Senior Technical Advisor – Monitoring, Evaluation, Research, and Learning (MERL)

Background:

ELEVATE Nutrition (Enhancing Local Efforts for Vital, Transformative, and Evidence-Based Nutrition), funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), is a five-year cooperative agreement led by FHI 360 in collaboration with Action Against Hunger, Bixal, CNFA: Cultivating New Frontiers in Agriculture, GEMNet-Health, and Oxford Policy Management. The project aims to advance local implementation of high-quality nutrition programs and policies to improve the nutritional status of women and children, particularly in the first 1,000 days. ELEVATE Nutrition will drive efforts to sustain USAID technical leadership in nutrition, enhance locally driven nutrition programs and policies, and boost innovative efforts to share learning and transfer knowledge.

Job Summary:

The MERL senior technical advisor will partner with the MERL Director to provide technical leadership and strategic guidance for the ELEVATE Nutrition MERL portfolio at global and country levels. S/he should have a proven track record of providing MERL technical leadership in international settings, preferably for multi-sectoral nutrition programming. S/he will work in close collaboration with the ELEVATE Nutrition MERL Director to design, lead, and implement all aspects of ELEVATE Nutrition’s global and country-based MERL agendas. S/he will also support broader needs of the ELEVATE Nutrition global team by spearheading efforts to identify and/or design metrics and measurement approaches for key nutrition program areas and guide countries towards increased evidence-based design of multisectoral nutrition programs and policies. S/he will build and maintain collaborative relationships with USAID and local government counterparts and represent ELEVATE Nutrition to stakeholders as a global MERL expert. The MERL senior technical advisor may supervise one or more staff on the MERL teams and/or supervise consultants.

Accountabilities/Responsibilities: the Senior Technical Advisor will work in close collaboration with the MERL Director to achieve the following:

ELEVATE Nutrition Global MERL Portfolio:

• Develop global metrics for key ELEVATE Nutrition technical areas (diet quality, nutrition governance, social and behavior change, and wasting) and others as requested by the donor.

• Conceptualize, develop, and/or field test MERL global technical products.

• Lead or contribute to development of global technical products and/or participate in MERL technical working groups led by key stakeholders such as UNICEF, WHO, and USAID.

• Lead ELEVATE Nutrition research activities, including (but not limited to); preparation of study protocols and data collection instruments; IRB submissions; training and oversight of/participation in data collection; data analysis and report writing; manuscript preparation.

• Conceptualize, organize, and support MERL technical consultations.

• Represent ELEVATE Nutrition at conferences and other international forums, including potentially giving presentations or leading sessions, as needed.

ELEVATE Nutrition MERL Country Support:

• Collaborate with USAID and country stakeholders to develop, refine, and/or clarify country-specific MERL scopes of work, including clearly articulated outcome measurement strategies.  

• Provide technical assistance and capacity strengthening activities to enhance local stakeholder MERL capacity to develop and implement MERL frameworks and plans (including indicator selection) and for locally-led data use and learning.

• Represent ELEVATE Nutrition to USAID, country stakeholders, government counterparts, global organizations, and other relevant organizations, as needed.

• Define and implement strategies for ELEVATE Nutrition feedback and accountability in diverse country contexts.

ELEVATE Nutrition Internal/Foundational MERL Activities:

• Lead and/or support donor reporting, including (but not limited to) collection and collation of data from ELEVATE Nutrition country programs, database development and maintenance, data quality assurance, and responding to ad hoc donor data requests.  

• Implement ELEVATE Nutrition annual assessments, including conceptualization, data collection instrument preparation, data collection, and analysis and synthesis of findings.

• Work collaboratively with ELEVATE Nutrition MERL Director and the Knowledge and Learning team to prepare and implement Annual Learning and Reflection Workshops.

• Design and implement data quality audits.

• Conceptualize and roll-out ELEVATE Nutrition internal data use activities.  

• Other tasks as identified by the MERL or Project Director or