Monitoring, Evaluation, Research, and Learning Consultant

IREX - International Research and Exchanges Board

United States

Summary of Position:

IREX seeks qualified expert consultants in Monitoring, Evaluation, Research and Learning (MERL) to provide organizational and programmatic MERL support. The MERL consultants will support IREX’s Strategic Research, Evaluation, and Learning team to understand organizational impact and progress on our organizational strategy and may support program MERL across all IREX practice areas. IREX, therefore, specifically seeks MERL professionals with experience relevant to any or all of its 5 practice areas: Youth, Leadership, Information and Media, Education, and Communities and Governance (including civil society). The consultant may also support the evolution of a network of MERL advisors within IREX and the use of best practices and tools or contribute to new business development. Multiple consultants may be hired from this recruitment.

Summary of Tasks:

Work with the Strategic Research, Evaluation and Learning team to understand IREX’s organizational or cross program impact and progress on its organizational strategy and develop IREX MERL talent. This may include:
- Analyze data across programs for specific IREX strategic outcomes, including conducting cross program evaluations and reporting.
- Develop learning content to train, coach, or mentor MERL staff on best practices and tools.
Work with program teams to design, manage and lead monitoring, evaluation, research and learning (MERL) of projects and initiatives. This may include:
- Facilitate development of program change processes.
- Conduct and mentor others in impact evaluations, skill assessments, training evaluations, social network analyses and internal program evaluations using (as needed) a mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods.
- Design surveys, data collection tools and instruments and deploy them; analyze said data to determine trends; and visualize results to promote utilization of key findings.
- Conduct data analysis with program teams to better understand insights and impact.
Contribute to new business development efforts through designing and drafting MERL elements of proposals.

Skills and Qualifications:

Bachelor’s Degree in social science, evaluation or another relevant field, advanced degree preferred.
Demonstrated background and experience in donor-funded programs with some experience working with USG funded projects. Familiarity with USAID or USG MERL frameworks and requirements preferred.
Demonstrated experience conducting different types of program evaluation, including participatory, formative, summative, development, impact, quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis.
Exceptional communication and collaboration skills and a proven track record of working effectively with non-technical staff at all levels.
Demonstrated experience with analyzing and visualizing data.
Proficiency with data collection, analysis, and visualization software packages – e.g., STATA, SPSS, Dedoose/ Nvivo, Alchemer/Qualtrics, Power BI/ Tableau.
Proficiency with Microsoft Office Suite.
Professional interpersonal and communication skills in English (written and oral), including a demonstrated ability to promote evaluative thinking, facilitate learning, and convey monitoring, evaluation, research and learning concepts to program staff and in-country partners.
Experience researching, adapting and training others to design, develop and use practical and robust MERL tools.
Ability to support proposal and program teams with MERL activities that are accessible and integrated with program goals and activities.
Experience with Gender and Social Inclusion initiatives/inclusive evaluation tools, techniques, and practices preferred

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