Founded in 2006, One Acre Fund supplies 1 million smallholder farmers with the agricultural services they need to make their farms vastly more productive. Our 8,000+ team is drawn from diverse backgrounds and professions. With operations across six core countries in Africa, we make farmers more prosperous by providing quality farm supplies on credit, delivered within walking distance of farmers’ homes, and agricultural training to improve harvests. On average, the farmers we serve harvest 50 percent more food after working with One Acre Fund.
About the Role
As a growing organization, we are constantly improving our internal operational processes. The Monitoring and Evaluation (MEL) Project Specialist (PS) will be responsible for monitoring and evaluation of projects of core programs. Throughout the year, the MEL department executes 3-4 large-scale survey projects, and usually 4 or more smaller (ad-hoc) studies.
You will monitor performance indicators to report progress for specific projects within the programs. You will also create and run surveys, analyze collected across different projects within the department and the entire organization. You will report progress to the MEL Lead promptly.
- Manage the MEL team: You will manage both the MEL Field and office-based teams to achievement of MEL objectives while maintaining data quality and excellent research standards. More specifically, you will:
- Coordinate training, and facilitate meetings and review sessions.
- Update and roll-out quality control tools .
- Ensure the MEL team has all the necessary materials for their assignment.
- Visit the field to ensure correct execution of surveys, respectful interaction with clients and communicate challenges to your manager.
- Report the assessment of performance management data from the field upwards to leadership, laterally and downward to field staff.
- Research Design: You will help identify research objectives and drafting of survey tools to collect information for our annual impact analysis and other strategic queries. More specifically, you will support the following:
- Design research tools such as surveys and write analysis plans.
- Oversee data collection though qualitative and quantitative methods.
- Calculate sample sizes that are representative of the population while taking into account the needs of the program and capacity of the team.
- Data Quality: You will oversee data collection and quality management. More specifically, you will:
- Codebook creation, data cleaning and analysis in Stata.
- Identify strengths and weaknesses in data collection processes , suggest and implement improvements for better data quality.
- Report on data quality, survey progress ,manage general survey collection and field follow up.
- Analysis: You will conduct analysis of the collected data using the Stata or R softwares. You will produce and present findings of simple statistical analysis. More specifically, you will:
- Develop and follow the set-out analysis plan to determine outcomes of research questions.
- Communicate findings in presentation and report format.
- Reporting: You will report to the MEL manager. You are expected to report on your work in a clear and professional fashion. More specifically, you are expected to:
- Report to your manager to provide updates work assignments, report on required Indicators, discuss performance, and discuss other general work issues.
- Contribute to content development of all aspects of MEL Field Team operations including training development, survey design and results presentations.
- System development: You are expected to lead MEL system and process development, create a framework, and draft procedures for MEL project activities.
- Work experiences. Examples include a demanding professional work experience, or successful entrepreneurial experience.
- Two years minimum experience working on data collection and analysis (experience in a rural setting is could be an added advantage).
- Understanding of best practices in experimental design concepts.
- Demonstrated leadership experience and enthusiasm for learning.
- Graduate of a 4-year university program and a possible graduate degree in statistics, economics, population studies, development studies, monitoring and evaluation, project management or any other relevant field of study.
- Experience teaching/mentor others to support their professional development.
- Team building and collaboration experience with colleagues from diverse backgrounds.
- Languages: English (required), Nupe or Gwari will be an added advantage
- Role specific skills:
- Fluency in Microsoft Excel, specifically:Ability to design basic data-entry spreadsheets in “database format” with useful data validation, you will extract summary statistics using Pivot Tables and Excel Formulae, conduct analysis using statistics, logic, and validation formulae.
- Practical experience creating survey tools for field data collection and managing a field-based research team.
- Knowledge of electronic data collection platforms (e.g. ODK, SurveyCTO, CommCare).
- Preferably experience with statistical software packages such as Stata, or R.
