Monitoring & Evaluation Manager - Spark Microgrants

Spark Microgrants believes in a world where everyone lives with dignity and determines their own positive future. Decades of prescriptive aid have sidelined the poor from the very programs meant to uplift them. We believe in local solutions and catalyzing rural villages facing poverty into action.

At the heart of Spark’s model, the Facilitated Collective Action Process (FCAP), are ‘town-hall’ style weekly meetings, in which women, men, young, old, plan together for their community’s future. Each village elects a leadership committee, establishes a village savings account, and launches a project of their choice. Members receive training on financial management, transparency, leadership, village planning, and advocacy.

Spark trains partner organizations and works with governments to scale the FCAP as the model of choice to advance social and economic development, improve lives, and secure lasting change. Spark is now active in 500+ villages in 6 countries, improving the lives of over 500,000 people.

In Ghana, Spark has partnered with Advocates for Community Alternatives to help communities living in mining areas to advocate for their rights and hold the mining companies accountable for any damages caused while boosting their livelihoods and social cohesion. Since 2017, a total of 22 communities have benefited from FCAP and another 100 communities will benefit from the same process between 2023 and 2025.

As a team, we share a set of common values that shape how we work. These are:

1. Facilitators. We don’t impose; we enable others to generate impact.
2. Community-driven. We are motivated by what is best for the community.
3. Process-centered. The how of what we do is just as important as the what.
4. Authentic. Our vision and values live in everything we do.
5. Dynamic. We seek opportunities and are willing to take risks to serve our community partners better

About the Role

This role is crucial as we adapt and scale our model for communities to lead in local planning and action. We need you to make sure we have 100% confidence in our data and can use them to make smart decisions as an organization as well as help our partners do the same.

Under the supervision of the Global M&E Manager, the Country M&E Manager Ghana will play an integral role in managing the collection, analysis and reporting of impact data in collaboration with the partner organizations in Ghana. You will be responsible for ensuring that high quality data are collected and utilized by the partner program teams in decision making.

Roles and Responsibilities

Monitoring

• Work with the implementing partners to ensure timely collection of continuous monitoring data from all communities of operation in Ghana including; Community monitoring data, Facilitator monitoring data, Project Monitoring data to inform timely decision making on the program progress.
• Conducting independent data quality audits to verify the quality of monitoring data collected by implementing partners and working with them to set up Continuous Data Quality Improvement plans.
• Training partner organizations on the use of the Spark M&E system including the data collection platform (Commcare) and dashboards.
• Building capacity of Implementing partner’s M&E staff to conduct analysis of monitoring data and preparing quarterly reports ahead of the reviews.
• Work closely with the product team and other teams to ensure database and dashboards are up to date, of high quality and geared towards users

Evaluation

• Take lead on all internal evaluation activities in Ghana and ensure that high quality data are collected, analyzed and reported in a manner that demonstrates the impact of FCAP in beneficiary communities.
• Oversee all external evaluation activities and work with consultants to ensure that high quality data are collected and that the consultants implement the activities as planned.

Research and Learning

• Working with the Senior Research officer to implement all Ghana research related activities including enumerator recruitment, training and supervision.
• Lead on the documentation of success stories within the FCAP communities
• Work with the program teams at the implementing partner’s office to document and review lessons learnt on a quarterly basis.

Other responsibilities

• Act as a spark representative at the implementing partner’s office and leading information sharing between Spark and the implementing partner.
• Support the Spark program and design team activities within Ghana.

Qualification Required & Experience

Requirements:

1. A bachelor’s degree degree in a quantitative discipline from a recognized university
2. Strong quantitative and qualitative analysis skills
3. A minimum of 4 – 6 years’ of work experience in leading the design of M&E systems, data analysis and reporting.
4. Proven track record in developing viable M&E approaches and methodologies and demonstrable knowledge of major M&E  conceptual frameworks
5. Strong knowledge of Statistical software Stata, SPSS, R.
6. Experience in leading teams
7. Excellent written and oral communication skills in English.
8. High level of attention to detail
9. Flexible and able to adapt to change
10. Knowledge of the local language

WHY WORK WITH US?

You will be joining a dynamic team that hails from ten countries around the world and is committed to our vision

You will have the freedom and autonomy to make your role your own. We want to hear your innovative ideas, your vision for the future, and your critical questions. We respect and value work-life balance and your need for downtime, vacation, and
reflection.

You will join a dynamic and growing organization with a clear pathway to learning and career advancement.

OTHER INFORMATION:

Location will be in Osino District with ~40% travel within the partner communities. We will agree on learning and performance objectives for an initial probation period lasting three months from on-boarding.

Application end date:on on a rolling basis

Location: Osino