Description
Heifer International is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, gender, gender identify, sexual orientation, age, status as a protected veteran, among other things, or status as a qualified individual with disability.

The Organization
Since 1944, Heifer International has helped more than 36 million families lift themselves out of hunger and poverty.
Our goal is to help families achieve living incomes, which will allow them to feed their families daily, educate all their children; and have proper housing, water, hygiene, and other essential resources. When many families gain this new sustainable income, it brings new opportunities for building schools, creating agricultural cooperatives, forming community savings, and funding small businesses.
Heifer Senegal contribution to the Global 10 million households target is to help 500,000 of Heifer Africa’s 6.745 million households achieve sustainable living income by 2030.

Function
This position will manage the development and implementation of Monitoring, Evaluation, Learning and Systems (MELs) for the Sahel Diary Project. A strong emphasis is on good quality proposals, data collection, integrity, data analysis, reporting and dissemination to key stakeholders. S/he will provide MEL technical input to proposal design and development and will provide leadership and support in the implementation of Heifer’s global monitoring, evaluation and learning systems at the Sahel regional level, managing and ensuring standards in baseline assessments, impact monitoring and evaluation processes that contribute to implementation of the Sahel Dairy Project strategies. The position holder represents Heifer’s project/program knowledge and perspective in the development of strategies within Heifer and the private sector at large.
The overall purpose of the role is to contribute to the measurement and reporting of the performance of the SAHEL Dairy Project across the sub-region by providing technical assistance and guidance, and support the culture and practice of reliable planning, monitoring, evaluation and reporting on the project activities across the SAHEL Region.


Essential character traits
Accountability, Professional Excellence, Humility, Customer Orientation, Empathy, Innovation.
Responsibilities & deliverables
Planning
• In collaboration with country MEL managers, the Regional MEL Manager will be responsible for overseeing the implementation and periodic updating of the Sahel Program MEL Plan, ensuring the capture and analysis of requisite data that measure the status of the established indicators
• Support and coordinate with in-country MELs Managers to collaboratively plan for the program’s annual, bi-annual performance measurement/reporting and other reporting requirements of the donor and Heifer.
• In coordination with in-country MELs Managers, ensure that emergency planning documents are published, updated, revised when needed, including the MELs plan and reporting framework.
• Review and provide feedback during the design of project proposals and logical frameworks to ensure logical coherence, SMART indicators, and the inclusion of means of verifications, targets, and baselines.
• Initiate streamlining project proposals and logical frameworks to promote coherence across projects.
• Lead the annual program’s MEL Plan updates process to adjust the MEL Plan and PIRS as needed

Capacity building of MEL staff
• In coordination with the Country MELs Managers, contribute to strengthening the development of technical capacity of Program and MEL staff through training, workshops and/or capacity-building initiatives.
• In coordination with the Delegation offices and regional thematic focal points, foster synergies and best practices.
• Provide technical guidance during assessments planning, monitoring, evaluation and reporting of related programs and operations.

Monitoring
• Coordinate with country teams in providing technical advice on setting up MEL framework & tools, plan monitoring activities, programs and facilitate results-based management, strengthen accountability, and produce evidence-based results. This includes coordination with Country Program staff in the SAHEL Region on developing and disseminating of monitoring tools.
• In coordination with in-country MELs Managers, establish region- wide frameworks for planning, monitoring and reporting to the donor, Heifer and wherever applicable.
• Coordinate with the in-country MELs Managers in the collection and analysis of Sahel region wide data for accountability and improvement of program quality, performance, and impact in the SAHEL Region.
• Coordinate with in-country MELs Managers in the use of tools such as the MEL plans, Gantt charts, indicator tracking tables (ITTs), baseline–endline studies, and matrixes to monitor objectives, indicators, and activities, as per Heifer International guidelines; and provide the necessary technical assistance and training in furtherance of this objective.
Evaluation & Learning
• Working together with Country MELs Managers, take part in the management of evaluations and ensure they are timely, useful, and ethical. Participate in the design and implementation of programme baseline, annual surveys, mid-term, and final evaluations, special studies, and other components of evaluation and lessons learned activities.
• Support the use of evaluation results within the project and in a way that contributes to Heifer International’s learning processes at country and regional levels; ensure the development and usage of management response plans for evaluations.
• Coordinate with Country MELs Managers in the SAHEL region on planned evaluations activities monitoring and reporting.
• Contribute to a culture of learning, performance and accountability by identifying and sharing best practices with the SAHEL Region.
• Facilitate learning events, such as lessons learned workshops and collaborating, learning adapting (CLA).

Reporting
• Develop performance data dashboard in support of periodic reporting of the Sahel Dairy Project
• Coordinate aggregation of the results of the Sahel Dairy Project across the four countries
• Ensure the adherence to Heifer’s reporting formats and different donor requirements .
• Undertake quality control of the reports in coordination with Country MELs Managers, ensure the coherence between narrative and quantitative reports.
• Liaise with Country MELs Managers and other stakeholders on the status of donor reports.
• Ensure timeliness and compliance with Heifer and donor reporting requirements and standards.
• Share finalized reports with the Program Team for their submission to the donors.
• Provide support in creating SOPs and workflows for reporting, facilitate and drive reporting and data collection processes as needed (internal and external) in the SAHEL Region


Minimum qualifications required
• Bachelor’s degree in a relevant humanitarian or Social Sciences, ideally studies relating to, agricultural economics, data management, statistics etc. With 6-10 years’ experience developing and implementing MELS or Master’s degree in a related discipline with 4-6 years of relevant work experience
• Basic Delegate Training Course or IMPACT, ERU, CAP Training or equivalent experience.
• Demonstrated experience in coordinating and working with international donors and grantees on MELs systems.
• Experience in supporting and monitoring field-based programs.
• Experience in managing databases and coordinating evaluations, surveys, and impact monitoring.
• Strong knowledge and skills in data management and analysis using statistical software such as SPSS preferred, STATA, SAS
• Strong experience and skills in data collection software such as SurveyCTO preferred; Kobo, Survey Solutions, etc.
• Strong skills in designing and using PMER concepts, tools, and best practices


Most important skills
• Planning and Budgeting,
• Programme Development and Fundraising,
• Program Knowledge,
• Quality,
• Conflict Resolution,
• Supervision and Monitoring,
• Impact Measurement,
• Resource Management,
• Stakeholder Relations Management,
• Strategic Thinking,
• People Management and Business Acumen.
• Knowledge Management,
• Supervision and Monitoring,
• Data Analysis,
• Project Management,
• Purpose and Service,
• Change Management
• Diversity and Inclusion