Organizational and Program highlights

Mekdim Ethiopia National Association (MENA) is registered non-governmental organization. MENA has been funded by USAID Ethiopia under the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) initiative to implement a three years Family-focused HIV Prevention, Care and Treatment Program in Addis Ababa. The Program will be implemented by MENA in partnership with different local implementing partners. The activity aims to accelerate and sustain HIV epidemic control in Ethiopia through the delivery of high impact Family-focused HIV prevention, care, and Treatment Activity implementation areas are selected from A.A town 10 Sub Cities.

The purpose of this award is to strengthen local HIV epidemic control to achieve 95 percent of individuals living with HIV know their status, 95 percent of persons living with HIV to initiate antiretroviral therapy and 95 percent of antiretroviral therapy clients achieve viral load suppression by 2020. HIV mitigation services for vulnerable children will focus on case discovery and linkage to HIV treatment among undiagnosed children living with HIV, on achieving better health outcomes through HIV viral load suppression and establishing interpersonal, family and community norms to achieve HIV and violence prevention (9 to 14-year-old children).

Job summary

The Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Specialist will provide technical oversight for the M&E plan Family-focused HIV Prevention, Care and Treatment Program. She/he will be the technical expert who will liaise with relevant advisers on health-related strategic information for activities related to strengthening the ability of community-based organizations and other community groups to monitor, document and analyze the performance of community-based health services as a basis for accountability, advocacy and policy activities and ensuring standards and quality of care. S/he provides technical guidance and support to sub-awards in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the effectiveness HIV and AIDS services.  In collaboration with government and donor health information technology teams, s/he will work toward an agreement on the health information system platform(s) that community partners can use to make data reporting compatible with the national health information system. S/he will work with the host government on data collection and reporting activities at the community level. S/he will review and adapt tools and create standardized tools and indicators to measure community-based interventions that capture relevant outcomes.

Job responsibilities

• Develop and oversee project monitoring, evaluation, learning, and reporting, including appropriate indicators, tracking against targets,
• Establish and run the activity monitoring systems including data collection, analysis and reporting to support sound management of the activity interventions.
• Undertakes data quality assessments necessary for the program
• Assess performance, conduct surveys and assessments, and document lessons-learned
• Develop efficient processes and systems for translating lessons-learned into practice for timely resolutions of implementation challenges
• Engage in capacity strengthening of local implementing partner field staff in monitoring, evaluation and reporting skills
• Lead the conduct of assessments and surveys, analyzing data collected, and facilitate the use of data for decision-making.
• Undertake the preparation, dissemination of best practices, project briefs, and success stories.
• Produce timely, accurate, and complete reports that meet USAID standards and requirements

No. of person required – 1

Required education and experiences

• A minimum of Bachelor’s degree in health related or monitoring & evaluation required
• Five years and above of direct experience in the monitoring and evaluation of HIV projects
• PEPFAR’s M&E experience is preferred
• Work experience in establishing/ designing M&E systems and tools and managing data intensive programs preferably in HIV/AIDS programs is required.
• Experience with qualitative and quantitative M&E data collection and analysis methods, including tracking outcome indicators is required.
• Experience in program quality management (both service and data quality) and operational research (OR) is required.
• Knowledge of M&E and data quality management related to health programs, preferably on HIV and AIDS programs is required.
• Demonstrated experience and knowledge in health programs to provide support and guidance to project staff on design, monitoring and evaluation is highly desirable.
• Demonstrated experience in use of data for decision making is highly desirable.
• Demonstrated knowledge of USAID and GOE monitoring and evaluation and quality management processes and systems is highly desirable.

Personal skills

• Proven monitoring and evaluation skills
• Well-established data analysis and report writing skills
• Demonstrated skills in knowledge management
• Strong interpersonal skills and positive professional attitude
• Excellent written and communication skills in English
• Team work and team building skills
• Skills in MS Windows and MS Office packages (Excel, Word, PowerPoint), Web Conferencing Applications, information management systems.