Position Description:

RTI seeks a Monitoring, Evaluation, Research, Learning and Adapting (MERLA) Director for the LAC Regional Fund for Basic Education. The MERLA Director will lead and guide the LAC Regional Fund for Basic Education team on MERLA and Collaboration related activities and ensure responsive reporting, and ongoing learning and adapting across the project.  The MERLA Director will directly report to the Chief of Party.

Responsibilities

• Responsible for the development, implementation, refinement, and harmonization of the project’s MERLA system.
• Develops and operationalizes indicators, sets targets, and monitors progress; ensures they are informed by and feeds into program decisions.
• Establishes systems for gathering, reporting, and analyzing performance data in compliance with USAID guidelines and best practices.
• Assesses data quality through (1) system validation rules and checks in the activity database, and (2) periodic data quality assessments (DQAs).
• Designs data collection processes adhering to data quality.
• Monitors progress against targets and prepares quality reports; contributes to other project reports such as annual work plans.
• Leads and proactively reviews/analyzes project activities and their outputs and outcomes to continuously learn from and adapt ongoing project implementation; provides feedback to the technical team on where to improve.
• Documents best practices and lessons learned and uses data and regular learning sessions to drive program design, adaptation, and decision-making.
• Integrates data collection and learning throughout all project activities.
• Build capacity of partners and stakeholders for data collection and data use for learning.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree and 12 years of experience, Master’s degree and 10 years of experience, PhD and 6 years of experience, or equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Minimum 7 years of experience in MERLA and data analysis in international development programs.
• Knowledge of reporting procedures, best practices, guidelines, methods, and approaches for MERLA.
• Excellent management, communication, and organizational skills (attention to detail is required); flexibility and capacity to multi-task.
• Demonstrated ability to lead design and implementation of monitoring systems, databases, and data collection tools.
• Demonstrated experience using data and learning to inform program decision-making.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills in English.
• Demonstrated experience with MEL that measures and promotes gender and social inclusion.
• Experience working in Latin America and Caribbean contexts highly preferred
• Experience working in multicounty and/or regional contexts highly preferred
• Experience working on complex Education-related projects preferred.
• Professional fluency in Spanish is required; additional fluency in English preferred