Design, Monitoring, and Evaluation (DME) Program Advisor

Location: Washington, DC Remote Work: No Clearance: Secret Work Status: Full-Time Travel Requirements: In-country and international travel may be required.

Applications submitted by 01/13/2026 will receive full consideration. Candidates applying after this date may still be reviewed and will remain in our talent pipeline for future opportunities.

Position Description

The U.S. Department of State is the lead institution for the conduct of American diplomacy and the Secretary of State is the President’s principal foreign policy advisor. The Department of State’s mission is to advance U.S. national security interests, fight terrorism, protect U.S. interests abroad, and implement foreign policy initiatives that build a freer, prosperous and secure world.

The Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) keeps Americans safe at home by countering crime, illegal drugs, and instability abroad. INL advances U.S. national security and foreign policy interests by helping foreign partners build, reform, and sustain effective criminal justice systems to disrupt illicit drugs and transnational organized crime – addressing these threats at their source before they reach the United States, hurt U.S. citizens, and damage U.S. businesses.

Under this task order, the DME Advisor will provide services ensuring that INL programs in the Office of Africa and the Middle East (AME) are compliant with DME requirements as laid out in the FAM and INL DME policy.

The goal of this contract is to provide dedicated support for AME programs to ensure that they are compliant with the standards set forth in 18 FAM 301.4 and other relevant policy or regulatory guidance and have sound metrics at the project and/or program level and on each foreign assistance award1 that are mutually reinforcing. The dedicated support to AME will also ensure that each program and project align to the INL Functional Bureau Strategy (FBS) goals and objectives and is collecting data on the appropriate indicators. Along with those specific requirements, the contractor will provide services to AME that cover all aspects of DME at the direction of AME management and in coordination with other offices within INL and the Department that manage DME requirements. In addition, the contractor will seek to empower INL leadership with the capability to leverage performance data in order to make data driven decisions at the project, program, and Bureau levels in compliance with the FAM and INL policy.

Beyond ensuring that AME programs are compliant with the FAM and Bureau requirements and have increased data gathering capabilities, INL expects an approach to said compliance that is intuitive to non-experts in the field of DME. This approach must be adaptable to the culture, business practices, and existing systems that INL has in place with a focus on change management that must occur in order to bring all INL programs into compliance. INL recognizes that, due to the number of countries it operates in and the difference in one country program compared to another, that a one size fits all approach will not work. Therefore, it is important that the approach to accomplishing FAM compliance be flexible with the goal of the program being the driving force behind this initiative.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Support program reviews, in coordination with the relevant program officer and team lead, to ensure that stated goals and objectives connect to identified problems or needs of the host nation.
• Ensure that each program plan clearly identifies which INL Functional Bureau Strategy (FBS) goals and objectives it supports based on the most up to date INL FBS.
• Help the program officer develop performance indicators that measure actual results that can be compared to established performance targets for each part of the program, including but not limited to any interagency agreements, grants, and contracts.
• Assist the program officer with creating monitoring plans for programs and projects that meet INL design standards.
• In consultation with and upon request of the program officer and other relevant staff, propose and perform project and/or program evaluations, including evaluation design, data collection, and analysis.
• In consultation with and support of the program officer, perform trends analysis and reporting to executives using INL approved software (DevResults and/or other relevan