Nigeria: Program Quality Assurance (PQA) Officer (NATIONAL POSITION)

THIS POSITION IS OPEN TO NIGERIAN NATIONALS ONLY

Action Against Hunger | ACF International is an international humanitarian organization committed to ending world hunger. ACF-International Nigeria is looking for a suitable candidate to fill the position of PQA Officer in the UK DfID funded Child Development Grant Program (CDGP). CDGP is a joint project being implemented by Save the Children UK and Action Against Hunger (ACF). From 2013-2017, CDGP will provide 60,000 pregnant women and mothers with children under two with unconditional cash transfers and nutrition behaviour change communication training.

The Program Quality and Accountability (PQA) Officer will support the PQA Coordinator and play a key role in implementing the Child Development Grant Programme (CDGP), particularly in strengthening and enforcing monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning structures within the program design.

Objective 1: Assist in establishment of PQA system into the CDGP to ensure compliance with donor objectives and methodology. • Aid in developing and establishing short term and long term PQA information systems and tools for CDGP start-up, implementation, adjustment, monitoring and evaluation, accountability and learning (MEAL) in coordination with the Management Information Systems (MIS) Officer. • Collaborate in the development of indicators that are simple, measurable, accurate, reliable and time-bound (SMART). • Assist the PQA Coordinator and MIS Officer in the development and implementation of a central information management system platform. • Establish data collection systems for CDGP and when requested and review existing data collection tools and systems. • Participate in the development of new templates and guidelines for data gathering, collation and reporting in liaison with partners, program managers and coordinators whenever it is necessary. • Conduct integrated assessments to determine appropriate program quality needs. • Assist in creation of user friendly monitoring and evaluation tools for CDGP officers. • Assist PQA Coordinator in developing quality assurance checklists for PQA teams in collaboration with technical coordinators. • Train field staff in how to use PQA systems in coordination with MIS Officer. • Undertake additional activities as requested by the FSL Program Manager, FSL Coordinator and other members of the coordination team.

Objective 2: Ensure proper and timely implementation of PQA tools and all monitoring and evaluation reporting • Ensure implementation of PQA tools (i.e. logical framework, databases, MEAL tools) in coordination with MIS Officer. • Ensure that SMART MEAL methodology is being applied at the field level to measure project indicators and impact. • Undertake regular visits to all CDGP operational LGAs to support monitoring and accountability processes to monitor program progress. • Participate in the design and execution of surveys and other assessments, case studies, coverage investigation, survey conducting qualitative and quantitative data analysis and writing draft survey reports; actively collect data where necessary. • Coordinate and share learning related to M&E practices at base level, and ACF at large. • Ensure timely and quality reporting, data entry, processing and feedback system by working closely with MIS Officer and other CDGP staff. • Ensure routine monitoring and collection of various FSL related data (i.e. market prices emergencies, household food security, market linkages etc.). • Consolidate data for timely reporting of CDGP progress for internal and external reporting • Lead team in the implementation of PQA systems (i.e. workplans, assessments, monitoring and evaluation etc.) in collaboration with the MIS Officer. • Build capacity of CDGP staff through training and technical support to ensure PQA throughout life of project.

Objective 3: Document good practice from planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of activities • Document lessons learned and best practices, produce case studies and human interest stories through knowledge capitalization workshops, production of learning documents and other means. • Organize learning, knowledge sharing and capitalization workshops to enable lessons learned to be used in future program design. • Establish and monitor accountability mechanisms. • Support the quality, timeliness and dissemination of PQA outputs internally and externally. • Ensure that lessons in planning, monitoring, evaluation, accountability and impact assessment are documented, shared and considered in the design of new projects and technical plans and are discussed during periodic program reviews and ultimately fed into current work and future program development.

Objective 4: Represent ACF externally in relevant forums and working groups • Represent ACF externally in issues related to MEAL and reporting (consortia, alliances and clusters). • Undertake any MEAL and reporting tasks related to government guidelines and instructions.

Educational Qualifications: • Degree or higher diploma in research, statistics or demography or related field and significant field research experience.

Essential Skills: • Professional, motivated, open, creative, mature, responsible, flexible and culturally sensitive • Excellent communication, writing and analytical skills • Proven ability to translate evaluated results into learning strategies. • Experience in monitoring and evaluating donor (i.e. USAID, ECHO, DFID, CIDA) funded activities •Skills on statistical and other software (MS Excel, SPSS, SPHINX, STATA, EPI Info, ENA for SMART, GIS, etc.) • Fluency in Hausa and English •Microsoft Office Skills (Outlook, Excel, Power Point, Word) • Experience in humanitarian PQA or M & E/MEAL • Experience in designing and leading internal and external evaluation. • Experience designing and leading capacity building and training for national teams. • Familiarity with Management Information Systems (Databases) and GIS. • Commitment to ACF mission, values and approach, including the ACF International Charter principles of Independence, Neutrality, Non-Discrimination, Free and Direct Access to Victims, Professionalism, and Transparency.

Preferred: • Previous experience with food security and livelihoods programming. • Previous experience managing cash based interventions (i.e. cash for work, cash transfers or cash vouchers) • Proficiency with local languages of Fulani and Kanuri • Significant prior experience living and working in Northern Nigeria with a strong degree of community integration