Job Title:  Monitoring, Evaluation, Research & Learning Director

Organisation: Jhpiego

Duty Station:   Kampala, Uganda

About Organisation:

Jhpiego is an international non-profit health organization affiliated with Johns Hopkins University. The group was founded in 1973 and initially called the Johns Hopkins Program for International  Education in Gynaecology and Obstetrics, but is now referred to simply as Jhpiego.

About Project:

The project aims to strengthen urban health systems, to improve equitable health outcomes among all urbanites by working with municipalities and city corporations on strengthening urban health systems to provide quality, equitable public health, optimize available resources and strengthen private sector capacity as part of sustainability efforts. The Uganda Urban Health Activity will address poor quality of care, congested public health facilities, uncoordinated referral system, weak community structures, limited private sector capacity, and gaps in enabling environment results in poor health outcomes in Kampala, Mukono and Wakiso. The project will operate over a five-years period.

Job Summary:  Jhpiego seeks a, Monitoring and Evaluation, Research & Learning Director to provide technical leadership, oversight and strategic direction for monitoring and evaluation (M&E) activities for the USAID-funded Urban Health Activity in Uganda.nThe MERL Director will provide technical leadership to develop project Frameworks, M&E systems and indicators to capture performance results and provide effective, accurate and timely monitoring, evaluation and reporting of all project activities. The MERL Director will supervise and manage the M&E team and oversee the collection, management, analysis and use of project data, ensuring that lessons learned are integrated into project implementation to continuously improve quality of interventions and outcomes. The MERL Director is responsible for documenting and disseminating project successes, challenges and lessons learned to USAID. The MERL Director will also be responsible for designing and conducting assessments, operations research and evaluations to address project needs. The MERL Director will liaise with and support consortium partners and the Ministry of Health to implement monitoring and evaluation (and learning) activities

Key Duties and Responsibilities:

• Provide leadership and direction on M&E to ensure the project achieves its goals and corresponding objectives and targets.
• Oversee the development and implementation of the Performance Monitoring Plan (PMP) to efficiently track, use and disseminate performance indicators and results over the life of the project, including routine service delivery data reporting, baseline and end line assessments, and all monitoring for process and outcome evaluations.
• Supervise a team of M&E professionals, ensuring high-quality implementation of all monitoring, evaluation and learning activities.
• Develop and oversee implementation of robust context-appropriate systems for data collection, quality assurance, analysis and reporting on activity outputs/outcomes and program quality.
• Lead results reporting to USAID by providing written documentation on M&E activities and indicator results for progress and annual reports, as appropriate.
• Ensure alignment of project systems and approaches with national monitoring and evaluation guidelines, protocols, information, and reporting systems.
• Cultivate strategic M&E relationships and alliances with monitoring, evaluation and learning counterparts in other USAID projects national institutions, and key stakeholders, leading initiatives to learn from project data and adapt intervention strategies as appropriate
• Lead efforts to utilize training monitoring systems to track and monitor trainers and participants at training events to facilitate follow-up and recordkeeping.
• Use data to contribute towards strategic decision-making and project planning with project leadership.
• Support project leadership to champion holistic approaches to collaboration, learning and adapting (CLA), including design and implementation of an action-oriented project research and learning agenda, routine analysis of available health sector data sources, and application of best practices in knowledge management.
• Oversee and/or conduct targeted assessment, evaluations and operations research, ensuring compliance with Ministry of Health and Johns Hopkins University institutional review board policies.
• Ensure quality of data through data verification procedures including routine data quality audits and that these are routinely carried out during the project lifecycle.
• Represent M&E activities in public and professional circles through meetings, conferences, and presentations.
• Ensure relevant data is entered into Jhpiego’s organization-wide performance management system designed to capture, analyze, and disseminate project data.
• Support the project to provide Ministry of Health technical assistance to strengthen the country’s HMIS for the optimal use of routine HMIS data.
• Ensure project compliance with USAID monitoring, evaluation, research and open data policies
• Promote and support the dissemination of project information amongst the project team
• Work with project and financial staff to prepare and track progress of project and activity budgets.
• Cultivate strategic relationships with USAID, the Ministry of Health, and consortium partners to drive a collaborative approach in data-sharing and evidence-based learning.
• Lead the design and implementation of context-appropriate systems for high-quality data collection, assurance, analysis, and reporting, ensuring alignment with project objectives.
• Train and mentor project staff and implementing partners in monitoring and evaluation methods, tools, and systems.
• Ensure protection of participant data and confidentiality during all monitoring, evaluation and research implementation and dissemination processes.
• Support the designated Internal Review Board (IRB) focal point in-country including maintaining current certification from 1) CITI human subjects ethics course and 2) CITI Good Clinical Practices (GCP) course.

Required Qualifications:

• Master’s degree in public health, demography, statistics, social sciences or related field or equivalent experience
• Advanced technical skills, including proficiency in DHIS2 and at least one statistical software (SPSS, Stata, or Epi-Info).

Preferred Qualifications:

• Minimum of ten + years of work experience in monitoring and evaluating large, multi-year international health sector development projects (approximately $5 -10M per year) that have implemented successful activities in urban health in public and private facilities, local government institutions systems.
• Proven expertise in quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis methodologies, implementation research approaches, health management information systems, data visualization and reporting
• Demonstrated strong management, coordination, teamwork and planning skills with proven ability to function effectively with multiple host-country counterparts in both the public, NGO and private sectors
• M&E experience in Urban Health
• Familiarity with Uganda health management information system and other national M&E systems
• Experience and understanding of the USAID and Urban Health framework and reporting syste
• Experience hiring and supervising personnel and ensuring they acquire the necessary training and skills to meet evolving project needs.
• Excellent diplomacy skills and a proven ability to establish and maintain interpersonal and professional relationships with USAID, host-country counterparts and representatives from other key stakeholders such as NGOs, CSOs, and the private sector
• Demonstrated outstanding leadership, strategic thinking, organizational, team-building, and representational skills
• Expertise in research to practice—identifying and adapting best practices to specific project
• Excellent skills in facilitation, team building, and coordination.
• Excellent verbal, written interpersonal and presentation skills in English.
• Ability to coach, mentor and develop technical capacity in regional and national projects and technical staff.