Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) Director: USAID/India Coastal and Marine Conservation Activity (CMCA)

Winrock International is a nonprofit organization that works with people in the United States and around the world to empower the disadvantaged, increase economic opportunity, and sustain natural resources. By linking local individuals and communities with new ideas and technology, Winrock is increasing long-term productivity, equity, and responsible resource management to benefit the poor and disadvantaged of the world.

OVERVIEW:

Winrock International works with people around the world to increase economic opportunity, sustain natural resources, and protect the environment. Winrock is seeking a MEL Director to contribute to a dynamic team in implementing an anticipated five-year, $10-25M USAID-funded project in India to improve health of coastal and marine ecosystems and the wellbeing of communities that depend on them.

POSITION SUMMARY:

The MEL Director will oversee the project’s monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) activities, including developing and implementing the MEL framework, performance indicators, MEL tools, and data quality assurance processes to ensure the timeliness and validity of data entry and analysis and its effective use for decision making and project learning throughout implementation. The MEL Director will lead Collaborating, Learning, and Adapting (CLA) activities, including leveraging data for annual pause-and-reflect sessions and adaptive management; oversee design and implementation or baseline, endline, and other research using international best practices; and supervise project MEL staff.

The position is contingent upon receipt of donor funding.

ESSENTIAL RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Develop and implement the project’s monitoring and evaluation plan; design monitoring and evaluation tools and processes, including the baseline assessment framework.
• Ensure timely collection, verification and analysis of data on all project indicators and their timely delivery for quarterly and other required reports to USAID and other agencies, as appropriate.
• Monitor progress toward project results.
• Supervise timely and accurate reporting of quantitative and qualitative data by implementing partners, in cooperation with project staff.
• Validate data from project partners and staff, including through field monitoring visits.
• Cooperate closely with Winrock home office to consolidate accurate and descriptive reporting of project results, including activities, outputs and results of implementing partners.
• Prepare visualization (e.g. tables and charts) of data.
• Oversee internal research and evaluation efforts of the project, from the design stage to sharing findings as well as preparing for external evaluations.
• Develop capacity of implementing partners to institute appropriate M&E systems within their organizations.
• Submit data to USAID’s reporting system (DIS) on a timely basis, and coordinate with Home Office MEL staff to develop and implement a data management plan to submit selected project datasets to USAID’s Development Data Library (DDL).
• Foster a results-oriented and learning culture to ensure that M&E data and learning are used by the project team to improve performance.
• Contribute to Collaborating, Learning and Adapting (CLA) integration throughout project implementation.
• Lead data quality controls and verification procedures.
• Ensure collection of data related to gender and social inclusion (GESI) in collaboration with the GESI Lead.
• Co-facilitate Pause and Reflect sessions to capture learning, introduce improvements, and achieve meaningful results.
• Design/update data collection instruments, schedules, analysis methods and applied technologies.
• Participate in Winrock’s M&E Community of Practice.
• Other duties as assigned.

QUALIFICATIONS AND BACKGROUND:

• Education:

  • Academic degree in statistics, public health, public policy, economics or a related field, and/or specialized training/certification in monitoring and evaluation.
  • Master’s degree preferred.

• Experience:    

  • Minimum of 8 years’ experience managing and implementing complex MEL systems for international development projects, preferably with USAID.
  • Experience managing large monitoring and evaluation (M&E) databases, conducting timely data analysis, and developing reports.
  • SQL database and MS Access experience preferred.
  • Experience in both quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis.
  • Experience with capacity strengthening in MEL required.
  • Experience with mobile data collection methodologies strongly preferred.
  • Familiarity with USAID M&E requirements strongly preferred. 
  • Proven record of designing and implementing data collection tools. 
  • Familiarity with emerging trends in MEL in the context of India, preferably within the coastal and marine conservation sectors, and experience with Do No Harm principles.

• Skills/Knowledge:      

  • Strong training design, delivery, and facilitation skills.
  • Strong personnel management skills.
  • Proven data analysis (e.g., Excel, Stata, SPSS, etc.), data management, and data visualization (e.g., PowerBI, etc.) skills are required.
  • Excellent written and oral communication skill in English required.

Winrock is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to providing equal employment opportunity for all people and value diversity and inclusiveness. Winrock recruits, employs, trains, promotes and compensates regardless of race, color, religion, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, age, physical or mental disability, medical condition, family care status, or any other basis protected by law.

*At Winrock we have a clear mission: Empower the disadvantaged, increase economic opportunity and sustain natural resources through unwavering dedication to accountability, equity, innovation, integrity and transformation. *

Winrock knows that its success comes from the hard work and steadfast dedication of its diverse workforce. Winrock remains committed to maintaining diversity, inclusion and equity across the entire organization.