Tetra Tech International Development Services headquartered in Arlington, VA is currently accepting expressions of interest from qualified Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) Specialist candidates for the CCBO program.

Position Description/Summary: The Clean Cities, Blue Ocean (CCBO) activity is a five-year initiative of USAID which will serve as USAID's flagship program to target ocean plastics directly at their source in cities and towns. The project works to prevent ocean plastic pollution by building capacity and commitment for Reducing, Reusing, and Recycling (3Rs) and solid waste management (SWM) in urban and peri-urban settings, particularly in riverine and coastal areas. CCBO works with multiple USAID missions on country-specific implementation of national and local activities, and with USAID/Washington on global-level activities.

CCBO is established with a Headquarter team in the US and a regional office based in Metro Manila, Philippines, that will implement activities within the Philippines and provide technical and administrative leadership and coordination across other offices in the region including Vietnam, Sri Lanka and Indonesia.

The role of the Regional Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) Specialist is to support the implementation of the CCBO Activity MEL Plan (AMELP) and knowledge management and learning (KML) strategy in the Philippines, while providing technical and coordination support to other CCBO countries in Asia, including Vietnam, Sri Lanka and the Maldives, and Indonesia. The AMELP describes all data collection, analysis, and reporting tasks to be conducted over the life of activity. The KML strategy describes the ways in which existing knowledge and lessons learned generated by CCBO will be captured, shared, and ultimately used to inform USAID’s and the broader sector’s knowledge on 3Rs and SWM.

Under the supervision of the Regional Director for Southeast Asia, and in close coordination with the MEL Manager based in the US, and the Regional Grants Specialist (based in the Philippines) the Regional MEL Specialist will be responsible for ensuring that data generated from grantees and other activities and interventions in the Philippines are reliably and accurately collected, verified, and reported in a timely manner. The Regional MEL specialist will also play an integral role in identifying and collecting information and stories that contribute to CCBO’s learning questions, and distilling lessons learned that can contribute to the technical direction of the program as well as developing communication materials.

The Regional MEL Specialist will be responsible for collecting and auditing grantee and local data collectors’ MEL systems, policies, procedures, templates, and forms for CCBO activities in the Philippines. The MEL Specialist will provide on-site monitoring, oversight, and accountability of program activities, as well as work directly with grantees, relevant technical specialists and subcontracting partners to develop and roll-out and ensure proper use of data collection tools. This includes review of grantee applications, and collaborating with the CCBO team and grantee in developing and refining theories of change, program descriptions, selection of indicators, and developing targets. In addition to these responsibilities in the Philippines, the Regional MEL Specialist (in collaboration with the US-based MEL Manager) will provide technical coordination and support to country MEL specialists in the South East Asia region. The MEL Specialist will provide mentoring and training assistance/services to country MEL Specialists, grantee / partner program staff, as well as third party data collectors. Therefore his/her in-depth understanding of the project’s indicators, and data collection methods and techniques, as well as strong written and verbal communication skills is critical for successfully performing the tasks outlined below. The Regional MEL specialist will work in collaboration with other CCBO staff in accordance with USAID’s and Tetra Tech ARD’s procedures and policies.

Qualifications:

* Master’s degree (or equivalent) and 7 years’ experience in relevant field or Bachelor’s degree (or equivalent) and 10 years’ experience in relevant field.

* At least 5 years’ experience in Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (or similar jobs such as M&E, MEAL, MERL, programmatic quality assurance) for international development programs. Experience with USAID and grant programs preferred but not required. 

* Experience and understanding in municipal solid waste management, ocean plastics, materials management, recycling services preferred but not required.

* Proven capacity building and training skills for a wide range of stakeholders.

* High level proficiency of MS-Office functions, especially Excel, online data collection forms (e.g. Formstack, Surveygizmo, Google forms) and data platforms (e.g. Salesforce, Tableau). 

* Fluency in Filipino language and advanced proficiency in speaking and writing in English. Additional regional language proficiency beneficial but not required.

* Ability to travel within the Philippines and CCBO focal countries in the Southeast Asia region up to 40% of the time

* Excellent project and data management skills

* Excellent communication, organization, teamwork, and leadership skills

* Ability to work under pressure and meet tight deadlines

* Must be comfortable working in a fast-paced work environment, with occasional meetings to accommodate differing time zones.