Palladium International

Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Specialist

Posted
18 November 2024 02:01pm
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Regions
Pacific
Sectors
Education
Health
Multisector
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Summary

The Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Specialist will be engaged by Palladium to support the Tautua Program and its government and civil society partners by providing advice, capacity building and guidance on all aspects of current best practice in monitoring, evaluation and learning. 

About the Tautua Program

The Tautua prioritises five interconnected pillars of human development: Education, Health, Gender Equality, Disability, and Social Protection. Guided by the Government of Samoa (GoS), Tautua provides opportunity to create transformative change in human development by addressing complex development needs though multi-sectoral, innovative approaches that identify and focus on the underlying issues. Simultaneously, Tautua intends to be able to respond to emergency, short-term needs, build capacity and through research, monitoring and evaluation, apply lessons learned and evidence-based decision making to continuously improve delivery. The goal for Tautua is 'improved health, education, gender equality and social outcomes, and social harmony for all Samoans'.

Tautua has three end-of-investment outcomes (EOIOs): 

EOIO1: Samoans, especially women and girls, youth, persons with disabilities, the vulnerable and those living in hardship, have more equitable access to health, education, disability and social protection services. 

EOIO2: Samoans benefit from the delivery of more inclusive, gender-responsive and higher-quality health, education, community and social development, and social protection services in line with GoS priority areas.

EOIO3: Tautua is an effective partnership between the Governments of Samoa and Australia that supports Samoa’s human development priorities, contributes positively to the bilateral relationship and delivers the specific EOIOs of each of the sub-programs. 

Tautua identified, during the design and consultation phases, four critical social issues as key areas of initial focus for the program:

CSI 01: Reducing the rise in non-communicable diseases (NCDs) | Health Sector

CSI 02: Reversing stagnated learning outcomes | Education Sector

CSI 03: Reducing the vulnerability of those whose rights to exercise a choice and whose personal safety are threatened | Community and Social Development Sector

CSI 04: Overcoming barriers to inclusive communities | Community and Social Development Sector

Introduction 

These Terms of Reference (TOR) set out the conditions governing the conduct of a technical assistance project (the Project) under the Tautua Program.

Consultants should note that:

  1. They will be expected to be fully conversant with the contents of these TOR and the obligations under it.
  2. This TOR and all components therein are integral to the contract that is signed between the consultant(s) and Palladium International (on behalf of the Program).
  3. The objectives and outputs of this TOR, which have been approved by the relevant decision-making bodies, are normally non-negotiable and cannot be varied without proper discussion between the consultant(s) and the Team Leader and responsible Technical Lead.

Background, Context and Rationale

Tautua supports government and non-government partners to strengthen responses to critical social issues. A key aspect of strengthening capacity and responsiveness involves monitoring, evaluation and learning – for which there is a need to establish and / or improve systems for capturing and analysing MEL information. 

Tautua has supported several studies that have resulted in recommendations for improvements and some of these relate to MEL.

Description

Scope of Services

The Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Specialist will be engaged by Palladium to support the Tautua Program and its government and civil society partners by providing advice, capacity building and guidance on all aspects of current best practice in monitoring, evaluation and learning. 

Duties

  1. Review and provide advice to Tautua existing and new partners on the development of MEL plans, including with respect to indicators, data collection activities and data analysis.

  2. Review relevant recommendations around MEL from Technical Assistance reports and support partners to design and implement these recommendations.

  3. Work with partners to develop high-quality quantitative and qualitative methods to monitor and evaluate the quality of activities. 

  4. Support processes that analyse learning from evaluations (such as tracer studies and feedback workshops) and apply and incorporate the learning into the design of similar future activities.

  5. Undertake a MEL training needs analysis for partners, to identify MEL training requirements.

  6. Design and deliver MEL training to partner organisations, when appropriate.

  7. Support any other MEL-related task requested by the Tautua Team Leader and partners.

Key Deliverables

  1. Tasking (and changes to tasking) will be agreed and documented by email between the Tautua Program and the consultant(s). This will include the scope, time and reporting requirements of each task as needed. Tasks would be designed to take not more than 14 days consecutively. Deliverables may include (but not be limited to):
  2. Brief reports (at end of each substantive block of work) on what was achieved, approaches, challenges, feedback, lessons learnt and recommendations.

  3. MEL capacity assessment reports.

  4. MEL capacity building plans.

  5. Revised MEL frameworks for partners.

  6. MEL training materials and end-of-training evaluations.

Communications and Reporting

The consultant(s) will report to the PQL Manager.

Qualifications and Experience 

  1. At least a postgraduate qualification in social sciences, development studies, analytics or related field.
  2. At least six years of experience related to monitoring, evaluating and learning, including demonstrated experience in developing and implementing monitoring, evaluation and learning plans.
  3. Strong written and verbal communication skills in English and Samoan.
  4. Knowledge of research, evaluation and learning methods, including qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods.
  5. Experience with different data collection and analysis tools.
  6. Extensive experience designing and implementing surveys and other data collection tools.

Desirable

  1. Experience managing electronic data capture and working with real-time monitoring of data.
  2. Experience with indicator selection, target setting, reporting, database management, and developing and reviewing MEL and performance monitoring plans.
  3. Experience working with government departments and civil society organisations.
  4. Experience working in the human development areas of health and/or education and/or community development.
  5. Understanding of gender equality, disability and social inclusion to enable integration considerations for the Samoan context.