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Scope of Work, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Specialist

Background

The Feed the Future Bangladesh Improving Trade and Business Enabling Environment Activity aims to improve economic growth in Bangladesh through the following objectives:

• Improving Trade Facilitation;
• Improving Business Enabling Environment; and
• Promoting Best Practices in Economic Growth Activities and their Application.

This includes facilitating an improved policy environment to promote sustainable economic growth and prosperity, improved regional economic cooperation, sound management of institutions, and good governance while also expanding markets for U.S. goods and services in the Indo Pacific. This activity will also address efficiency and transparency in the business enabling environment.

The activity will develop a systemic approach to trade facilitation and improving the business enabling environment. This is premised on the high-level political commitment to realizing substantial reductions in trade costs and business compliance: a representative institutional mechanism spearheaded by local stakeholders driving the reform process; and high-profile time-bound targets addressing: trade and business procedures and transparency; institutional strengthening; and modernization and ICT.

The Feed the Future Bangladesh Improving Trade and Business Enabling Environment Activity will deliver technical assistance and capacity building to support the implementation of the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement and improve the BEE. The project will work with key public agencies, private sector stakeholders, and Civil Society Organizations. Work activities will draw on best practices and regional experiences to build support for initiatives aimed at simplifying documentary requirements for imports and exports. The project will support strengthening technical capacity across border agencies, modernizing procedures through digitization and ICT.

Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning

The MEL Specialist will:

• Measure the progress and results achieved towards the activity’s objectives of improving trade facilitation, ensuring food safety, and streamlining the business enabling environment, to contribute to the goal of bolstering economic growth and food security;
• Evaluate the contributions to results;
• Update the MEL Plan throughout the life of the project to reflect changing assumptions and risks;
• Enable the activity to reallocate resources and adapt activities as needed; and
• Communicate results to USAID and external stakeholders.

The MEL Specialist will adopt The Project’s systematic approach to performance management by applying the principles of adaptive management and integrate the learning accumulated through the CLA process into decision-making to adapt project activities when needed in a flexible manner. This will include systematic “pause and reflect” points to make program decisions, allocate resources effectively, and enable appropriate distribution of responsibilities among the team. The team will prioritize actions based on the activity’s theory of change and clearly document the actions taken to capture knowledge for internal stakeholders and future programming.

Specific Tasks
The MEL Specialist will be responsible for the following tasks:

• In coordination with the COP, liaise with team members, government, private sector, and civil society counterparts to revise and maintain the MEL Plan, and other reporting requirements as specified in Section F7 of the activity contract.
• Provide technical and management support to the COP on all MEL issues.
• Implement the MEL system including maintaining the MEL database, managing the data collection, analyzing data, and communicating results, under the guidance of the COP. This will include verifying and assessing the M&E quality as per ADS 203.3.5.3 and data quality standards as per ADS 578.3.4.
• Edit consultant reports and deliverables to assure strong writing, grammatical correctness, and conformity with USAID guidelines and expectations.
• Review reports prepared by the Project to ensure the activity is compliant with USAID rules and regulations and IDG policies and procedures.
• Collaborate with the COP and Team Members to prepare annual work plans, quarterly reports, annual reports, and ad hoc reports.
• Provide technical assistance and training to project counterparts on the implementation of the performance monitoring system as needed.
• Provide input to project reports and deliverables (including work plan, Quarterly Progress Reports, and Annual Reports)
• Oversee Research Analysts to implement the MEL system including collecting data and reporting.
• Cooperate with any external evaluation of the project.
• Other duties as assigned by the COP in coordination with Objective Leads.

Deliverables

The MEL Specialist shall be responsible for working with the COP, DCOP, Senior Customs Specialist, the Senior BEE Specialist, the Gender Specialist, and other staff as relevant in support of the following deliverables:

• SOW for Short Term Consultants
• Annual Workplans
• Quarterly Progress Reports
• Annual MEL Plan and Reporting M&E plan
• Ad hoc data requests from USAID and/or home office
• Other written input to reports and deliverables as requested by the COP.

Qualifications:

• Master’s degree and 6 years of relevant experience;
• Demonstrated experience in development of MEL activities including: MEL plans at the activity and project level, utilizing case studies, monitoring activities, Data Quality Assessments, Periodic reports; as well as other MEL technical activities.
• Experience in CLA
  
• Knowledge of and hands-on experience in USAID’s program cycle and evaluation policy.
• Excellent interpersonal skills to garner support from colleagues and partners of collecting and utilizing data for project improvement.
• Sector knowledge in Trade and policy projects would be an advantage.
• Excellent facilitation and presentation skills.
• Fluency and excellent written and oral communication skills in English.

Only selected candidates will be conducted for and interview.

Reporting

The MEL Specialist will report to the COP through regular briefings and day-to-day dialogue.