Design, Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Officer at Search for Common Ground (SFCG)

Search for Common Ground (SFCG) is an international non-profit organization that promotes the peaceful resolution of conflict. With headquarters in Washington, DC and Brussels, Belgium, Search’s mission is to transform how individuals, organizations, and governments deal with conflict - away from destructive approaches towards cooperative solutions. With more than 600 staff worldwide, Search implements projects in more than 30 countries across the globe.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Design, Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Officer

Location: Port Harcourt, Rivers
Employment Type: Full-Time

About the Project

• Search for Common Ground (Search), in consortium with local co-applications has proposed to implement an 18-month action with the overall goal of fostering inclusive community security approaches to address the systemic drivers of violence and criminality in Bayelsa, Delta, and Rivers States. Bringing together four leading peacebuilding and development organizations in the Niger Delta, the consortium offers a holistic, community-centered approach to addressing core drivers of criminality, violence, and conflict in the region, with a specific focus on the empowerment and inclusion of youth in the security of their respective communities in the Niger Delta.
• The consortium partners will leverage existing relationships with the action’s diverse target groups, including at-risk youth, local communities impacted by oil production and oil bunkering, state security actors, the private sector, journalists and media actors, key civil society organizations, and policymakers at the state, regional, national, and international levels, to secure broad-based buy-in and participation in the action.
• Overall, the project will seek to shift how relevant actors think about and approach issues of oil bunkering, criminality, and security in the Niger Delta in favor of more bottom-up, human-centered perspectives. This institutional and social shift is necessary in order to sustainably reduce the prevalence of oil bunkering and other forms of criminality and violence in the region in the long term.
• The design of the action centers around four activity streams, each addressing a systemic driver of division, violence, and criminality in Bayelsa, Rivers, and Delta States:
  • Stream 1 will foster intra-community collaboration around issues of social exclusion, lack of economic opportunity, and environmental degradation.
  • Stream 2 will build trust and collaboration between communities, the government, and security actors for more participatory, community-centered security operations. 
  • Stream 3 will leverage arts- and culture-based approaches to foster social cohesion between divided communities, both online and offline.
  • Stream 4 will facilitate policy change to institutionalize community-centered security approaches at the local, state, regional, national, and international levels. 

Roles and Responsibilities
Result and Routine Monitoring:

• Conduct site visits during the project implementation phase in assigned areas.
• Undertake comprehensive analysis of project routine data based on the history of site visits; present findings to DMEL Manager in a concise and professional manner.
• In concert with the DMEL Manager, develop Monitoring and Evaluation plans and tools for field-level activities.
• Conduct DQA and 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 the DMEL Manager and program team when findings demonstrate questionable actions.

Research, Data Analysis, and Reporting:

• Assist in research and data collection, analysis, and report writing.
• Analyze project-specific and country IPTT and action plans from all assigned areas and share reports with the DMEL Manager timely as agreed.
• Populate the KM database on a monthly basis with findings from different DMEL activities.
• Support quality, conflict-sensitive, innovative, and effective DMEL process in the six geo-political zones in Nigeria.
• Implementing SFCG M&E standards around project planning meetings, baseline studies, listenership surveys, data collection processes, monitoring missions, and evaluations in the six geo-political zones in Nigeria.
• Support follow-up, tracking, and reporting on project-level evaluation recommendations and the updating of lessons log, including collation, analysis, and reporting on organizational learning.

DQA and Learning:

• Identify lessons learned, constraints, and project impacts based on the determined theme and/or sector for inclusion in Quarterly Reports.
• Maintain and organize an electronic and paper record as MoV while providing minute-taking and summary record duties as required
• Serve as the primary point of contact for the programs and Media & Communications teams when developing impact assessments, success stories, newsletters, and weekly reporting.
• Work with DMEL Manager to coordinate quarterly reflection and learning sessions with Search Staff in the State offices.
• Represent the program positively and professionally in both internal and external environments.
• Coordinate weekly with the DMEL Manager to determine priority tasks. Ensure the state team is aware of and up to date on all DMEL tasks and reports.
• Participate in professional training and development activities, as necessary.

Education & Required Experience

• Bachelor's Degree in Research Methodologies, Social Sciences, related disciplines; or a related area;
• Minimum of 3 years of work experience in design, monitoring, and evaluation methodologies, of which at least one year of experience in the peacebuilding M&E;
• Proven experience in using qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis tools;
• Knowledge of participatory methods, mixed methods, outcome mapping, and/or impact evaluation techniques;

Other Relevant Requirements:

• A collaborative working style that enables coaching and training in M&E principles and best-practices
• Demonstrated capacity to coordinate evaluations, including experience developing evaluation terms of reference and recruiting and managing consultants;
• Extensive knowledge and application of proposal design principles;
• Knowledge of data software such as Excel, STATA, and SPSS;
• Excellent analytical and report-writing skills;
• A demonstrated commitment to high professional ethical standards and a diverse workplace; and
• Ability to prioritize, plan and organize workflow to tight timeframes, handle multiple tasks, and be flexible with changing priorities.

Application Closing Date
31st July 2023.