Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) Specialist

Location: Jashore or Barishal, Bangladesh

LOE: Full-time

Start Date: late March/early April 2025

Annual Salary: Estimated at BDT 2,553,143, commensurate with experience and qualifications

Job Description

DevWorks International (DevWorks) is a U.S. based NGO that was founded in 2011. DevWorks supports people and institutions to enhance service delivery, strengthen local capacity, and enable equitable economic growth and prosperity. We deliver inclusive, market-based solutions across several technical areas: agriculture and food security, water security, sanitation and hygiene (WSSH), private sector development, governance, and climate and resilience.

DevWorks is recruiting for MEL Specialists for the Feed the Future Bangladesh Sustainable Aquaculture Activity. The Activity aims to enhance inclusive and sustainable aquaculture sector growth in Bangladesh through a market system approach to improve rural household income and nutrition.

The MEL Specialists will report to the MEL/CLA Director and carry out district and community-level data collection for all Activity indicators. They will provide ongoing support and capacity building to grantees and district authorities in terms of their own data collection processes. One MEL Specialist will be based in the Jashore office and the other will be based in the Barishal office, each with frequent travel to target locations.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

1. Implementation of MEL Systems:

• Implement Activity monitoring, evaluation, and learning systems, including Activity performance indicators, baselines, and annual targets, and ensuring compliance with USAID requirements.
• In collaboration with the MEL/CLA Director, review and update the Activity’s MEL plan regularly.
• Identify critical control points and preventive measures; suggest ways in which existing procedures may be streamlined or revised to enhance the quality and consistency of the Activity MEL System.

2. Data Collection and Analysis:

• Assist in the development of data collection tools and methodologies that cover both qualitative and quantitative progress tracking systems, quality and impact, ensuring data integrity and consistency across the Activity.
• Oversee data collection, data entry, analysis, and reporting of performance indicators by other partners, grantees, and relevant stakeholders.
• Support the analysis of project monitoring data to draw lessons learned and make recommendations for improvements.
• Work closely with the staff and the grantees on developing case studies, blogs, lessons learned documents, as well as relevant ‘pause and reflect’ activities which support shifts in focus and attention.
• Assist in developing data quality standards and implementing standard operating procedures to mitigate risk. Regularly review the internal Data Quality Assessments (iDQA) to assess the validity, reliability, integrity, and timeliness of reported data and, where necessary, to adjust as per the data audit findings.

3. Reporting:

• Ensure accurate completion and reporting of Activity milestones.
• Contribute to monthly, quarterly, and annual reports on the progress of implementation.
• Contribute to other Activity reports such as annual work plans.
• Produce performance monitoring reports and other summaries as requested by the Chief of Party and USAID.

4. Knowledge Management & CLA:

• Play an assisting and coordination role to functionalize effectively the Knowledge Management and CLA plan in collaboration with the Activity team, actively sharing information and learning to enable the team to ensure effective learning culture across the organization.
• Assist in capturing and documentation of field-level learning and best practices for enhancing the Activity adaptive management in collaboration with market actors and other stakeholders.
• Contribute to the communication of Activity results in collaboration with technical staff.

5. Capacity Building:

• Support Activity staff, partners, and grantees in building capacity on MEL tools and standards, data collection and management, data analysis, and ensuring data quality, reporting, and documentation as required for Activity and USAID.

6. MEL Support for Private Sector Actors

• Collaborate with private sector partners to monitor and evaluate their contributions to the activity’s objectives.
• Assist in developing the theory of change to ensure private sector activities are aligned with Activity objectives during the co-creation phase.
• Support private sector partners in implementing their monitoring systems to track performance related to product quality, market access, and adoption of sustainable practices.
• Assist the MEL/CLA Director in conducting quick and need-based market system assessments, tracking the progress of private sector partnerships, and evaluating market-driven changes within the aquaculture sector.
• Coordinate with private sector partners to ensure that the data collected through their activities are integrated into the Activity’s monitoring and evaluation system for more informed decision-making and continuous improvement of interventions.
• Facilitate workshops or sessions with private sector stakeholders to interpret MEL data, ensuring they understand the overall market scenario and positioning, their contribution to the activity’s goals and help refine future strategies.

Qualifications:

• A minimum of 5 years of working experience in Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning especially in the market system development programs.
• Demonstrated experience in statistical analysis, including experience with computer-based statistical packages (STATA, SPSS, R, etc.), in addition to standard Microsoft packages (Access, Excel, Word, PowerPoint).
• Experience on a USAID-funded project is preferred.
• A bachelor’s degree in statistics, research and evaluation, social sciences, economics, international development, or a related field.
• Ability to work well with others and independently.
• Attention to detail and precision.
• Strong oral and written communication skills.
• Fluency in English required.