Monitoring and Evaluation Director at Chemonics

Chemonics seeks a Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Director for the anticipated $50-100 million USAID Zambia President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) Activity. This activity aims to advance the goals of PMI and the Zambia National Malaria Elimination Program, which are to reduce deaths, reduce disease and reduce transmission to accelerate malaria elimination in Zambia. This position will be based in Lusaka, Zambia. We are looking for individuals who have a passion for making a difference in the lives of people and communities around the world.

Responsibilities include:

• Lead the development of the project’s MEL Plan, ensuring that it aligns with contract requirements and client objectives by providing overall technical leadership for all MEL activities and reporting, including routine process monitoring, data collection, data analysis, data quality, timeliness, and reporting
• Ensure MEL activities are in line with the USAID Evaluation Policy and regularly provides as-requested MEL data to the client in a timely manner
• Lead the design and operation of the program’s MEL systems to ensure standardization across country programs in indicators, data collection, and reporting
• Oversee the collection of and reporting on program management, output, and outcome indicators by the country programs
• Apply adaptive management strategies and facilitate learning activities to support staff to assess progress and continually refine programming
• Lead the strategy and design of the research agenda, support the field team in refining and finalizing the project’s results framework, theory of change, and development hypothesis during work planning sessions
• Ensure the creation and dissemination of program learning through strategic communication
• Serve as the primary MEL liaison to a diverse group of stakeholders, including the Chief of Party (COP), the Deputy Chief of Party (DCOP), U.S. national and state government counterparts, African government counterparts, private sector associations, civil society organizations, and other key companies and organizations
• Ensures sex-disaggregation of all person-level indicator to inform various project activity interventions
• Develop budget estimates for MEL tasks and ensure that all Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs), services agreements, or other contractual arrangements with partners stipulate their responsibilities for data collection and monitoring
• Supervise MEL Specialist to ensure execution of all MEL activities
• Perform other duties as assigned by the Deputy Chief of Party

Qualifications:

• A master’s degree or higher in statistics, research methods, information systems, or a related advanced degree
• Candidate must be a citizen of Zambia with work experience in the country
• At least eight years of experience of M&E systems development and implementation across multiple countries and for complex projects
• Expertise in quantitative and qualitative methodologies, research, management information systems, reporting, data quality assessments, and data analysis and visualization
• Expertise in data analysis and using tools such as MS Excel and statistical packages
• Experience managing and building capacity among a diverse team of professionals remotely and in-person
• Ability to convey results to non-technical stakeholders, and to generate interest in the use of MEL results and help staff to make programmatic improvements desired
• Experience in Malaria surveillance/integrated disease surveillance and response (IDSR) expertise preferred
• Demonstrated ability to establish and develop working relationships and a high level of trust with public/private organizations as well as prepare regular and ad hoc reports, activity documentation and briefing papers
• Demonstrated experience in strategic planning and using innovative approaches to solve complex problems
• Experience supervising staff and overseeing MEL activities for USAID funded contracts, across multiple countries preferred
• Project start up experience preferred
• Demonstrated versatility, leadership, and integrity
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills in English

Location of Assignment:

This is a long-term position for the life of the contract based in Lusaka, Zambia, with intermittent local and international travel as needed.