Summary
Date Posted: Thursday, April 07, 2022 , Base Salary: Not Disclosed

JOB DETAILS:
Office Location: Lusaka, Zambia
Who We Are
Founded in 1951, The Nature Conservancy is a global conservation organization dedicated to conserving the lands and waters on which all life depends. Guided by science, we create innovative, on-the-ground solutions to our world’s toughest challenges so that nature and people can thrive together. We are tackling climate change, conserving lands, waters and oceans at unprecedented scale, and providing food and water sustainably. One of our core values is our commitment to diversity. Therefore, we strive for a globally diverse and culturally competent workforce. Working in 72 countries, including all 50 United States, we use a collaborative approach that engages local communities, governments, the private sector, and other partners. To learn more, visit www.nature.org or follow @nature_press on Twitter.

The Nature Conservancy Africa program follows a holistic approach to protecting vital lands and waters, transforming the way natural resources are used and managed, and inspiring others to contribute to the shared vision of a healthy and sustainable future for Africa’s lands, waters, wildlife, and people. We use a collaborative approach that engages local communities, governments, the private sector, and other partners.

In Zambia, TNC has a primary geographical focus on the Greater Kafue Ecosystem (GKE). This is Zambia’s largest conservation landscape, a 66,000 sq. km complex of great biodiversity value, dominated by the 22,000 sq. km Kafue National Park and nine Game Management Areas (GMAs) under communal tenure. TNC is working with communities and diverse public and private stakeholders in and around this ecosystem to strengthen community tenure over natural resources, develop effective natural resource governance and management systems and create sustainable conservation and wealth generation models for the landscape. TNC’s conservation work also extends to the West Lunga Complex to the north of the GKE, and to the community-owned wildlife corridors connecting the GKE to West Lunga and to the vast kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA) to the south.

Your Position with TNC
The Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) Manager is a key member of the Zambia Program team, responsible for collating, analyzing, and disseminating data from TNC’s multiple projects and workstreams to generate a cohesive understanding of the performance of the wider country programme and its impact on nature and people. The MEL Manager monitors progress towards the successful implementation of the Zambia Program strategy and uses lessons learned to feed into adaptive management. The MEL Manager provides technical supervision of TNC’s project monitoring and evaluation staff and works closely with the conservation teams in Zambia and across Africa the region. Technical support to this work is provided by the TNC Africa Monitoring and Evaluation teams. Reporting to the Zambia Program Director, the position will be based at the TNC Lusaka office. No employment permit sponsorship or assistance is being offered with this position.

Essential Functions
The MEL Manager develops and maintains data management systems to collect, organize and analyze information coming from multiple sources to assess country programme performance and impact, test the assumptions in TNC Zambia’s Theory of Change and inform the adaptive management and implementation of the country strategy. The MEL Manager is responsible for managing and monitoring TNC Zambia’s data commitments to TNC’s global Shared Conservation Agenda 2030 goals. They will provide technical supervision of project monitoring and evaluation staff, provide training and mentoring to the conservation teams and TNC’s partners on the collection of data from the field and also help organize and support data collection for project evaluations. The MEL Manager is responsible for TNC Zambia’s learning agenda, and will also produce periodic monitoring reports, document lessons learned and impact stories and support country team outreach activities

Responsibilities and Scope
• Develop and manage a dashboard of metrics that measure overall progress toward achieving landscape-level outcomes for wildlife, habitat, and people.
• Develop and directly manage the monitoring, evaluation and learning systems for TNC’s KAZA Secretariat-funded project and TNC’s multiple privately funded projects and workstreams, including the delivery of high-quality monitoring reports as required in the various funding agreements
• Develop a MEL plan to monitor TNC’s privately funded Zambia Grasslands project in collaboration with Africa Indigenous Landscape team.
• Provide technical supervision to project monitoring and evaluation staff, including in their engagement with donor-driven and external evaluations and impact assessments
• Provide technical support and mentoring to TNC’s conservation teams, grantees, and implementing partners in the collection of accurate monitoring data.
• Collate output and outcome data generated by TNC’s projects funded by USAID and Global Environment Facility (GEF) and combine with other sources of data to produce high-level information on TNC’s performance in Zambia and its influence on conservation and socio-economic outcomes to share with internal and external audiences, including TNC’s public and private partners and communities.
• Manage and provide technical oversight of key research and data collection efforts that provide information on landscape-level outcomes, including baselines, periodic socio-economic household surveys, biophysical condition including land-use change assessments, and biodiversity monitoring surveys.
• Conduct periodic rapid technical evaluations of project activities in the field to identify where resource allocation and adaptive management might be needed.
• Working closely with TNC Africa’s GIS technical staff, ensure comprehensive spatial analysis of landscape-level change including land use, human influence, biophysical condition and fire extent.
• Track TNC Zambia’s outputs on a quarterly basis, provide summary reports on progress towards targets, and update progress in the organization’s central progress tracking system called the Hub.
• Lead a process for defining, capturing, and sharing lessons learned and using data from multiple sources to inform decision-making for the effective adaptive management of TNC’s conservation work.
• Collaborate with TNC Africa’s strategy leads (Indigenous People and Local Communities, freshwater conservation and forest/ climate) and science teams to contribute to TNC’s regional learning agenda to support alignment of measuring impacts and coordinated testing of theories of change.
• Participate in the development and tracking of work plans and ensure alignment with TNC’s country strategy, agreement on milestones, and inclusion of MEL activities in the work plan.
• In collaboration with TNC Africa’s communications team, document outcome stories from TNC Zambia’s work for sharing with various local and international audiences, including providing quotes from beneficiaries, photos, and story ideas
• In collaboration with senior management and the conservation team, drive an agenda of outreach, presentation and data dissemination to local stakeholders, partners and communities.
• May require frequent travel domestically and evening and weekend hours.
• May work in variable weather conditions, at remote locations, and under physically demanding circumstances.

Minimum Qualifications
• BA/BS degree and 5 years’ experience in conservation, natural resources management, development studies, information management, statistics, quantitative analysis, or related field, or equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Expertise in rigorous quantitative and qualitative research and evaluation analytical methods including research design and implementation, data analysis, appraisals, etc.
• Excellent report writing, analytical, and communication skills, including oral presentation skills, knowledge management, and dissemination of findings in English.
• Knowledge of donor-funded project monitoring and evaluation processes, indicators, measures, data quality assessments, and reporting requirements.
• Experience managing and supervising data collection processes.

Desired Qualifications
• Experience in implementing activities related to biodiversity conservation, community conservation, and/or natural resource management.
• Experience incorporating learning from monitoring and evaluation into adaptive management.
• Experience providing guidance to technical staff and external partner organisations on design, monitoring, and evaluation.
• Experience maintaining an online database for monitoring of performance and outcomes.
• Experience with strengthening local organizations and building local capacities for MEL.
• Experience working in complex partnerships.
• GIS knowledge.
• Experience negotiating and working with multiple stakeholders.
• Willingness to undertake field visits.

Work Hours: 8

Experience in Months: 60

Level of Education: Bachelor Degree

Job application procedure
Please click here to apply.
To apply for job ID 50987, submit your materials online by using the Apply Now button at https://careers.nature.org/. Need help applying? Visit our recruitment page or contact applyhelp@tnc.org.

The Nature Conservancy is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Our commitment to diversity includes the recognition that our conservation mission is best advanced by the leadership and contributions of people of diverse backgrounds, beliefs and culture. Recruiting and mentoring staff to create an inclusive organization that reflects our global character is a priority and we encourage applicants from all cultures, races, colors, religions, sexes, national or regional origins, ages, disability status, sexual orientation, gender identity, military, protected veteran status or other status protected by law.

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