Location Monrovia, Liberia
Position Status Short Term Assignment (September 2024 – February 2025)
This STA is contingent on budget availability.
About Mercy Corps
Mercy Corps is a leading global organization powered by the belief that a better world is possible. In disaster, in hardship, in more than 40 countries around the world, we partner to put bold solutions into action — helping people triumph over adversity and build stronger communities from within. Now, and for the future.
PROSPECTS IV is a 45-month, 48 million SEK programme that aims to directly benefit 6,182 young people through improved employment opportunities with an overlapping impact on 14,856 young people. The programme applies a Market System Development (MSD) approach to facilitate systemic change. It builds on previous Government of Sweden’s investments through PROSPECTS I – III but aims to move away from a direct delivery model to place systems change at the heart of the programme. Understanding the structural and systemic challenges that young people face in securing employment is crucial to the programme’s success. PROSPECTS IV is implemented in four defined urban and peri-urban areas – Monrovia (Montserrado County), Ganta (Nimba County), Buchanan (Grand Bassa) and a pilot in Gbarnga (Bong County). PROSPECTS IV is highly innovative, one of the first MSD programs focused on urban youth employment.
PROSPECTS is 75% through its implementation, and will come to a close in June 2025. Support is needed to effectively capture results and learning for scale-up facilitation. The final year of the program (2024 – 2025) will focus on scaling promising interventions and capturing evidence for further impact. The Embassy of Sweden in Monrovia has funded Mercy Corps’ youth employment work in Liberia through previous iterations of PROSPECTS since 2012, thus, continued capture of results and evidence will support future phases of the program.
General Position Summary
The MEL For MSD Specialist will lead the PROSPECTS IV MEL team (including 2 officers) and will be responsible for managing and coordinating all MEL and program quality performance processes for Mercy Corps Liberia’s PROSPECTS IV program. They will work closely with an external MEL for MSD consultant who will provide technical oversight and backstopping.
Essential Job Responsibilities
TECHNICAL LEADERSHIP
- Provide leadership, training and mentoring in the development of MEL Plans, MEL Technology Plans, MEL tools, survey design, methodology, data analysis, and other skills required for assessing the impact of programs.
- Lead and/or collaborate with external evaluators on the design and roll out of the program market assessment, baseline and final evaluations, while setting up effective systems for learning.
- Ensures programs use the necessary MEL systems and tools, to inform and improve each individual program, as well as feed into the broader country-level MEL system and country strategy.
- Ensures key MEL activities are coordinated with program leadership and integrated into the Program Implementation Plan (PiP).
- Take the lead in aligning, collecting and reporting on relevant indicators to the organizational-wide MEL systems, and other external systems as relevant.
- Support teams in collecting sex and age disaggregated data and using gender sensitive data collection methods in order to understand and respond to program results with diverse participants.
- Responsible for ensuring adherence to Mercy Corps Responsible Data Policy.
- Supports the planning and implementation of quarterly reflection meetings.
INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
- Manages the MEL documentation and retention, including setup and ongoing management of MEL program filing.
- Works with the program team and MEL Officers to adopt a holistic country-level MEL system (including TolaData) that accurately collects, monitors and verifies program activities and ensures they are aligned with country strategic and annual plans.
- Manages indicator progress tracking in TolaData by updating indicators on a quarterly basis at minimum.
- Provides guidance, recommendations, and leadership to ensure that the MEL systems meet the needs of Programs Managers and Country Leadership and help address shortfalls in MEL and data management that affect program implementation.
- Contributes to program design to ensure adherence to Mercy Corps’ MEL best practices, including the use of standardized indicators, form templates, and documentation methodologies.
CAPACITY BUILDING AND MENTORING
- Responsible for building the capacity of MEL Officers and partners by promoting a culture of learning through systematic analysis and reflection of program data.
- Build the capacity of all relevant team members to develop and maintain an excellent MEL system, including regular reflection and analysis of program monitoring data.
- Strengthen knowledge and awareness of team members on MEL for MSD.
- Create and sustain a work environment of mutual respect where team members strive to achieve excellence.
ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING
As part of our commitment to organizational learning and in support of our understanding that learning organizations are more effective, efficient and relevant to the communities they serve – we expect all team members to commit 5% of their time to learning activities that benefit Mercy Corps as well as themselves.
ACCOUNTABILITY TO BENEFICIARIES
Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts toward accountability, specifically
to our beneficiaries and to international standards guiding international relief and development work, while actively engaging beneficiary communities as equal partners in the design, monitoring and evaluation of our field projects.
to our beneficiaries and to international standards guiding international relief and development work, while actively engaging beneficiary communities as equal partners in the design, monitoring and evaluation of our field projects.
Supervisory Responsibility: 2 MEL Officers
Accountability
Reports Directly To: Team Leader – Market Systems Development
Works Directly With: MEL for MSD consultant, PROSPECTS IV team, supporting departments
Knowledge and Experience
- BA/S degree in development studies, research methods, statistics, economics, social sciences, monitoring and evaluation, project management or other relevant field required. Postgraduate degree, and relevant MSD training preferred.
- 3+ years’ professional experience in design and management of monitoring and evaluation systems for market systems and/or youth employment programs;
- Familiarity with the Donor Committee for Enterprise Development (DCED) Standards is essential;
- Experience in training, capacity building of partners and team members and a strong dedication to strengthening local capacity in MEL for MSD;
- Experience with theoretical and practical background in MEL and skilled in participatory qualitative and quantitative MEL methodologies and techniques;
- Excellent quantitative skills and power user with Excel; Experience with PowerBi, ODK etc. preferred;
- Experience with data management including the ability to structure and collate data sets for ease of analysis;
- Demonstrated understanding of intermediate statistics and ability to summarize and make predictions from multiple data sets;
- Fluency in spoken and written English required.
Success Factors:
A successful candidate will have a demonstrated ability to lead and communicate effectively with team members of varied work styles and cultures, follow procedures, and meet deadlines with flexibility and creativity in planning and problem solving. S/he will have a proven ability to learn quickly, multi-task, prioritize, take initiative, and be accountable for results, understand the larger picture while remaining focused on the details, problem solving, work within a complex and sensitive setting and to follow laws and security protocols. The most successful Mercy Corps team members have a strong commitment to teamwork and accountability, thrive in evolving and changing environments and make effective written and verbal communication a priority in all situations.