The Position

Palladium is hiring a MEL Officer who will provide support in the design and delivery of monitoring and evaluation of projects and grants supported by IFSLU2 within the West Africa region and who will be a core part of the West Africa Regional team, assisting colleagues in the delivery of the programme MEL strategy. They will also contribute to cross-programme and cross-regional MEL activities as may be required, including GESI mainstreaming.

The MEL Officer will gain broad exposure to designing MEL interventions, undertaking monitoring and evaluation activities at project and field levels, and contributing to reports and learning on how forest and sustainable land use projects and businesses have been delivering positive impacts on people, planet and business operations. This will include; supporting grantees in their MEL plans and results reporting; working with their regional team on project selection and impact assessment, learning and knowledge product development and delivery of learning and capacity development activities.

The role is offered full time (40 hours) based in our Accra Office. It is expected the person works from the office at least 3 days per week (pro rata if part-time). We have flexible working conditions to enable our staff to balance their work and home commitments.

Programme context

The Investments in Forests and Sustainable Land Use Programme – Phase 2 (IFSLU2) is one of the flagship programmes in the Climate, Environment and Natural Capital practice area at Palladium. IFSLU2 is split into three components, this position is primarily focused on Components 1 and 2, with collaboration and coordination opportunities for working with Component 3. IFSLU2 is a grants and technical assistance facility that supports businesses and investment models in which the private sector, public sector and communities can achieve improved returns from forests and sustainable land use whilst protecting existing forest, restoring degraded land and improving agricultural land management and production practices. All this work is focused across the tropical forests belt.

IFSLU2 will run for 5 years from 1 February 2025. Depending on performance and subject to funding, the programme may be extended for a further 5 years (up to 2035). The programme is funded by the UK government.

Reporting

The MEL Officer will report directly to the Regional Manager, West Africa. They will work closely with the central MEL team based primarily in the UK.

They will collaborate with other regional MEL officers from across the programme and the UK-based Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) Lead.

Experience and Attributes

Essential

Experience working on MEL in one or more of these areas:

• Sustainable land use/ management, ecological restoration, sustainable agroforestry or agriculture;
  
  • Mobilisation of private or public sector finance in the climate change space;
    
  • Sustainable Livelihoods in the sector, including experience with disaggregation of GESI data.
    
  • Monitoring and evaluation of development initiatives.
    
• Theories of change and related results framework development.
  
• Developing qualitative case-based reporting.
  
• Collecting, analysing and interpreting gender disaggregated data.
  
• Interest and aptitude to either develop knowledge and skills
  
• Ability to manage multiple simultaneous tasks (ideally in all the areas of the job description) and/or complex projects/assignments as demonstrated by experience to date.
  
• Sound problem-solving and decision-making skills.
  
• Demonstrated commitment to encourage diversity, inclusion, and equity in teams and programs.
  
• The ability to work effectively with colleagues across a range of distributed teams is an important requirement.
  
• Fluency in spoken and written English.
  

Desirable

• Tropical forests, sustainable land use and agriculture systems development programmes.
  
• Geographical information systems and spatial data analysis.
  
• Gender and social inclusion analysis to understand social and economic impact.
  
• Rural and agricultural systems economic development and livelihoods.
  
• Sustainable supply chains in key tropical forest belt agricultural and related commodities such as; timber, cocoa, palm oil, cattle, non-timber forest products, payment for ecosystem services, carbon, etc.
  
• Delivery of training and capacity development activities in MEL
  
• Proficiency in French.