Position: Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) Advisor-Ethiopia Program

Job Grade: III

Reports to: Country Manager, Ethiopia Program

Responsible for : None

Duty Station: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Frequency of Travel: frequent travel to the field in Ethiopia and may be required to travel outside Ethiopia. 

Contract Period: Till 31^st December 2021 with the possibility of extension depending on availability of    funding 

Working relations

•  Country Manager, Program teams and other programs including Horn of Africa Program and Country programs.
• Finance & Admin team 
• Project(s)Implementing partner(s)
• Other Collaborative Learning team members: Advisors Research; Communications; and Program Development/Resource Mobilization.  

Position Summary

LPI’s Strategic Priority 3 (‘Knowledge and Learning to enhance Conflict Transformation Practice’) is created to ensure that LPI proactively generates and applies knowledge across its programs for enhanced quality of its peacebuilding work through ongoing reflective practice and applied learning. The MEL Advisor serves several functions, including enhancing and supporting MEL processes, generating new understanding on selected thematic learning agendas, documenting methods and models from LPI and partners, build a new MEL system as well as help track existing projects namely, Peaceful University Communities, Conflict Sensitive and Land Administration, Listening Tour and nonviolent approaches to peacebuilding. The MEL Advisor will support program design and development and bolstering internal and external communication efforts.  

 Background

The Life & Peace Institute (LPI) is an international center that supports and promotes nonviolent approaches to conflict transformation through a combination of research and action that entails the strengthening of existing local capacities and enhancing the preconditions for building peace. LPI envisions a world where peace, justice and non-violent relations prevail through people’s active work and commitment. LPI has been active in making contributions towards achieving this goal for over 35 years. LPI works with a variety of local and regional partners mainly in the Horn of Africa region, including Somalia, Sudan, Kenya, and Ethiopia, as well as in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In 2018 LPI expanded to develop new engagements in Sweden.

 Key responsibilities:

• Support the new program design process for Ethiopia program 2022-2025, in close collaboration with program designer and the Ethiopia program team. He/she will lead the development of MEL system for the program.
• Manages and continuously improves the project-based monitoring, evaluation and learning plan and system – including being the focal point for outcome harvesting system of the projects.
•  Provides technical advice, guidance and quality assurance of program and project planning processes, including theories of change, results frameworks and indicators.
•  Facilitates the development/revisions of annual performance monitoring plans in participatory ways with staff and partners.
• Revise and modify MEL plan for ongoing projects—Peaceful University Communities, Conflict Sensitive and Land Administration, Listening Tour and nonviolent approaches to peacebuilding
•  Supports the implementation and results monitoring processes in projects and supports LPI’s staff and staff of partner organization in implementing effective monitoring processes.
•  Provides capacity strengthening role for program team and partner organizations in Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning, and provides mentoring support, as needed. This includes identifying, creating, organizing and delivering learning opportunities for self and others as well as exchanges between LPI staff, implementing organizations and partners with different LPI offices as necessary.
•  Facilitates regular learning sessions and supports staff in the documentation of lessons learnt and knowledge management processes.
•  Leads the development of tools, formats and instruments for data gathering, analysis and reporting contextualized to the specific projects.
•  Leads and documents both qualitative and quantitative data analysis processes for data collected, drafts baseline, monitoring and programmatic reports.
•  Contributes to results-based reporting per donor standards and for diverse donors as needed, in compliance with all requirements of donors and LPI standards for monitoring and reporting.
• Supporting utilization-focused, strategic dissemination of LPI learning products, including research and evaluations.
•  Contributes to and strives for programmatic excellence, effectiveness and learning in LPI’s conflict transformation work in the Horn of Africa.
•  Adheres to and models LPI’s values and key program principles that includes gender mainstreaming, conflict sensitivity and do no harm programming.
• Support teams to engage external expertise in evaluations of LPI initiatives, and lead collaborative development and use of evaluation methods suited to the Institute’s work (youth-led, participatory evaluation, outcome harvesting, developmental evaluation, etc.) 
• Ensure high quality, evidenced-based learning and result-focused reports to be shared with donors, policy actors, partners, peer organizations, and community stakeholders.   
• Support collaboratively identifying and advancing key thematic learning agendas through reflective practice and high quality, participatory research and analysis; and help organize learning events across the LPI program teams. 
•  Undertakes other tasks as assigned by his/her supervisor

Job Requirements

• Master’s degree in the field of peace and conflict studies, political science, or other relevant field. 
• At least 5 years’ experience of working with peacebuilding/conflict transformation theory and practice. 
• Demonstrated skills in MEL and program and project design, particularly for peacebuilding and conflict transformation initiatives.  
• High emotional intelligence and strong interpersonal skills, with an orientation towards supporting others in their work with humility and a collaborative spirit in culturally diverse settings. 
• Strong analytical skills (conflict analysis) and solid knowledge of research methods (quantitative and qualitative), including participatory research. 
• Excellent computer literacy in Office 365 suite, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and SharePoint, as well as data analysis software (SPSS, NVivo, etc.) 
• Proven experience in process facilitation and adult learning.  
• Excellent writing skills, including for donor proposals and reports.  
• Written and oral fluency in English essential, working knowledge of French, Kiswahili, Amharic or Arabic are considered a strong asset. 
• Collaborative, committed, detail-oriented, and able to handle a variety of work tasks under tight deadlines.   
• Willingness and ability to travel as required.  

How to Apply

Interested and qualified applicants are invited to apply for the position by sending their updated CV( max.2 pages) and Cover letter( 1 page) via www.ethiojobs.net  

 Deadline for applications: 14th May 2021

Only shortlisted applicants will be contacted. We thank you for your interest and look forward to receiving your application.