Catholic Relief Services (CRS) is an international non-governmental organization supporting relief and development work in over 99 countries around the world. CRS programs assist persons on the basis of need, regardless of creed, ethnicity or nationality and works through local church and non-church partners to implement its programs

Job Summary

The Senior Project Officer (M&E) herein referred to as the M&E SPO oversees all M&E related activities in the county (Marsabit) and works closely with the Nawiri M&E Manager in developing, testing, and refining data collection tools, systems and processes for program monitoring and evaluation, in line with the required CRS and USAID BHA guidelines. The M&E SPO directly supports Systems Strengthening, Social Behavior Change, Gender Youth and Social Dynamics crosscutting sectors and supervises the county M&E Officers and Nutrition Case Management M&E Officers. The M&E SPO works closely with consortium partner and county government M&E staff to ensure data is collected in a timely and accurate manner and entered to the data management platform, so it reflects on the Nawiri dashboards accurately and in a timely manner. As part of local capacity building, the incumbent will work closely with the Caritas and county M&E departments to strengthen the county M&E function. As part of the overall CP MEAL unit, the SPO contributes to learning with other CP MEAL staff during Pause & Reflect (P&R) sessions , catch-up meetings, and other learning events.

Roles and Key Responsibilities

• Oversees the M&E function in the county where they are based and works closely with the ICT4D team, Caritas, county government M&E department and other partner M&E staff in the county.
• Participate in the design, management, and strengthening of Nawiri M&E systems, ensuring cross-learning in M&E across consortium teams and CRS led-Nawiri partners.
• Participate in activity-level monitoring and verification of results in the field, including ensuring that data is timely, complete, accurate, and consistent across dashboards, databases, and reports.
• Work with the county government teams in the roll-out and implementation of the electronic County Integrated Monitoring and Evaluation System (eCIMES) which provides an integrated structure and process for counties to engage stakeholders, plan, govern, manage, and operate independently and in sync with one another.
• Conduct routine data quality checks with the M&E manager and internal annual data quality assessments and participate in external data quality assessments led by USAID BHA, including supporting the resolution of data quality issues within stipulated timelines.
• Participate in the implementation of internal surveys, namely but not limited to, participant based annual surveys (PaBS), post distribution monitoring (PDMs) amongst others.
• Recurrent Resilience Analysis (RRA),
• Liaise and collaborate regularly with Nawiri’s Accountability and Learning (A&L) SPO and POs, sharing project data and emerging trends, to help optimize project team use of M&E data and information for ongoing learning, adaptations and evidence-based decision making. Actively support both county M&E POs on the same, as fitting/ requested. E.g., through periodic P&R sessions (all sectors and levels), quarterly reflection and planning workshops, plus various learning, and dissemination events.
• Working with the county head of office and sector staff, contribute to the quarterly indicators monitoring report and share results of projects’ quality performance based on monitoring data findings.
• Help in troubleshooting ICT4D issues in the field and work with sector teams and ICT4D teams to formulate solutions and ensure seamless data collection.
• Coordinate management and use of ICT4D devices by CRS and partner staff in the implementation areas in line with CRS, USAID-BHA and industry standards.

Requirements

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities 

• Analysis and problem-solving skills with ability to make sound judgment.
• Good relationship management skills and the ability to work closely, influence and get buy-in from staff and local partners.
• Proactive, results-oriented, and service-oriented.
• Attention to details, accuracy, and timeliness in executing assigned responsibilities.
• Presentation, facilitation, training, and mentoring skills.
• Proven team management experience, in complex programming contexts
• Strong active listening and communication skills using both formal and informal approaches.
• High integrity with ability to manage sensitive information professionally while maintaining confidentiality.
• Demonstrated commitment to respect, equity, diversity, and inclusion.

Required Languages: Excellent verbal and written communication in English, with ability to write reports.

Travel: Must be willing and able to travel to the field up to 60% in the assigned county and sister county as needed.

Supervisory Responsibilities: Project Officers – M&E (Marsabit), Project Officer – M&E (Nutrition Case Management). Possible supervision of external consultants and enumerators.

Key Working Relationships 

Internal: M&E Technical Lead, M&E Manager, A&L Officers, Project staff, Information and Communications Technology (ICT) staff.

External: Implementing partner M&E officers and consortium partner staff, peer agencies’ staff, and community members.

QUALIFICATIONS

Basic Qualifications

• Master’s degree in International Development, Nutrition, Public Health, Demography, Social Sciences, Statistics, Monitoring and Evaluation, or other MEAL related field is required. Additional experience may substitute for some education.
• Minimum of four years’ NGO experience in designing and managing monitoring and evaluation systems for moderately complex projects, funded by USAID, preferably in food security and nutrition related projects.
• Knowledge of USAID MEL technical principles, guidance, and concepts and experience collecting USAID indicators a distinct advantage
• Experience and skills in partner relationship management, staff supervision, participatory action planning and community engagement is a plus.
• Experience using MS Windows and MS Office packages (Excel, Word, PowerPoint), Web Conferencing Applications, information management systems, knowledge-sharing networks.
• Experience in using data analysis software is preferred (SPSS, STATA, EpiInfo, Nutrisurvey).
• Experience in using mobile-data collection and management software (e.g. ODK, Commcare,I-form builder, Kobo)
• Demonstrated experience facilitating groups, meetings, and events (both online and in-person), resulting in collaborative decision-making with agreed-upon action items/ priorities.
• Experience working in Marsabit or Isiolo and/ or with county governments, with the ability to speak at least one local language, will be an added advantage.