Merlin Provincial Evidence and Impact Coordinator

Responsible To: Provincial Director Works With: Provincial health team, Operations coordinator and wider Provincial Management Team. Works with E&I team based in London. Location: North Kivu, Goma with frequent field travel Contract Duration: 12 months Salary: £28,050 - £28,800, dependant on relevant experience, inclusive of annual Cost of Living allowance Benefits: Insurance cover, accommodation, return flights and annual leave entitlement of 24 days per annum rising to 30 days at the completion of 12 months of continuous employment with Merlin.

Only short-listed applicants will be contacted. Due to the urgency of this position, applications will be short listed on a regular basis and we may offer this post before the closing date.

Please note that this is an unaccompanied position.

Merlin Undaunted and determined, Merlin saves lives. We deliver medical expertise to the toughest places. And we stay to help build lasting health care.

Our mission is to end the needless loss of life in the poorest countries caused by a lack of effective health care. We help communities set up medical services for the long term including hospitals, clinics, surgeries and training for nurses and other health workers.

We do whatever it takes and we stay for as long as it takes.

Context and Background Merlin will contribute to increasing the capacity of governments and communities in fragile contexts to address priority health issues through operational involvement and sharing expertise and evidence. We will increase our target population from 9.5 million to directly reach at least 15 million people by the end of 2015.

Merlin has set global outcomes in order to enable us to monitor and identify progress against the above. They fall across the following areas of our work: access to primary health care, reproductive and child health services, disease control, nutrition and Health system strengthening. Collecting evidence that demonstrates achievement of these global outcomes requires all areas of operations to be systematically collecting relevant data. To do this, Merlin has developed a Results Framework to describe what evidence countries will collect and an Evidence and Impact policy to describe the processes that will facilitate this. .

The Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire) is the third largest country in Africa and The Democratic Republic of Congo is the second largest country in Africa and one of the poorest. Decades of dictatorship and civil war have left much of the national infrastructure destroyed.

Merlin has been operational in DRC since 1997. Merlin teams have provided emergency medical care to the most vulnerable populations in Maniema, Kasai Oriental , North Kivu and Orientale Provinces. Activities have included emergency response, support to primary and secondary health care facilities (including supervision, supply of drugs, and the payment of incentives), reproductive health, institutional capacity building, immunisation campaigns, nutrition, WASH, and the rehabilitation of health facilities.

From 1 January 2012 Maniema and North Kivu will operate as autonomous programmes, each reporting direct to head office in London; they will be supported by country offices in Goma and Kinshasa.

In North Kivu Merlin currently works in Rutshuru/Binza, Kayna, and Birambizu health zones, providing essential health care services to DPs and host populations; and will provide the health component of the rapid response to movements of population (RRMP) mechanism throughout the province.

Main purpose of the role To drive and coordinate the provincial’s contribution to Merlin’s global evidence base by:

Working alongside key health and programming staff to implement the Evidence and Impact Policy ensuring that evidence is collected, analysed and used within programme design, implementation and review and shared globally where relevant.

Ensuring that staff at all levels have the tools and skills to effectively embed monitoring, evaluation and accountability activities into all areas of Merlin’s work.

Overall Objectives Under the umbrella of Merlin’s global strategy, Merlin North Kivu strategy, the main objective of the E&I Co will be to:

· Lead on the development and implementation of Country Monitoring Plan. · Lead on delivering the Country Accountability Action Plan including supporting the work of accountability focal persons in-country.

Specific Responsibilities · Contextualise and implement Merlin’s standard E&I systems in coordination with Merlin’s Programme teams and partners, where appropriate. · Work with the Provincial Health director and Health teams to ensure the integration of Merlin’s Health Information System into the approach to evidence-based programming (as set out in the E&I Policy). · Provide guidance on approaches and methods for monitoring and evaluation of the outcomes and impact of services delivered by Merlin. · Support programme teams in effective analysis of the evidence emerging from programme monitoring and evaluation. · Review key grant proposals to ensure adequate inclusion of M&E and Accountability activities, in line with the E&I Policy. · Supervise M&E and Accountability focussed staff and build their capacity on M&E and accountability activities. · Provide ongoing support and supervision to provincial/field staff and oversee the coordination, design and implementation of project baseline studies, surveys and assessments, mid-term/final evaluations, and special studies such as organisational process monitoring. You will be expected to develop in collaboration with technical units, questionnaires, sampling methods as to ensure the quality and usability of information gathered. Reports including recommendations to team and workplan for improvement will as well be required. · Lead on the coordination of planned activities to be carried out to fulfil 2012 requirements listed in Merlin NK Accountability Action Plan. · Review and report quarterly on achievements made against set standards, and document overall progress made in accountability practices.
· Mainstream accountability practices/policies within Merlin staff, its partners and the community by organising awareness raising sessions and workshops. · Develop and implement a community and stakeholders complaint and feedback mechanisms.

Person Specification Essential Qualifications, experience and competences · Masters degree in Humanitarian or Development studies. Epidemiology Statistics or other equivalent qualification. · Knowledge and experience of using qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis methods, including knowledge of statistical packages. · Strong experience in development, design and implementation of monitoring and evaluation systems (guidelines, methodologies including tools) at organisational and in field settings. · Excellent skills in information management, including recording, analysis, reporting and review methods, gained in an international organisation. · Excellent facilitation skills and experience in the use of participatory methodologies. · Understanding of health programming and issues of organisational accountability towards various stakeholders, in particular, end users of (health) services. · Proven leadership, coordination and collaborative skills. · Strong strategic planning and organizational skills, ability to think and operate innovatively and strategically. · Knowledge of HAP and/or demonstrable working experience of accountability · Excellent interpretational, influencing and diplomatic skills including awareness of constraints while working in a complex and challenging environment. · Willingness to conduct frequent travel and live in remote rural sites. · Self-starting attitude, dynamic and full of initiative. · Strong communication skills, with excellent written and spoken French and English. · Confident and proficient in the use of MS office and data management tools. · Experience of establishing strong working relationships with colleagues from different functions and cultures. · Experience of a flexible approach to managing and prioritising high workload and multiple tasks in a paced environment with tight deadlines. · Experience of proactively identifying and addressing issues. · An understanding of and commitment to Merlin’s mission and values.

Desirable Qualifications, experience and competences

· Masters’ Degree in Public Health or Health Sciences with experience of public health programme preferably in monitoring and evaluation. · Knowledge and work experience in North Kivu will be an added advantage. · Work experience in Accountability.

How to apply: 

To apply for this position To apply for this job, please go to Merlin and apply using our online recruitment system. In order to apply for a job with Merlin online you will need to complete a short registration process and create an account – the online recruitment system explains how to do this. Once your account has been created, you will be able to save the information that you have entered in your application and re-visit it at any time before you submit it.

If you are unable to apply online please contact: applications@merlin.org.uk.

Please note that we do not accept CVs. Unfortunately due to the number of applications we receive, only shortlisted applicants will be contacted.