MERL Specialist - Kano

Palladium Group, Inc. is seeking a MERL Specialist for its Kano facility in Nigeria. This role involves designing and implementing monitoring and evaluation processes for the Propcom+ programme, which aims to enhance climate-resilient agriculture and improve the livelihoods of vulnerable populations. Responsibilities include developing intervention guides, conducting studies, analyzing data, and collaborating with teams to document insights and lessons learned.
MERL Specialist -Kano

We are searching for an experienced MERL Specialist at our Kano facility.

Propcom+ is a new FCDO-funded eight-year (2023-2030), rural and agricultural market development programme supporting climate-resilient and sustainable agriculture and forestry that benefits people, climate, and nature. The programme is implemented by The Palladium Group, and it aims to transform Nigeria's rural economy by addressing environmental, social, and economic challenges in the country's food and land-use system. It will do this by (i) increasing productivity, improving nutrition and food security; (ii) enhancing climate resilience, pursuing lower emissions, and protecting and restoring nature, and (iii) helping to tackle some of Nigeria’s underlying drivers of conflict and insecurity. It does this by working as a ‘market facilitator’, identifying constraints in markets systems and facilitating changes to enable rural markets to work better for the benefit of poor and climate-vulnerable smallholder farmers and rural small-scale entrepreneurs.

Propcom+ has a target of increasing the incomes and climate resilience of 3.9 million poor and vulnerable people in Nigeria, 50% of whom will be women, through a “3Ps” approach of interlinked components:

P1: Scaling-up a focused basket of Proven climate-smart interventions around agricultural and primary processing/storage practices and models to get these adopted by millions of poor and vulnerable smallholder farmers and small-scale entrepreneurs.

P2: Building markets by developing and Piloting new business models that improve productivity, enhance resilience to climate change, reduce emissions, and improve nutrition outcomes.

P3: Enabling Policies that support a strengthened enabling environment for sustainable food and land-use systems.

PURPOSE

The MERL Specialist will support the design and implementation of effective monitoring and evaluation processes for assigned programme interventions, following the programme's technical and MERL strategies. The key responsibilities detailed below are not exhaustive and may change as the programme grows and evolves

Primary Duties and Responsibilities:

Support the development and update of intervention guides for each intervention with special focus on results chains and monitoring plans.

Support the conduct of various studies, including baseline and outcome surveys, market research, diagnostics, scoping studies, and GESI studies.

Review output data from partners, carry out spot check field-based verification and upload validated data on programme MIS systems.

Undertake frequent performance monitoring field visits and provide improvement feedback to the technical team on return.

Conduct regular data analysis (using output-level data from partners/other sources, survey data, secondary data) and present actionable insights to the team.

Support the design of effective tools, instruments, methods and plans for collecting data on partners and programme performance.

Support intervention teams in gathering relevant information for their various interventions, identifying knowledge gaps where available, and developing strategies to fill those gaps.

Work closely with the Communications and Knowledge Management team to document and disseminate stories and lessons learnt from interventions.

Manage the day-to-day activities and performance of field-level data collectors when they are engaged by the programme.

REPORTING AND LINE MANAGEMENT

This post will report to a MERL Manager and supervise ad hoc MERL field officers

Required Qualifications:

Core:

BSc or MSc degree in a relevant discipline, including economics, geography, statistics, evaluation, agriculture, social sciences, or other related degrees.

At least 3 years MERL Specialist or Officer experience working with agricultural-related programmes similar to Propcom+.

Desired:

Experience implementing DCED standards in programmes.

Experience working in Northern agricultural markets or value chains.

Fluency in speaking and understanding Hausa.

Skills to be demonstrated:

Analytical skills and expertise in using MS Excel, Power BI, and other data analysis tools.

Development of surveys and data collection instruments using KoboToolbox.

Verbal and written communication skills (in English)

Soft skills: strategic thinking, detail orientation, problem-solving, analytical, teamwork, team management, and task management skills.

LOCATION

The post is primarily located in Kano; however, the candidate will be required to travel frequently across states in both Northern and Southern Nigeria.

Our company provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability or genetics.