Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Director USAID/Armenia Disaster Resilience Activity

About Palladium:

Palladium is a global company working to design, develop and deliver positive impact on the lives and livelihoods of people around the globe; broaden access to health, water, power, and infrastructure; build enduring, sustainable, and transformative institutions and market systems to address global challenges; and conserve the natural world. We operate in over 90 countries and have a workforce of 3,000 talented, motivated, and diverse staff of all religions, races, languages, and gender identities.  

Palladium Americas:

Our Americas’ business team has brilliant and passionate colleagues working in Asia, Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and North and South America as well as the Caribbean, fulfilling projects and assignments for clients from institutions, corporations, governments, and foundations based in the Americas. We have offices in Washington, DC, New York City, and Raleigh-Durham, NC.

This Opportunity:

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) plans to establish a five-year project to support the develop the country’s capacity to mitigate, prepare for, respond to, and recover from natural and human-caused disasters. The activity support capacity building across various stakeholders in Armenia's disaster response system, as well as to reduce Armenia's vulnerability to disasters through mitigation efforts, thereby improving the economic, social, health, and environmental resilience to shocks and stress. The activity may also design disaster response and recovery interventions.

The Director of Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning will report to based in Yerevan to lead all the Monitoring and Evaluation functions  in the USAID-funded Armenia Disaster Risk Activity opportunity.

Reporting & Supervision:

The MEL Director will report to Chief of Party and will supervise other MEL staff.

Primary Role and Responsibilities:

Provide technical leadership to capture and communicate program results, as well as ensure high-quality, timely, valid, and verifiable data collection, reporting, analysis and learning.
Gather and evaluate information such as project activity outcomes, impacts, and results, and ensure that findings are accurately presented in all USAID reporting and tracking tools.
Responsible for developing and designing project systems to track program progress against indicators; collecting and verifying information and maintaining performance monitoring plans, reports, work plans, and monthly reports, ensuring that all reports and documentation for the project’s internal management systems and for external reporting are produced according to USAID guidelines.Oversee the project MEL team, including M&E Specialists and other positions. Oversee MEL subcontractors if applicable/
Integrate the Collaborating, Learning and Adapting (CLA) approaches throughout implementation to ensure that key learnings and best practices are documented, synthesized, reported, disseminated, and used to make timely adjustments to the program.
Coordinate closely partners to build cohesive measurement and results systems, fostering collaboration and engagement.
Provide trainings as required to enhance data collection and analysis skills among external stakeholders and internal program staff.
Perform other related duties and responsibilities as assigned

Key Competencies Required:

Bachelors degree in a relevant field, and at least six (6) years of professional work experience, including at least 5 years of relevant professional experience managing, monitoring and evaluating complex development activities.
Hands-on practical experience setting up and managing MEL systems for USAID programs and ability to coach and train others in their use
Familiarity with USAID regulations, M&E reporting requirements and best practices.
Experience in knowledge management and dissemination of research findings.
Familiarity with impact indicators.
Demonstrated ability to be flexible and respond to emerging opportunities and overcome barriers.
Demonstrated expertise in engaging disparate stakeholders with varying perspectives and needs and facilitating stakeholder consultations and meetings.
Demonstrated oral and written communication skills in English and Armenian, Russian language in addition is preferred.

 Equity, Diversity & Inclusion - Palladium is committed to embedding equity, diversity, and inclusion into everything we do. We welcome applications from all sections of society and actively encourage diversity to drive innovation, creativity, success and good practice. We positively welcome and seek to ensure we achieve diversity in our workforce; and that all job applicants and employees receive equal and fair treatment regardless of their background or personal characteristics. These include: (but are not limited to) socio-economic background, age, race, gender identity and expression, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, nationality, veteran, marital or Indigenous status.  

 Should you require any adjustments or accommodation to be made due to a disability or you are a neurodivergent individual or for any other circumstance, please email our team at accessibility@thepalladiumgroup.com and we will be in touch to discuss. 

 Safeguarding - We define Safeguarding as “the preventative action taken by Palladium to protect our people, clients and the communities we work with from harm”. We are committed to ensuring that all children and adults who come into contact with Palladium are treated with respect and are free from abuse.  All successful candidates will be subject to an enhanced selection process including safeguarding-focused interviews and a rigorous due diligence process.