Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Officer - Fostering the Future Together (FTFT) Kenya
IREX
·Yesterday
- Location
- Nairobi
- Type
- Full-time
- Department
- Administration
- Experience
- 5+ years
- Education
- Certification
- Closing date
- Today
- Source
- ApplyToJob
Description
About IREX
IREX is an independent non-profit organization dedicated to helping people solve problems, build trust, and create better opportunities for themselves and their communities. Founded in 1968, IREX manages an annual portfolio exceeding $150 million, is active in 16 countries, and implements programs in more than 100 countries worldwide, with a strong and long-standing operational presence in Kenya.
Position Summary
IREX seeks a Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) Officer to run the day-to-day MEL function for the proposed Fostering the Future Together (FTFT) Kenya initiative. The child-centered project integrates online safety, prevention of child labor and exploitation, education technology, youth digital and workforce skills, safe employment pathways, and government capacity strengthening. The anticipated project period is approximately 27 months.
Working under the Project Director and with methodological support from IREX’s headquarters MEL team, the MEL Officer will put the project’s results framework into practice: maintaining indicators and data systems, running collection and quality assurance across delivery sites, and turning results into clear reporting and practical recommendations. The role also compiles the participant, employer, and market evidence that underpins the project’s fair labor and U.S. economic benefit reporting.
Based in Nairobi, the MEL Officer will work closely with technical and program staff, consortium partners, county and national government counterparts, employers, and training providers, with regular travel to project counties. The position is full-time and designated as key project personnel, subject to final award requirements.
This position is contingent upon funding.
Summary of Responsibilities
Performance Monitoring and Data Systems
Qualifications
Required
Equal Opportunity Statement
IREX is an equal opportunity employer. IREX recruits, hires, trains, and promotes individuals based on merit and experience and is committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace.
All offers of employment are subject to background checks. No phone calls, please.
To Apply
Interested candidates should submit a CV (in English) and cover letter through IREX's online application system.
IREX is an independent non-profit organization dedicated to helping people solve problems, build trust, and create better opportunities for themselves and their communities. Founded in 1968, IREX manages an annual portfolio exceeding $150 million, is active in 16 countries, and implements programs in more than 100 countries worldwide, with a strong and long-standing operational presence in Kenya.
Position Summary
IREX seeks a Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) Officer to run the day-to-day MEL function for the proposed Fostering the Future Together (FTFT) Kenya initiative. The child-centered project integrates online safety, prevention of child labor and exploitation, education technology, youth digital and workforce skills, safe employment pathways, and government capacity strengthening. The anticipated project period is approximately 27 months.
Working under the Project Director and with methodological support from IREX’s headquarters MEL team, the MEL Officer will put the project’s results framework into practice: maintaining indicators and data systems, running collection and quality assurance across delivery sites, and turning results into clear reporting and practical recommendations. The role also compiles the participant, employer, and market evidence that underpins the project’s fair labor and U.S. economic benefit reporting.
Based in Nairobi, the MEL Officer will work closely with technical and program staff, consortium partners, county and national government counterparts, employers, and training providers, with regular travel to project counties. The position is full-time and designated as key project personnel, subject to final award requirements.
This position is contingent upon funding.
Summary of Responsibilities
Performance Monitoring and Data Systems
- Operationalize the project’s results framework and performance monitoring plan, maintaining indicator reference sheets, baselines, targets, data sources, and verification methods.
- Maintain quantitative and qualitative data collection tools, databases, dashboards, and reporting workflows that work in practice across schools, community learning sites, training providers, apprenticeship hosts, and partners.
- Run clear data flows and reporting schedules across all delivery sites and consortium partners, and keep indicator definitions applied consistently across them.
- Ensure monitoring captures participant reach, service quality, completion, referrals, apprenticeship progression, employment outcomes, and institutional capacity change, disaggregated to show who is being reached.
- Track youth progression from training through apprenticeship, further education, and job placement, and compile the employer and market evidence required for fair labor and U.S. benefit reporting, documenting sources and limitations so claims stay proportionate to the data.
- Conduct routine data quality assessments, verification, cleaning, and reconciliation, and follow through on corrective actions.
- Apply data management protocols covering access, storage, retention, confidentiality, version control, and secure transfer, limiting collection of personal and sensitive information to what is necessary.
- Apply child safeguarding, informed consent and assent, and do-no-harm principles across all monitoring and learning activities, using age-appropriate, accessible, and inclusive methods.
- Escalate safeguarding disclosures through the project’s referral and incident-management protocols rather than treating them as monitoring data.
- Support delivery of the project learning agenda and of baseline, endline, and other required evaluations, managing external evaluators, consultants, and enumerators day to day.
- Facilitate routine data review, pause-and-reflect, and after-action sessions with the project team and partners.
- Turn findings into practical recommendations, and track agreed adaptations and management responses through to completion.
- Flag emerging patterns, implementation bottlenecks, unintended effects, and promising practices to project leadership.
- Assess partner MEL capacity and provide coaching, tools, templates, and quality-assurance support.
- Train project staff, subrecipient staff, and facilitators in indicator definitions, data collection, data quality, safeguarding, and evidence use.
- Coordinate MEL responsibilities across IREX, consortium partners, government counterparts, and private-sector collaborators, ensuring partner work plans carry realistic MEL tasks and resources.
- Support county and national stakeholders to interpret and use project evidence.
- Prepare accurate, timely MEL inputs for donor reports, work plans, and management reviews.
- Produce concise dashboards, briefs, visualizations, and case studies for technical, government, and public audiences.
- Maintain organized evidence files and documentation that support reported results and audit readiness.
- Work with communications colleagues so that public-facing claims are accurate, consented, and supported by evidence.
Qualifications
Required
- Bachelor’s degree in monitoring and evaluation, statistics, economics, social sciences, education, development studies, data science, or a related field. A master’s degree is an advantage but not required.
- At least 5 years of experience in a monitoring, evaluation, and learning role on donor-funded programs, with hands-on responsibility for indicator tracking, data collection, and reporting.
- Working knowledge of results frameworks, performance monitoring plans, and indicator reference sheets, and the ability to apply them consistently in day-to-day implementation.
- Experience supporting U.S. Government-funded or comparably regulated programs with structured performance reporting and data quality requirements.
- Practical quantitative and qualitative data skills, including survey administration, basic sampling, data analysis, and interpretation.
- Proficiency with spreadsheets, digital data collection tools such as KoboToolbox, ODK, or SurveyCTO, and at least one analysis or visualization tool such as Excel, Power BI, Stata, SPSS, or R.
- Experience collecting or managing data in one or more of: child protection, education, youth development, workforce readiness, or employment programming.
- Strong written and spoken English, with the ability to present findings clearly to non-technical audiences.
- Based in or able to relocate to Nairobi, with willingness to travel regularly to project counties.
- Experience with monitoring or research involving children or vulnerable youth and the associated safeguarding requirements.
- Familiarity with Kenya’s child protection, child labor, education, and youth employment systems.
- Experience with tracer studies or tracking training and employment outcomes over time.
- Experience training or coaching partner and community-level staff on data collection and quality.
- Working proficiency in Kiswahili and familiarity with county-level implementation contexts.
Equal Opportunity Statement
IREX is an equal opportunity employer. IREX recruits, hires, trains, and promotes individuals based on merit and experience and is committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace.
All offers of employment are subject to background checks. No phone calls, please.
To Apply
Interested candidates should submit a CV (in English) and cover letter through IREX's online application system.
Skills
Data ScienceExcelPower BI
