´s first Green Vocational Education and Training Strategy and program to create 436,065 new green jobs by 2026.

POSITION SUMMARY

• Based in Santo Domingo, the Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) Associate for the Dominican Republic Country Program will support the design and implementation of comprehensive MEL frameworks and plans for the GCF Readiness program and other projects in the Dominican Republic program portfolio; provide quality assurance to project managers and technical leads to log frames for new funding proposals, assist with internal and external reporting, including supporting the tracking of country-level KPIs; compiling lessons learned and best practices, and contributing to refining GGGI’s MEL framework and methodologies.
• Also, in coordination with the LAC Regional Office, and as needed with GGGI-IEU, the MEL Associate will support the training and development of skills and capacities of other staff members in the country office focusing on MEL aspects such as developing strong log frames, form building and survey design, data analysis, visualization, etc.
• The MEL Associate will collaborate with project managers and other MEL colleagues in the region to create tailored MEL tools for effective monitoring and evaluation, assist in internal and external reporting, and compile lessons learned to refine GGGI’s MEL methodologies.

PURPOSE

• The Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) Associate position for the GCF Readiness Program at GGGI plays a pivotal role as the country’s MEL focal point. It operationalizes the GCF and GGGI’s MEL framework, designs and implements project MEL plans, provides capacity building and training on MEL aspects at the country level, and champions results monitoring and reporting in the Dominican Republic team.

ENGAGEMENT

• Reports to the GGGI Sustainable Finance Senior Officer with a dual technical reporting line to the Regional MEL Senior Associate, receiving guidance and instruction from project managers.
• Liaise regularly with the LAC Regional Office and, as required, with the IEU for strategic direction about operationalizing the organizational MEL framework and participate in the bespoke Community of MEL Practices.
• Engages with governments, development partners, contractors, GGGI operations supporting staff, global technical leads, and country officers to lead the design and operationalization of MEL plans for critical projects.
• Liaise with other GGGI units, such as Strategy, Partnerships, and other relevant GGGI staff, to ensure reporting requirements are met per the GGGI Project Management Cycle Guidance.

DELIVERY

• Design and lead the implementation of comprehensive MEL plans that outline the frequent monitoring activities (data collection tools, budgets, timelines, roles, and responsibilities, among others), ensuring alignment with overall project objectives and GGGI’s new organizational-wide MEL framework and standards.
• Support the development of baseline assessments, data collection tools, and surveys for key projects in the Dominican Republic Country Program.
• Lead or support the collection and analysis of data to assess project progress, results, and learnings.
• Engage and understand the MEL frameworks of donor project stakeholders to align MEL activities with their expectations and requirements.
• Liaise with the IEU, the LAC Regional Office, and evaluation vendors to implement external evaluations.
• Compile lessons learned and best practices, contributing to refining GGGI´s MEL framework and methodologies.
• In coordination with the LAC Regional Office, support the organization and facilitation of training workshops for national project staff on various aspects of project design and MEL, including tool usage, data collection methods, and data analysis.
• Support the training of relevant project staff about effective form building and design for data collection, ensuring forms are user-friendly and capture necessary data accurately.

QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor’s degree in economics, political science, monitoring and evaluation, engineering, social sciences, or other fields related to GGGI’s work.
• Certification in M&E/MEL/MEAL is a plus but not required.
• Preferred at least four (4) years of relevant professional experience related to monitoring, evaluation, reporting, learning, and communication, including relevant experience building and managing MEL frameworks, plans, tools, and reporting systems, and relevant experience supervising data collection and data validation exercises, including building staff capacity.
• Demonstrable experience in logical framework and reporting methodologies is required.
• Experience with the UN system, other international organizations, bilateral cooperation entities, or projects is a plus.
• Prior experience leading monitoring, evaluation, reporting, learning, and communication at an NGO or international organization is a plus.
• Full proficiency in Spanish and English is required.
• At least three (3) years of experience supporting the planning and successful delivery of international development projects in developing countries or emerging economies.
• Demonstrable experience in managing data, logical framework and reporting methodologies, online reporting or tracking platforms, evidence and results-based monitoring methodologies, outcome mapping, and database management, preferably applied in the context of developing countries and climate change.
• Proven experience and knowledge in formulating climate adaptation, sustainable development indicators, and interlocking approaches to logical frameworks are desirable.
• Experience and a theoretical and practical background in qualitative and quantitative research methodologies and techniques are required.
• Successful experience delivering MEL capacity-building sessions.
• High proficiency in standard Microsoft Office.
• Experience with mobile data collection data tools like Open Data Kit, Kobo Toolbox, or One Data, including Excel form-building and other analysis tools/software, is a plus.
• Experience in international organizations, development agencies, government, private sector, or non-profit sector in M&E.
• Experience working in a multi-disciplinary and multi-sectoral team environment.
• Experience in the delivery of training.

Source: https://careers.gggi.org/vacancy/monitoring-evaluation-and-learning-mel-associate-567325.html