Employment Opportunity: Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Specialist

About Gardens for Health International:

To tackle the root causes of malnutrition, we equip families with seeds, skills, and knowledge to create vegetable gardens, prepare balanced meals, and keep children healthy. For over a decade, Gardens for Health International has been working hand-in-hand with local communities to end chronic malnutrition. Our innovative curriculum on agriculture, nutrition and health topics was designed in partnership with local mothers, our trainings are led by talented educators who come directly from the communities they serve, and our dedicated staff is over 90% Rwandan.

We believe in changing systems, not treating symptoms. Integrating agriculture and nutrition into the health system is the only sustainable solution to effectively treat and prevent malnutrition. We work in close partnership with the Government of Rwanda by teaming up with community health workers, delivering trainings at local health clinics, and advising policy.

Position Overview:

The MEL Specialist plays a critical role in ensuring the effective monitoring, evaluation, and learning of GHI's programs. Reporting to the MEL Manager, the MEL Specialist will be responsible for implementing robust MEL systems. She/he will support in fostering a culture of strong, data-informed decision-making within Gardens for Health. The MEL Specialist will support MEL team operations, build the technical capacity of the MEL team, and ensure that data is utilized to both support and improve program activities. The position is based in Ndera, Rwanda with travel to Gardens for Health’s operations districts, Gasabo, Burera, Kayonza, as well as other locations as required for program implementation and monitoring.

GHI seeks to hire qualified, committed and experienced National to fill the following

Position: Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Specialist

Place of Work: Kigali with travel to the field as required

Reports to: Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Manager

Time frame: Open Ended

Tentative start date: 1^st of February 2025

KEY AREAS OF ACCOUNTABILITY:

• Support program activities by assisting with data-driven decisions.
• Support the regular analysis of data and generation of reports on programmatic impact
• Communicate results to other teams and participate in strategic thinking around program successes, failures and opportunities
• Develop and implement research methodologies and data collection strategies to assess the effectiveness and impact of GHI programs.
• Foster partnerships and collaborations with academic institutions, research organizations, and other stakeholders to advance GHI's research agenda and contribute to the broader knowledge base in the field of maternal and child health, nutrition, and agriculture.
• Design and lead a mechanism of learning and using data to support program improvement and changes
• Support the M&E framework development & execution for solicited grants
• Design and lead qualitative research initiatives to learn from and improve GHI programming; develop staff capacity around qualitative research as needed.
• Develop, strengthen, and utilize M&E planning tools including theories of change, monitoring plans, and indicator guides.
• Respond to other ad hoc requests for data from senior leadership, donors, and other parties.
• Supports the Program management team in developing/managing/leading any internal or external evaluations of the effectiveness of GHI’s programs and in identifying and leading research opportunities, including publishing papers on GHI’s work.
• Develop and update knowledge management products, including team manual, guides for routine data management, analysis, and reporting processes

Qualifications:

• University degree (Master’s degree is an added value) in Statistics, Public health, Demography, Research, Social Sciences, or other related field.
• 5+ years of experience working in evaluation and research in NGO or research setting;
• Relevant experience working in planning, monitoring, evaluation and accountability in development or humanitarian interventions.
• Proven experience using one or more of these statistical software: SPSS, Stata, or R
• Advanced knowledge and experience with data visualization tools with preference given to Tableau or similar tools.
• Experience in developing interactive dashboards and utilizing data visualization tools to communicate key performance indicators and programmatic insights effectively
• Experience with digital mobile platform for data collection and data management, CommCare is highly desirable.
• Ability to formulate Information Management-related technical requirements and Operating Procedures into simple language to communicate to others.
• Proven experience in a technical capacity involving conducting evaluations/research;
• Proven experience with quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis;
• Ability to support or lead under guidance and drive the organization towards more action- research by using participation and listening to beneficiaries as one of the main mechanisms for programme implementation;
• Strong capacity and creativity in leading and facilitating participatory methodologies to meaningfully engage beneficiaries and receiving their feedback.
• Strong leadership and teamwork skills.
• Fluency in spoken and written English and Kinyarwanda.
• Passion for Gardens for Health’s vision and values, with a commitment to serving the organization mission

Equal Employment Opportunity

• Gardens for Health International is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer fully dedicated to achieving a diverse staff. All qualified applicants are encouraged to apply and will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, disability status, or any other characteristic protected by law. We encourage and welcome all interested potential applicants, regardless of background or prior experience volunteering with Gardens for Health International, to apply

Prevention of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (Psea)

• Gardens for Health International has zero – tolerance policy for exploitative and abusive relationships. Gardens for Health International will ensure the fulfillment of our moral obligation to protect minor children and other vulnerable members of society from abuse, exploitation, neglect, and other forms of violence.

Child Safeguarding:  

• Level 3: the post holder will have contact with children and/or young people either frequently (e.g. once a week or more) or intensively (e.g. four days in one month or more or overnight) because they work country programs; or are visiting country programs; or because they are responsible for implementing the police checking/vetting process staff.

Health and Safety:

• The role holder is required to carry out the duties in accordance with GHI Health and Safety policies and procedures.

Interested candidates should send an application letter plus updated Curriculum Vitae in English, including 3 names of professional referees to careers@gardensforhealth.org. The deadline for receiving applications is 17^th January 2025 at 5:00pm. Please mention Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Specialist as subject of your mail.

*Note that only shortlisted candidate shall be communicated *