Mel Director, Usaid/colombia Sustainable

**MEL Director, USAID/Colombia Sustainable Agriculture 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 4,000 talented, motivated, and diverse staff of all religions, races, languages, and gender identities.

**The Opportunity**:
The purpose of the USAID/Colombia Sustainable Agriculture Activity (SAA) is to expand licit, profitable and climate-smart agri-business models for Colombia’s rural producers and value chain actors in conflict-affected regions with high prevalence of illicit crops, as a way to increase incomes, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase carbon sequestered in plants and soils, disincentivize coca production, and contribute to integrated rural development to transform rural conflict zones.

The SAA will take a market systems development approach to address the continued need for inclusive rural development opportunities in the priority conflict-affected areas of 1) Catatumbo, 2) Bajo Cauca, Cordoba, Southern Bolivar, and 3) Caquetá. The strategy for implementation will focus on implementing three pillars, markets, productivity, and climate smart-agriculture (that in addition to productivity is key to climate adaptation and mitigation). This activity will work primarily in the coffee, cacao, rubber, dairy, fruits and vegetables value chains.

The Activity is composed of the following components:

- Improved market access and increased sales for agricultural producers.
- Increased productivity of licit production systems.
- Expanded use of climate-smart agriculture (CSA).
- Crosscutting component: small scale infrastructure.

The Activity start date was February 16, 2023, and is a five-year project.

**Location**:
The position is based in Palladium’s Bogota, Colombia Office.

**Estimated Start Date**:
September 23, 2024

**You and Your Career**:
If you are a problem-solver, collaborator, facilitator and doer, and you have expertise in supervising program activities, we are interested in hearing from you. We are a learning organization and provide growth opportunities from the start. We pride ourselves on giving you the freedom, resources, and guidance to chart a fulfilling career

**Reporting and Supervision**:
The MEL Director will report to the Colombia SAA Chief of Party. S/he will be part of the leadership team, leading effective monitoring, evaluation and learning processes and activities.

**Primary Duties 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.
- Using the Collaborating, Learning and Adapting (CLA) approach, ensure that key learnings and best practices are captured, synthesized, reported, disseminated, and used to make timely adjustments to the program.
- Coordinate closely with technical and regional leaders, businesses, implementing partners and government Ministries to build cohesive measurement and results systems.
- Ensure that data regarding the inclusion of women, youth, people with disabilities, and other marginalized populations is fully captured, included, and reported accurately.
- Perform other related duties and responsibilities, as assigned.

**Position Requirements**:

- A least 8 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.
- Demonstrated expertise in designing rigorous quantitative and qualitative data collection systems and knowledge of methods for data analysis.
- Solid understanding of USAID regulations and M&E reporting requirements and demonstrated experience with USG and/or other donor best practices and regulations in MEL.
- Experience in knowledge management and dissemination of research findings