MEL Advisor, USAID/Laos MEL Project, Lao PDR

Social Impact is a global development management consulting firm. We provide monitoring, evaluation, strategic planning, and capacity building services to advance development effectiveness. We work across all development sectors including democracy and governance, health and education, the environment, and economic growth. Since 1997 we have worked in over 100 countries for clients such as US government agencies, bilateral donors, multilateral development banks, foundations, and nonprofits.

Project Objective:

Under the USAID Asia Learning, Monitoring, and Evaluation (ALME) contract, Social Impact has been issued a task order to provide ongoing monitoring and evaluation consulting services to the USAID/Lao Country Office (LCO).

Position Description:

Social Impact is seeking a MEL Advisor to provide technical support to the USAID/Lao Country Office (LCO). The MEL Advisor will be responsible for tasks such as reviewing USAID/LCO’s MEL processes, recommending process improvements, supporting the completion of key MEL tasks, and facilitating learning based on monitoring and evaluation information. The Consultant may provide capacity building trainings, coaching, and mentoring to USAID and implementing partner staff. This is a consulting position with a tentative period of performance between March and September 2021. The position is negotiable as part-time (75%) or full-time.

Please note: This position is only open to candidates, national or expatriate, currently based in Lao PDR.

Responsibilities:

• Advise USAID/Laos Country Office on best practices for monitoring, evaluation, adaptive management, and learning.
• Support USAID/Laos Country Office staff to complete MEL tasks and review MEL deliverables.
• Conduct reviews of existing office and activity-level MEL plans and processes and recommend refinements.
• Develop and conduct capacity building trainings for USAID staff in monitoring, evaluation, and learning concepts, including results-based management, monitoring indicators, MEL plans, evaluation design, etc.
• Conduct reviews and contribute written inputs to MEL reports.
• Facilitate learning processes and workshops as required.

Qualifications:

• Master’s degree in a relevant field, and a minimum of six years of professional work experience related to the monitoring, evaluation, learning, and/or adaptive management of development programs.
• Quantitative and qualitative data analysis skills preferred.
• Extensive experience drafting and finalizing evaluation reports.
• Experience providing capacity building, training, and mentoring both one-on-one and for groups of various sizes on evaluation-related subjects.
• Previous experience supporting international donor-funded projects. Experience supporting USAID-funded contracts strongly preferred.
• Computer literate and possess superior oral and written communication skills.
• Fluency in written and spoken English.