Key Responsibilities

• Provide MEAL leadership, technical oversight, and coordination towards the delivery and quality assurance in the region. Oversee activities within country programs to ensure continuous improvement in data quality and standards are maintained and data audits are conducted from time to time, with key emerging issues addressed.
• Support IRC’s country leadership and regional teams in their efforts to use measurement data for decision making; driving better efficiency, effectiveness, and adaptation in our programs.
• Ensure best practices of project learning and evidence generation is shared across the region and used effectively for key internal and external audiences, including for donor reporting and advocacy work.
• Support the establishment of Client Responsiveness (CR) systems, including client need assessment, baseline, satisfaction surveys and the collection and use of routine feedback data in Countries together with technical advisors.
• Diagnosing the health of our MEAL systems and the quality of our data and information flows to inform help strengthen and leverage our MEAL foundations. 
• Providing support in the review of strategic proposals, with a focus on ensuring sound log frame, targets, MEAL plan and budget. Ensuring use of the consistent standard indicators within and across countries in the region, leading to meaningful aggregations and potential benchmarking opportunities.
• Lead MEAL planning on multi-country proposals and other large/complex proposals, as designated by the Deputy Regional Director.
• Supporting countries with delivery of complex MEAL products where needed, such as assessment, baseline, midline and endline surveys, evaluations, and learning activities. 
• Support in-country DDPs (Deputy Director of Programmes) and senior measurement and learning staff in the hiring, onboarding and continuous mentoring, capacity building and professional development of measurement staff; as well as advising Country Office on recommended staff structure, software and hardware for effective measurement.
• Support the success of IRC Country, Regional and Global measurement initiatives; foster collaboration with country program teams, and channel the countries’ perspectives to the Measurement Unit.
• Understanding the specific needs of teams and offering technical support and upskilling and encouraging teams to become spokespeople for successful tools, resources, systems, and data use. 
• Ensure the roll-out of Program Data Toolkits and the Program Indicator Dashboards in the region and country programs
• Providing support for routine and ad-hoc measurement activities throughout the program cycle in accordance with the relevant IRC MEAL Handbook and Project Cycle Meeting guidelines
• Provide leadership at regional and global level; actively contribute to the development of a sound measurement strategy; and ensure alignment of Measurement goals and priorities at country, regional and HQ levels;
• Contribute to the development of Measurement Unit strategic plans.
• In collaboration with peer RMAs and Regional Technical Leads, foster MEAL excellence within and across IRC regions, supporting the Measurement Community of Practice (CoP), and supporting staff development to identify and cultivate MEAL leaders at country, regional and global levels.
• Support the success of IRC Country, Regional and Global measurement initiatives; channel the countries experience, interests, aspirations and concerns to the Measurement Unit.
• Stay abreast of new measurement developments in and outside IRC; Partner with relevant technical units to assure products are fit for purpose and according to best practice standards for methods and use of data.
• Involve country programs in the delivery and iteration of existing MEAL technology products and innovation and development of new initiatives to help the IRC develop and maintain effective and relevant data collection and analysis tools.
• Position reports to: Deputy Regional Director East Africa
• Technically report to: Director Regional Team, Measurement Unit
• Position directly supervises: Regional MEAL Technology Coordinator, in partnership with the Data Product Management Lead.
• Technically supervises: Country MEAL focal points 
• Other Internal and/or external contacts: Country Directors, Deputy Directors of Programs, other Regional Measurement Advisors and Technical Advisors, Measurement Unit, Awards Management Unit, Global Partnerships and Philanthropy, Research, Evaluation and Learning team.

Job Requirements

Essential qualifications, skills and experience

• Advanced degree in relevant field such as economics, statistics, international development, public policy, or other social sciences, or relevant work experience
• Minimum seven years of progressing experience designing, implementing, and supporting MEAL frameworks and results including supporting field-based MEAL design and reporting, as well as working with major international donors on MEAL related aspects. 
• Strength in developing baseline research, logic models, data collection and analysis of data sets, mid-term evaluations, outcome evaluations, and in mentoring and teaching-by-doing other MEAL staff.
• Experience with the challenges of effective monitoring in the field, including cultural, gender, and access considerations with the aim of enhancing project learning, quality, and data-driven decision making.
• Good understanding of basic ICT principles and the logic of data collection and management systems.
• Strong computer skills, especially MS Excel, Power BI (or similar) and CommCare (or similar). Knowledge of other software used in qualitative and quantitative MEAL would be solid assets.
• Excellent communication skills, including solid writing skills and the ability to plan for and prepare strategic communications.
• Fluent in spoken and written English