Project Assistant / Monitoring and Evaluation Assistant - Tanzania

Organization Overview

The International Economic Growth Division manages projects that are pioneering new approaches to agriculture, food security, climate change, and competitiveness—as well as monitoring and evaluating projects within these sectors. We work throughout Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East for chiefly governmental clients, including the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the Millennium Challenge Corporation, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Background

The purpose of the USAID Market-Based Solutions (MBS) Project is to transform a critical segment of Tanzania's agro-processing industry – maize, rice and horticulture processing – and dramatically increase the supply of and demand for nutritious and fortified foods, especially among vulnerable populations in the food insecure regions of Morogoro, Dodoma and Manyara.

The project will achieve this goal by building the capacity of agro-processors to improve the quality, safety, presentation, sale and distribution of new and existing food products; to maximize its impact and reach vulnerable groups, particularly pregnant or lactating women, children between 6 months and 59 months of age, and people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHA),

The Project will work with and through a range of public and private sector groups – from small village based maize meal (posho) mills to medium-sized food processing companies (and even some larger firms, if significant benefits will accrue); plus local NGOs, and government agencies at all levels.

The USAID Market-Based Solutions (MBS) Project is a key activity of the Feed the Future (FtF) initiative, a major U.S. Government effort which aims to address the root causes of global hunger by sustainably increasing agricultural productivity to meet the demand for food; supporting and facilitating access to strong markets; increasing incomes for the poor so that they can meet their food and other needs; and reducing malnutrition.

Objective

Under the supervision of the Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist, the Monitoring and Evaluation Assistant will be available to provide site-office support to the Tanzania MBS project.

Duties and Responsibilities

The Monitoring and Evaluation Assistant will work closely with the Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist to accomplish the following:

• Work with all technical staff and partners in the process of collecting and reporting on monitoring data, explain the roles of each staff member/partner and train each on the indicator definitions and the data collection process and systems. She will develop a system to communicate these requirements to each of the client organizations as well.
• Using the system developed, supervise collection of data on a periodic-most often quarterly-basis, analyze these data, and provide the analysis to the Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist and the technical team for inclusion in regular reporting.
• Travel periodically to the field to check the quality of the monitoring data by seeing the collection process at work and reviewing the key concepts in the indicators.
• Support the Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist in collecting 'success stories' outlining specific areas of success under the project. These can be guidelines for project staff to understand what represents a success story, outline and format, and deadlines.
• Assist the Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist in other related tasks as necessary.
• Conduct data collections in satellite offices.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree in a related field, Master's degree preferred
• A minimum of 2 years' experience conducting data collections and analyzing data, preferably in a US Government funded project.
• Computer literate (Word, Excel and PowerPoint)

Minimum Qualifications

2+ years of experience OR the equivalent combination of education and experience.

This position is located in Tanzania.

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