MRELA Manager NGO Job Mercy Corps

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Programme / Department Summary

Mercy Corps is seeking a Monitoring, Reporting, Evaluation, Learning and Adaptation (MRELA) Manager for the FCDO-funded Border Security Programme (BSP).  Irregular migration and associated criminal activity in East Africa remain a complex and escalating challenge which leads to significant exploitation of vulnerable people on the move.  The planned East Africa Land Borders Programme will take a multifaceted approach – integrating ‘prevention’, ‘prepare/protect’ and ‘pursue’. An important purpose of this programme is to support the pursuit of human traffickers and smugglers who are exploiting vulnerable populations on the move.  Initial interventions will take place in the Kenya border regions, with planned and phased expansion to Uganda, Ethiopia and possibly Somalia border areas.

General Position Summary

The Monitoring, Reporting, Evaluation, Learning and Adaptation (MRELA) Manager is a vital role within East Africa Land Border Programme and is responsible for cross-cutting programmatic information management, monitoring and evaluation, ensuring that evidence and information collected is reflected upon, used to improve ongoing programs, and is incorporated into consistently high-quality reports and programme adaptations. BSP is an adaptive, evidence-driven programme and MRELA results will drive programme direction. The MRELA Manager is therefore a critical and dynamic role integrated into the overall team to ensure efficient feedback and adaptation loops including through key programme review meetings.

The MRELA Manager supports the programme team in planning and execution of all monitoring and evaluation activities, ensuring quality in accordance with accepted standards, providing essential feedback for learning, accountability and decision making. The MRELA Manager ensures that the programme has a robust system in place to measure programme results, has a rigorous monitoring system that is regularly collecting performance data, that implementing partners have the skills to collect and report relevant data, and that monitoring and evaluation data is being used to inform programmatic decision-making.

The MRELA Manager works closely with the programme team to ensure that key research findings and learnings are effectively integrated and used for programme improvement.

Key Responsibilities

STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP AND MRELA SYSTEM OVERSIGHT

• Ensure the programme’s MRELA system complies with relevant Mercy Corps and FCDO policies, regulations, and guidelines; adapt the system design creatively to measure impact and assess evidence in a complex, adaptive programme context.
• Continuously review, refine, and maintain a fit-for-purpose MRELA system focused on utility and programme quality, providing the programme team and implementing partners with timely, actionable evidence to steer implementation, inform donors, and guide strategic decisions.
• Facilitate implementation of all MRELA activities as outlined in the programme’s MRELA Plan.
• Collaborate closely with internal and external partners and stakeholders to ensure operational success across the consortium.
• Collaborate with programme management in regular review meetings to ensure monitoring evidence informs decision-making, including through comparison and synthesis of quantitative data, qualitative findings, and broader research evidence relevant to BSP’s context.
• Work with programme management to proactively identify and address MRELA shortfalls that may impact programme outcomes; oversee the conduct of routine internal Data Quality Assessments (DQAs) and ensure actionable insights are implemented.

RESULTS-BASED MONITORING, DATA MANAGEMENT, AND QUALITY ASSURANCE

• Design, plan, and lead all MRELA monitoring activities; maintain and enforce standards for data collection in collaboration with implementing partners across the consortium.
• Coordinate and oversee implementing partners’ MRELA efforts and any programme evaluation teams involved in data collection; ensure compliance with high data quality standards through regular reviews, field verification visits, and constructive feedback on methodologies and practices.
• Lead the collection, management, and analysis of all quantitative and qualitative data to assess programme performance and impact.
• Maintain overall responsibility for data quality control, including conducting systematic data verification, source document reviews, spot-checks, and other quality assurance activities to ensure all reported data is accurate, complete, and a true reflection of programme activities and results.
• Conduct regular site visits to programme locations to deepen understanding of activities, information needs, context, and emerging programme impact; triangulate monitoring data with field observations and partner reporting.

RESEARCH AND EVIDENCE GENERATION

• Support the design and application of qualitative research methodologies across the programme, while ensuring approaches are contextually sensitive and protection-compliant.
• Apply outcome mapping as a core framework for tracking behavioural and relational changes among the programme’s partners.
• Use contribution analysis and other theory-of-change-based approaches to assess plausible links between programme interventions and observed outcomes.
• Triangulate qualitative and quantitative evidence to build a rich, multi-dimensional picture of programme performance and emerging impact; ensure qualitative findings are systematically documented and integrated into programme reporting and learning products.

EVALUATION AND ASSESSMENTS

• Lead and coordinate all programme evaluations and assessments and ensure rigorous instrument design, sampling, methodology, enumerator coordination, data analysis and quality outputs.
• Ensure gender, equity, and social inclusion (GESI) considerations are systematically integrated into evaluation design, data collection tools, analysis, and r