New Jobs At Creative Associates

Creative Associates International is a dynamic, fast-growing global development firm that specializes in education, economic growth, democratic institutions and stabilization. Based in Washington, D.C., Creative has a field presence in more than 25 countries with a strong client portfolio that includes the U.S. Agency for International Development and the State Department, among others. Since its founding in 1977, Creative has earned a solid reputation among its clients and is well-regarded by competitors and partners alike.

Job Description

Job Title: Monitoring and Evaluation Officer

Program Description:

Creative Associates International (Creative Associates) is preparing for the implementation of USAID/West Africa’s program Partnerships for Peace (P4P).  The five-year program will partner and consult with stakeholders at the regional, national, and sub-national level across several West African countries, to develop a shared foundational understanding of counter violent extremism (CVE) in the region. The findings will improve institutional capacity of organizations and governments to implement more effective and coordinated CVE approaches.

To lead and support the implementation of Partnerships for Peace, Creative Associates seeks to engage a highly qualified and motivated team.  All positions are full time and require a willingness to travel. Creative Associates is especially interested in receiving submissions from women applicants.  Only qualified candidates who follow the application instructions will be contacted.

Position Summary:

The Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Officer designs, develops and implements a monitoring and evaluation system within assigned area. S/he gathers, analyzes, and processes complex information related to all aspects of program activity implementation. The M&E Officer designs, develops, and employs a range of approaches and tools and engages and supervises external parties to carry out monitoring and evaluation of the PAIC program and its activities.  S/he is charged with cultivating a culture of learning and continual improvement across the program.  This position will be based in the Accra office, with program activities expected to be carried out throughout the West Africa region.  Extensive and frequent travel throughout the region is required.

Reporting & Supervision:

The position will report to the Deputy Chief of Party.

Primary Responsibilities:

Primary responsibilities include but are not limited to the following:

• Participate in regular program team meetings to discuss current country context issues, present and discuss activity ideas, and report on the progress of activity implementation.
• Support the COP and USAID/WA to develop the program’s monitoring, evaluation, and learning strategy and define methodologies and criteria for activity evaluations that are consistent with the strategy.
• Develop agile, user friendly systems for both monitoring, evaluation, and learning that can feed into the USAID database’s capability to track monitoring, evaluation, and learning data for individual activities and clusters of activities.
• Identify appropriate evaluation methodologies to support the P4P program which is designed to implement a large volume of small and short-term activities.
• Carrying out direct evaluations of activities and clusters of activities and direct and supervise third-parties and external groups to support monitoring, evaluation, and learning activities.
• Attending periodic P4P team meetings to discuss current country context issues and understand activities being considered for development and approval, under implementation, and being closed and which may be appropriate for case-study evaluations and/or cluster analysis.
• Identify a pool of individual evaluators and external groups which can be called upon and engaged to support monitoring and evaluation of on-going and concluded activities.
• Coordinate weekly with M&E team to determine priority tasks. Ensure the M&E team is aware of and up to date on all M&E tasks and reports.
• Conduct site visits during the project implementation phase for each grant in assigned areas.
• Produce a “routine monitoring report” (RMR) according to an approved template for each site visit prior to the indicator verification visit.
• Share observations from monitoring visits with Chief of Party, and USAID/WA staff especially when findings raise areas of concern or point to unintended negative outcomes.
• Serve as primary point of contact for team members when developing impact assessments, success stories and weekly reports.
• Organize and supervise monitoring, evaluation, and learning activities and train all P4P staff to monitor, evaluate, and learn from activities.
• Synthesize and write reports and make presentations on the results of monitoring of, evaluation of, and learning on P4P activities.
• Lead and direct monitoring, evaluation, and learning activities including reporting on program outputs, relevance of activities to the P4P program strategy and objectives, and targets and timeframe of specific activities and/or clusters of activities.
• Work closely with other P4P team members to generate ideas and draft success stories and case studies about program activities and projects.
• Synthesize information from the team to draft weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, and/or annual reports. Work with P4P team members and short term technical assistance (STTA) consultants to facilitate the timely production of monitoring, evaluation, learning, and other analytical reports.
• Develop ‘3-month-after’ and/or cluster evaluations and beneficiary satisfaction studies; document the lessons learned from the activity development and implementation process.
• Synthesize, analyze and effectively disseminate findings to various stakeholders.
• Serve as primary point of contact for when additional monitoring and evaluation information is needed to close grants.
• Undertake comprehensive analysis of projects based on site visits and present findings to Chief of Party and USAID/WA staff in a concise and professional manner.
• Participate in professional training and development activities, as necessary.
• Represent the program positively and professionally in both internal and external environments.
• Responsible for supporting updates to activity notes in the Small Grants Database and capturing observations and information from the field on the outputs, outcomes, and impact of activities.
• Play an active role in activity monitoring and evaluation and contribute to the feedback loop, which uses information gathered about ongoing activity implementation to inform development of new activities.
• Any other duties and tasks as needed and assigned.

Required Skills & Qualifications:

• Four-year university degree in international development, journalism, social science, economics, or related field is required.
• Minimum of five (5) years’ professional work experience.
• Three (3) years’ experience in field monitoring, evaluation design, empirical and statistical analysis, management information systems and/or information management design is required.
• Understanding of how SMS, social media, and mobile technology can be used to generate data and how data from these platforms can be collected, aggregated, and analyzed.
• Excellent analytical skills are required.
• Ability to foster and maintain a spirit of unity, teamwork, cooperation, and learning.
• Sensitivity in working with multiple cultures and beliefs, and to gender equity.
• Capacity to understand and analyze national, regional, and local politics, and the creativity and analytical capacity to design monitoring activities that relate to the security transition underway in West Africa.
• Proficient at using Microsoft office software: MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, etc.  Prior experience using MS Access and web-based database applications preferred.
• Prior experience with USAID or US Government funded projects is highly desirable.
• Attention to detail and ability to carry out assigned tasks through completion is required.
• Experience of working in a conflict environment is a plus.
• Fluency in speaking, writing and reading English.
• High proficiency in French is required.
• Fluency in one or more of the local languages used in West Africa is also preferred.
• Ability to work under pressure and efficiently handle multiple tasks.
• Ability to work both independently and as a part of a team.

Local and regional candidates strongly encouraged to apply.

Only finalists will be contacted.  No phone calls, please.

• Equal Opportunity Employer/Protected Veterans/Individuals with Disabilities.
• Please view Equal Employment Opportunity Posters provided by OFCCP .
• The contractor will not discharge or in any other manner discriminate against employees or applicants because they have inquired about, discussed, or disclosed their own pay or the pay of another employee or applicant. However, employees who have access to the compensation information of other employees or applicants as a part of their essential job functions cannot disclose the pay of other employees or applicants to individuals who do not otherwise have access to compensation information, unless the disclosure is (a) in response to a formal complaint or charge, (b) in furtherance of an investigation, proceeding, hearing, or action, including an investigation conducted by the employer, or (c) consistent with the contractor’s legal duty to furnish information.