MERL Specialist at Palladium Group

Palladium is a global leader in the design, development and delivery of Positive Impact - the intentional creation of enduring social and economic value. We work with foundations, investors, governments, corporations, communities and civil society to formulate strategies and implement solutions that generate lasting social, environmental and financial benefits.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: MERL Specialist

Ref No: req21044
Location: Abuja
Employment Type: Full-time

Primary Duties and Responsibilities

• Propcom+ is a new FCDO-funded eight-year (2023-2030), rural and agricultural market development programme supporting climate-resilient and sustainable agriculture and forestry that benefits people, climate, and nature.
• The programme is implemented by The Palladium Group, and it aims to transform Nigeria's rural economy by addressing environmental, social, and economic challenges in the country's food and land-use system.
• It will do this by (i) increasing productivity, improve nutrition and food security; (ii) enhancing climate resilience, pursue lower emissions, and protect and restore nature, and (iii) helping to tackle some of Nigeria’s underlying drivers of conflict and insecurity.
• It does this by working as a ‘market facilitator’, identifying constraints in markets systems and facilitating changes to enable rural markets to work better for the benefit of poor and climate-vulnerable smallholder farmers and rural small-scale entrepreneurs. 
• Propcom+ has a target of increasing the incomes and climate resilience of 3.9 million poor and vulnerable people in Nigeria, 50% of whom will be women, through a “3Ps” approach of interlinked components:
  • P1: Scaling-up a focused basket of Proven climate-smart interventions around agricultural and primary processing / storage practices and models to get these adopted by millions of poor and vulnerable smallholder farmers and small-scale entrepreneurs.
  • P2: Building markets by developing and Piloting new business models that improve productivity, enhance resilience to climate change, reduce emissions, and improve nutrition outcomes.
  • P3: Enabling Policies that support a strengthened enabling environment for sustainable food and land-use system.

Purpose

• The key responsibilities of the MERL Specialist are detailed below. These are not exhaustive and may change as the programme grows and evolves.

Reporting and Line Management

• This post will report to the MERL/GIS Manager and will co-supervise some State-based Data officers.

Key Responsibilities

• Support the development, update of intervention guides for each intervention. This includes developing detailed theories of change, business models, MRM plans and support calculations.
• Set up and manage dynamic and adaptive monitoring systems for each intervention that generate high-quality data at frequent intervals.
• Support the conduct of baseline and impact surveys for P1, P2 and P3 interventions, market research, diagnostics, and scoping studies, GESI studies, etc.
• Analyse large volumes of data generated from this system and derive actionable insights from them.
• Provide regular feedback to intervention teams based on evidence collected from the field which can then be used for adaptively managing the programme’s interventions.
• Design effective study tools, instruments, methods and plans for gathering information that can inform programme strategies and capture impact of interventions.
• Support Intervention teams in gathering relevant information for their various interventions and identifying knowledge gaps where available and developing strategies to fill those gaps.
• Enable the creation of an effective collaborative bridge between Intervention teams and Field Coordinators to ensure effective allocation of field work.
• Provide feedback on various reports and data analysis done from various studies to facilitate the production of internal progress reports as well as contribute to the overall programme reports for the donor.
• Work closely with the Knowledge Manager to ensure that lessons learnt from interventions are duly documented and disseminated to a wider audience.
• Work closely with the Communications Manager to develop case studies and success stories and ensure that these are disseminated to a wider audience.
• Provide weekly updates and plans to the MERL/GIS Manager.
• Develop monthly/quarterly/yearly work plans with other members of the MERL, Communications and Knowledge Management Team.
• Manage the day-to-day activities and performance of State-based data officers and handle any issues faced by them on the field.
• Undertake frequent performance field visits for both GIS/MERL purposes.

Required Qualifications

• The MERL Specialist should have: A Degree in a relevant discipline including Economics, Geography, Statistics, Evaluation, Social Sciences, or Other Related Degree.
• At least 3 years of MERL Manager experience in agricultural-related programmes.
• Excellent analytical skills and expertise in the use of MS Excel, PowerBi and other data analysis tools.
• Excellent skills in MS Excel, Word, PowerPoint; proficiency in MS Access and infographics preferred.
• Experience in the development of surveys and data collection instruments for monitoring programmes.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills (in English) to manage project communications and disseminate project information are required.
• Fluency in speaking and understanding Hausa is highly desirable.
• Experience or knowledge of relevant Northern Nigerian agricultural markets.
• Possess the following soft skills: strategic thinking, detail orientation, problem solving, analytical, teamwork, team management, task management skills.

Application Closing Date
Not Specified.