Job Description
Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Lead - FCDO Investments in Forests and Sustainable Land-Use in the Congo Basin
About Palladium:
Palladium is a global company working to design, develop and deliver positive impact on the lives and livelihoods of people around the globe; broaden access to health, water, power, and infrastructure; build enduring, sustainable, and transformative institutions and market systems to address global challenges; and conserve the natural world. We operate in over 90 countries and have a workforce of 4,000 talented, motivated, and diverse staff of all religions, races, languages, and gender identities.
This Proposal Opportunity:
Palladium is seeking a Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) lead for an upcoming FCDO funded programme in DRC, Republic of Congo, Cameroon and Gabon. The Investments in Forests and Sustainable Land-use (IFSLU) programme, Component 3, aims to support development of the capacity and market systems required to enable rural communities and national economies to benefit from a sustainable forest and land-use economy.
The IFSLU 2 Component 3 MEL Lead is responsible for the monitoring, evaluation and learning of the IFSLU2 component 3 programme from inception through to project close. The MEL Lead will be core to the adaptive management of the programme, setting up a framework that provides active lesson learning to quickly identify what works, what doesn’t work, and what needs adjusting. The MEL Lead will also need to consider how the range of stakeholders that the programme needs to engage with, ranging from farmers’ associations to mature companies, can be capacitated to collect and contribute data into a programme-wide MEL framework. This will require the MEL Lead to also bring associated skillsets around training and capacity building. The ideal candidate will bring an understanding of the dynamics of community and smallholder forestry, forest enterprise development and market systems development in forest-commodity value chains, alongside technical MEL knowledge.
The position will preferably be based in either DRC or Cameroon, but candidates outside of the UK are also welcome to apply. There will be the possibility of some international travel to priority countries.
Primary Roles and Responsibilities:
MEL, Strategy Development, Technical Expertise and Implementation
- Work collaboratively with BHC team, FCDO UK, the Palladium core team to implement an adaptive strategy for IFSLU-delivery drawing on the various types of Palladium expertise and technical assistance available
with the support of Palladium experts, design the MEL strategy of the IFSLU programme including the ToC, logframe and KPIs
- Design a robust framework for the communication and reporting between the IFSLU team and the Independent MEL evaluator
- Drive and be ultimately responsible for the annual testing of outcomes against the programme logframe, ToC and Key Performance Indictors (KPIs)
- Drive and be ultimately responsible for the quarterly and annual evidence gathering of monitoring, evaluation and learning across the IFSLU component 3 programme
Programme Management
- Be responsible for flowing down monitoring and reporting excellence to IFSLU grantees via the country teams. Including the coaching and training of in-country teams to deliver MEL successfully
- Provide a key support function to in-country teams for all MEL issues and bottlenecks
- Oversee timely monitoring and reporting of grantees in-country
- Manage a team of in-country MEL positions, which may grow depending on the pipeline of projects and activities throughout the lifetime of the programme
Stakeholder Relationships
- Maintain a strong working relationship with the client, providing insight into the delivery details of the programme in an open and transparent manger and highlight key improvements and downfalls to programme delivery
- Maintain an excellent working relationship with FCDO staff, the broader IFLSU ecosystem, grantees and key actors in the space
Programme Reporting
- Overall be responsible for the successful reporting delivery of quarterly and annual client MEL reporting, evidenced against milestones
- Be the centralised and main point of contact for all country teams’ MEL reporting, evidenced against milestones. Be responsible for the coaching and training of in-country staff to improve in-country autonomy
- Oversee country and project specific risk management, working with all parties, ensuring any issues identified result in quick mitigation strategies and/or are escalated as required
- Contribute to programme governance and decision-making, both in-country and centrally, as required
Essential Criteria:
- Strong technical understanding of monitoring, evaluation and learning techniques as well as theory. A proven track record of log frame, ToC and overall international development strategy development. Additionally, a history of applying MEL techniques to new sectors and context
- A technical understanding and knowledge of forests and sustainable land-use, and market systems developing. Additionally, an understanding of several interrelated sub-themes including but not limited to
- Community forestry, forest governance, forest commodity supply chains, forest livelihoods, rural development, indigenous communities, forest carbon, climate finance, payments for ecosystem services, biodiversity, REDD+, policy and regulatory environments, nature-based solutions, political economy analysis, conflict
Programme management skills, with a track record of managing a team, leadership and supporting professional growth of an internationally based team
- Strong reporting skills with proven ability to engage with and manage donor client formal reporting and ad-hoc requests
- Demonstrated ability to build networks and communicate effectively with a wide range of stakeholders at different levels of seniority
- Knowledge and understanding of the local contexts in the four priority countries, including socio-economic context and development challenges and priorities
- Excellent organizational, inter-personal administration and communication skills
- An ability to see both the big (strategic) picture, identifying opportunities for innovation and value addition for IFSLU, as well as keeping alert to project delivery risks
Desirable Criteria:
- Professional fluency in English and French, both written and spoken. Understanding of languages relevant to the priority countries a bonus but not essential
- A high degree of personal resilience, flexibility and ability to adapt to changing circumstances
- Commitment to neutrality in all dealings with stakeholders, including political stakeholders, to build trusted relationships and ensure maximum effectiveness of the programme
This is an anticipated project, and all positions are contingent upon award from FCDO.
Equity, Diversity & Inclusion - Palladium is committed to embedding equity, diversity, and inclusion into everything we do. We welcome applications from all sections of society and actively encourage diversity to drive innovation, creativity, success and good practice. We positively welcome and seek to ensure we achieve diversity in our workforce; and that all job applicants and employees receive equal and fair treatment regardless of their background or personal characteristics. These include: (but are not limited to) socio-economic background, age, race, gender identity and expression, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, nationality, veteran, marital or Indigenous status.
Should you require any adjustments or accommodations to be made due to a disability or you are a neurodivergent individual or for any other circumstance, please email our team at accessibility@thepalladiumgroup.com and we will be in touch to discuss.
Safeguarding - We define Safeguarding as “the preventative action taken by Palladium to protect our people, clients and the communities we work with from harm”. We are committed to ensuring that all children and adults who come into contact with Palladium are treated with respect and are free from abuse. All successful candidates will be subject to an enhanced selection process including safeguarding-focused interviews and a rigorous due diligence process.
