Water Missions
Who is Water Mission?
Water Mission is a nonprofit Christian engineering organization that designs, builds, and implements safe water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) solutions for people in developing countries and disaster areas. Guided by love, excellence, and integrity, we are driven to share clean, safe water and God’s love with all. To date, we have served more than 7 million people in 57 countries. Working at Water Mission is as much a calling as it is a career, and we are searching for people with the courage, passion, and drive to help us change the world. Read more about our Statement of Faith and Christian Mission.
Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) Officer
Reporting to the Project Manager in Malawi with dotted line reports to the Monitoring, Evaluation, Research and Learning (MERL) Manager in Charleston, SC, USA, the Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) Officer will be responsible for designing, managing, and implementing MEL activities for Water Mission programs in Malawi, including Water Mission’s Evangelism and Discipleship program. The successful candidate will ensure that Water Mission Malawi achieves intended program results through strong oversight, management and implementation of performance and impact measurement and learning activities.
Status: Full-time employment with the opportunity for yearly contractual renewals.
The MEL Officer will be responsible for:
General Responsibilities:
Maintain a strong Christian witness and model servant leadership to colleagues, partners, the communities we serve, and the public.
Program Monitoring and Evaluation System Design:
- Assist Water Mission in establishing key performance indicators, collecting performance information, planning, and implementing evaluation programs assigned.
- Manage the development of performance monitoring and impact management systems for Water Mission’s projects in Malawi, including the development and validation of program impact strategy, logical frameworks, measurement indicators, and data collection tools.
- Provide input into the design, implementation, and dissemination of evaluations, special studies, and assessments.
- Manage the creation and review of global and country-level monitoring, evaluation, research, and learning budgets to provide adequate financial resources for evaluations, special studies, and assessments.
Data Collection, Compliance, and Quality Assurance:
- Manage the implementation of data flow activities for Water Mission’s projects in Malawi.
- Supervise all data collection activities. Work closely with Water Mission’s Community Development Officers, Project Managers, and Engineering teams to ensure timely and continuous collection of data using Water Missions data collection tools including Household, Church Congregation, and Community based Surveys.
- Manage development and implementation of data flow improvements for the Water Mission program in Malawi that will ensure efficient data collection and reporting and support scalability.
- Ensure data quality through data verification procedures, including routine data quality audits, and work with various teams to resolve discrepancies and improve processes.
- Develop and implement training on data collection, storage, quality assurance, and retrieval processes, as needed.
Data Analysis & Visualization:
- Support activities to transform quantitative and qualitative data sets into compelling reports and visuals for different types of audiences.
- Develop and implement plans, methods, and tools for analyzing data.
- Perform qualitative and quantitative data analysis as needed.
- Monitor and respond to relevant data points from the MAP – Water Mission’s innovative Monitoring and Alerting Platform
- Manage analytical reports to provide direct and real-time insights to inform the project design and implementation in Malawi.
- Develop standard protocols, templates, infographics, and procedures to ensure data analysis and visualization needs are met.
Research Practices:
- Implement strategies to improve Water Mission and the broader WASH sector’s ability to use data to drive future program design, implementation, and decision making.
- Regularly develop performance reports and share program outcomes and learnings with Water Mission’s International Programs team and all key stakeholders in Malawi (UNICEF, etc.) including reports, training, briefs, commentary, and visuals.
- Facilitate reflection, learning, and adapting meetings regularly in the country.
- Work closely with the communications team to help promote Water Mission’s content including reports, briefs, commentary, and visual data.
- Cultivate strategic M&E relationships and alliances with partners and represent Water Mission’s M&E, data analysis, and visualization activities in public and professional circles through meetings, conferences, and presentations.
- Other duties as assigned.
What is required?
Relationship and Alignment:
- Alignment with Water Mission’s Statement of Faith and core values of Love, Excellence, and Integrity.
Education Qualification and Experience:
- Bachelor’s degree in Demography, Statistics, Mathematics, Public Health, Environmental Health, or related field; or equivalent experience. A Master’s degree will be an added advantage.
- At least 3-5 years of experience designing, managing, and implementing program monitoring and evaluation activities including:
o Theory of change and M&E framework.
o Community needs, baseline, endline, and data quality assessments.
o Quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research & evaluation studies.
o Surveys, focus group discussions, observational data collection tools.
o Learning and adapting processes and mechanisms.
Skills & Abilities
- Domain expertise in data science, statistical analysis, and data visualization.
- Working knowledge of one or more data analysis and visualization libraries and packages used today, including PowerBi, R, Tableau, SQL Python, JavaScript, SPSS, Stata, MS Access.
- Excellent analytical skills and the ability to summarize disparate information in a clear and concise manner.
- Demonstrated ability to build consensus, solve problems, and work collaboratively and effectively with other leaders, volunteers, and employees at all levels.
- Ability to thrive in a highly fluid environment and respond to changing requests.
- Good written and verbal cross-cultural communication skills.
- Proficiency in spoken and written English is required.
- Ability and willingness to travel in-country for up to 20 weeks per year. Most in-country trips require this person to ride long car rides on rough terrain and stand for extended periods of time.
- Authorization to work in Malawi.
Application Instruction
Applications should be emailed to either:
- Directly via the Water Mission Website (watermission.org) watermissionmalawi@watermission.org
- Water Mission Postal Address: P.O. Box 31871, Capital City, Lilongwe, Malawi
Applications must include a cover letter, curriculum vitae, copies of academic certificates, Testimonials, and contacts of three traceable referees.
Applications shall be received no later than 29th November 2022
Only short-listed applicants will be contacted for an interview.