Monitoring & Evaluation Specialist, Tanzania, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

PURPOSE OF POSITION: The goal of the Citizen's Engagement Health program is to contribute to improvement in quality, availability and accessibility of health services. The purpose of the program is to increase the citizens' voice for quality service delivery.

The key objectives for this program shall be:

• To ensure that communities in the selected districts can identify and articulate their needs, and are able to demand for quality services;
• To ensure that the CSOs develop effective advocacy initiatives, and are able to represent the communities' demands for better quality services;
• To build the technical and operational capacity of the CSOs to qualify them as potential direct recipients of future USAID funding and
• Ensure existence of strategic partnerships to foster ownership and sustainability.

The Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) Specialist has overall responsibility for providing coordination and leadership for strategic information, dissemination, and monitoring and evaluation of the project. The M&E Specialist is responsible for all project monitoring, evaluation and reporting activities.

The M&E Specialist leads the development of and manages the Project's Performance Monitoring Plan (PMP). The M&E Specialist develops and maintains systems to collect and analyse information on inputs, outputs, outcomes and impact of the program. She/he conduct supportive supervisory visits to sub-grantees to observe, monitor, provide guidance and quality feedback on the use of data and indicators; analyse monthly data and support training of M&E personnel in quality assurance methods. The M&E specialist should have experience working with capacity building of local partners in M&E, and familiarity with PEPFAR/USG indicators.This person will carry out both formative (pre-intervention) and summative research (post-intervention). While post-project research will sum up the Project's accomplishments in accurate, objective way, the research carried out during the project is meant to contribute to Project success. M&E is an essential management tool, allowing Project leaders to assess progress against benchmarks and make changes that improve outcomes and move toward success. The project is designed to achieve definite objectives, and M&E will be essential to reaching those objectives by monitoring progress at regular intervals. As such the M&E Specialist is part of the Project Management team.The applicant must demonstrate strong experience in sub-grantee management, including building the capacity of local organizations and subgrantees in USG monitoring, evaluation, and reporting. Coaching, advising, and enforcement are essential functions of this position.As the nature of this project is advocacy and accountability, the most competitive candidates will have experience in monitoring and evaluation of voice and accountability programs.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES: Setting Up the System:

• Conduct readiness assessment regarding M&E—what are the incentives at the system level, which are the beneficiaries, what is the existing capacity.
• Identify the core information needs of central project management, partners, and funding agencies.
• Identify the requirement for collecting baseline data, prepare terms-of-reference for and arrange the conduct of a baseline survey, as required.
• Clarify M&E responsibilities of different project personnel.
• Contribute to the development of the annual work plan, ensuring alignment with project strategy, agreement on annual targets and inclusion of M&E activates in the work plan.
• Clarify process for monitoring and evaluations on subgrantees.
• Prepare detailed M&E budget.
• Prepare calendar of M&E activities.
• Identify other M&E staff that the project needs to contract. Guide recruitment.

Implementing the System:

• Oversee and execute M&E activities included in the Annual Work Plan, with particular focus on results and impacts as well as in lesson learning.
• Based on the annual work plan and in particular the programs budgets, design the framework for the physical and process monitoring of project activities.
• Promote a results-based approach to monitoring and evaluation, emphasizing results and impacts.
• Assist in the development of project reports. Guide staff and executing partners in preparing their progress reports in accordance with approved reporting formats and ensure their timely submission. This includes quarterly progress reports, annual project reports, inception reports, and ad-hoc technical reports.
• Prepare consolidation progress reports for project management including identification of problems, causes of potential bottlenecks in the project implementation, and providing specific recommendations.
• Check that monitoring data are discussed in the appropriate forum and in a timely fashion in terms of implications of future action. If necessary create such discussion forums to fill any gaps.
• Undertake regular visits to the field to support implementation of M&E and to identify where adaptations might be needed.
• Foster participatory planning and monitoring by training and involving primary stakeholder groups in the M&E of activities.
• Facilitate, act as resource person, and join if required any external supervision and evaluation missions.
• Monitor the follow up of evaluation recommendations.
• Identify the need and draw up the Terms of Reference (ToR) for specific project studies. Recruit, guide and supervise consultants or organizations that are contracted to implement special surveys and studies required for evaluating project effects and impacts.
• Organise (and provide) refresher training in M&E for project and implementing partner staff, local organizations and primary stakeholders with view of developing local M&E capacity.
• Lead implementation of innovation of technology for M&E.

Lessons Learned and Other:

• Design and implement a system to identify, analyse, document and disseminate lessons learned.
• Consolidate a culture of lessons learning involving all project staff and allocate specific responsibilities.
• Ensure that ToR for consultants recruited by the project also incorporate mechanisms to capture and share lessons learned through their inputs to the project, and to ensure that the results are reflected in the reporting system described above.
• Document, package and disseminate lessons not less frequently than once every 12 months.
• Facilitate exchange of experiences by supporting and coordinating participation in any existing network projects sharing common characteristics. These networks would largely function on the basis of an electronic platform but could also entail other methods and tools such as workshops, teleconferences, etc.
• Identify and participate in additional networks, for example scientific or policy-based networks that may also yield lessons that can benefit project implementation.
• Carry out additional responsibilities and projects as assigned, including administrative and planning functions.
• Attend and participate in weekly chapel services and daily devotional meetings.

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS & ABILITIES: Required:

• Minimum of eight (8) years' experience and demonstrated practical skills in monitoring and evaluation of voice and accountability programs.
• Demonstrated ability and skills in analysis and report writing – a written sample will need to be submitted.
• Excellent knowledge of monitoring and evaluation principles and practices is essential.
• Knowledge and significant experience in the development and implementation of monitoring and evaluation frameworks and systems required for community development programs are essential.

Preferred:

• A minimum of five years' experience in the M&E of U.S government funded programs or other donors.
• Experience in design and implementation of Monitoring and Evaluation systems in advocacy community mobilisation or policy/accountability projects.
• Demonstrated knowledge of management information systems.
• Five years + field based work experience conducting M&E on large multi-regional public-health programs and working with management to integrate research findings into project direction.
• Research skills — surveys focus groups knowledge practice and coverage studies — data analysis and how to make effective presentations.
• Knowledge of LQAS 30-cluster sampling survey methodology preferred.
• Statistical software such as SPSS EPI INFO and other statistical tools preferred.

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