Senior Associate

Description:

We are seeking to hire a Senior associate for the MEL team to support the implementation of donor funded development projects in India. The thematic areas of work are around agricultural value chain development, entrepreneurship development, skill development and improving livelihoods.

Position description - Senior Associate, MEL:

The senior associate will lead the monitoring, evaluation, and learning component for TechnoServe projects under the guidance of a supervisor. This will involve collaborating with TechnoServe teams to create robust project MIS, centralized databases, and design and implement assessments, including evaluation studies to examine movement along project impact pathways, to inform and drive strategic decision making

Responsibilities:

Design MEL approaches and lead associated planning:

• Identify and implement the appropriate information-gathering approach to inform knowledge gaps that are relevant for project decision-making.
• Develop and execute plans for data capture and reporting against project performance indicators and emergent project information needs Manage and update the repository of documentation associated with the projects data systems
• Ensure alignment between the MEL team and stakeholders on program updates and action items, through regular and clear engagement

Drive assessments and evaluations:

• Scope and outline research questions and data requirements, set up research frameworks, and planning for implementation studies
• Design baseline/annual/endline evaluations that track program results, and associated logistics
• Set up mechanisms for data quality checks, and monitoring frameworks to track and review survey data

Analyse, and consolidate findings from evaluations to present insights to stakeholders that inform decision making and progress towards targets

Support the design, and deployment of MIS:

• Support the development of frameworks and systems that track projects key indicators, along with associated data quality and cleaning mechanisms
• Provide technical assistance and training to program team staff in performing data collection, analysis, review, and use
• Design and lead deployment of dashboards that summarize the programs progress towards its key indicators
• Review and provide feedback for improvement on monthly/quarterly/annual monitoring reports

Skills and competencies:

• Demonstrated knowledge on understanding, developing, and using standard MEL frameworks such as theory of change, logical framework, and results framework.
• Ability to engage with and explain evaluation approaches (familiarity with and ability to explain as well as apply the OECD-DAC evaluation criteria is an advantage).
• Experience developing, programming, pre-testing, and refining rigorous survey instruments and pre analysis plans based on these frameworks.

Excellent analytical skills and ability to work with data, manage large data sets, and undertake analysis (including multivariate analysis) using applications such as Stata, R, or Python, as well as use or learn how to use various platforms to create visualisations and infographics to present data-driven findings.

• Ability to interpret and explain insights from data analyses to non MEL stakeholders at a high level (example: evaluation designs, sampling approaches, outcomes of intervention and policy implications).
• Incumbent should have demonstrable experience in field work, working with stakeholders on-ground in implementing quantitative as well as qualitative research.
• Excellent communication skills (oral, listening, and written)
• Demonstrated ability to work as an effective team member, and collaborate with multiple teams.
• Proficiency in the Google workspace as well as the MS Office suite.

Qualification and experience:

• Masters or equivalent degree in economics, statistics, public policy, development studies, management, or a related field that is applicable to evaluation and data science work from a reputed University.

3+ years of experience in social sciences research, data analytics, or consulting