MEL Assistant-Kampala

Program Summary

This program will address the needs of urban refugees and vulnerable host community members to improve their economic wellbeing and address issues, which limit the integration of refugees within host communities. The focus of the project will be on addressing the interrelated gaps that hinder effective service delivery and local integration in the target communities. The overall goal of the program will be to strengthen social cohesion and livelihoods in refugee-hosting divisions in Kampala. This will be achieved through three interrelated outcomes:  

• Refugees and host communities participate collectively toward a shared vision of sustainable peace and common development goals. Interventions will focus on building linkages between refugee leaders and local authorities, as well as fostering connections between youth, women and men in refugee and host-communities.  
• Financial Inclusion is enhanced for refugees and host communities in the divisions of Kampala, interventions will focus on building the capacity of micro-entrepreneurs to further develop and increase their income potential - improvements in understanding of legal regulations and taxation laws, access to microfinance.
• Micro entrepreneurs are supported to develop their businesses to increase income and improve food security. Interventions will focus on building technical skills for existing and future entrepreneurs, supporting product innovation in businesses, which can build ties between host and refugee communities and social impact in communities, and enabling development of urban farming both to increase access to nutritious food at lower costs and as an income stream.   

General Position Summary

The Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) assistant will work with the Mercy Corps Hilton project team as well as our local partner organizations to ensure the collection of quality MEL data for the program.  The MEL assistant will support the MEL Officer in the monitoring and data collection of the project, support assessments, and contribute to report writing. S/he will ensure that performance monitoring and results reporting tools and processes across the entire program are in place, effectively implemented and well synchronized between the Activity sites. The MEL Assistant may supervise project enumerators. The MEL assistant will be an integral member of the project team learning and reflection processes, contributing to the discussion on beneficiary feedback.

Essentials Roles and Responsibilities.

• Work closely with the program team and local partners, to ensure effective monitoring, evaluation and reporting of program activities and results.
• Coordinate reporting with local partners, specifically tracking deadlines, ensuring adherence to formats and requirements, ensuring reporting quality and accuracy, and periodic report writing, editing, and submission.
• Support the MEL officer in Compiling progress against indicators and report back to the team according to the monitoring plan.
• Support the development of community accountability and reporting mechanisms (CARM) for the project and orient project staff as well as local partners on the same.
• Perform spot checks on the team’s data collected and reports each month.
• Actively participate in household identification and verification of project participants.
• Support the MEL Officer in coordinating the baseline, mid-term evaluation and final evaluation, along with other key research activities. The assistant will for example support the supervision of enumerators during the different data collection and entry exercises.
• Support the MEL Officer in building the capacity of all relevant team members to implement program-monitoring tools, accurately enter program data into relevant databases, and enable them to develop excellent reports and other documents.
• Support the MEL Officer in building the capacity of team members through ongoing training and support on: monitoring tools, entering program data into databases, the development of reports and other documents.
• Support the MEL Officer in documenting lessons learned and success stories on the project.
• Perform any other duties as assigned.

Accountability to Beneficiaries

Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts towards accountability, specifically to our beneficiaries and to international standards guiding international relief and development work while actively engaging beneficiary communities as equal partners in the design, monitoring and evaluation of our field projects.

Organizational Learning

As part of our commitment to organizational learning and in support of our understanding that learning organizations are more effective, efficient and relevant to the communities they serve - we expect all team members to commit 5% of their time to learning activities that benefit Mercy Corps as well as themselves.

Supervisory Responsibility: N/A

Reports Directly To: MEL Officer

Works Directly with: Support teams (Finance, HR & Operations), Implementing Partners (NGOs), KCCA, RLOs and Private Sector Actors. 

Ethics and Integrity

All Mercy Corps staff are expected to behave ethically and demonstrate highest integrity in their professional and personal life. Mercy Corps has zero tolerance to any form of fraud, corruption, abuse, harassment or exploitation. Any breach of our policies or misconduct will lead to disciplinary action or may lead to termination.

Knowledge and Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in statistics, Quantitative Economics, Economics, Social Sciences or related field.
• At least 1 year’s cumulative experience in monitoring and evaluation of humanitarian or development programs or in a research related field.
• Prior experience carrying out surveys or conducting qualitative and quantitative data collection using ODK platforms.
• Knowledge of excel and at least one of the following statistical software – STATA, R, SPSS.
• Demonstrated attention to detail, ability to follow procedures, meet deadlines and work independently and cooperatively with team members.
• Fluent in both spoken and written English. Fluency in languages used by Refugees in Kampala and local host communities (French, Swahili, Arabic, Kinyarwanda, and Luganda) is preferred.
• Able to ride a motorbike safely, valid license. Required!

Success Factors

The successful MEL Assistant will take a deep personal interest in humanitarian and development assistance. S/he will be creative and flexible; contributing to developing and encouraging new and innovative solutions, but at the same time will not have any difficulty in adhering to systems and procedures. S/he will strictly follow all protocols related to safety and security, and holds self-accountable for making decisions, managing resources efficiently, achieving and role modelling Mercy Corps’ values.

Closes: 16th July 2021