Spark Microgrants believes in a world where everyone lives with dignity and determines their own positive future. Decades of prescriptive aid have sidelined the poor from the very programs meant to uplift them. We believe in local solutions and catalyzing rural villages facing poverty into action. At the heart of Spark’s model, the Facilitated Collective Action Process (FCAP), are ‘town-hall’ style weekly meetings, in which women, men, young, old, plan together for their community’s future. Each village elects a leadership committee, establishes a village savings account, and launches a project of their choice. Members receive training on financial management, transparency, leadership, village planning, and advocacy.

Spark trains partner organizations and works with governments to scale the FCAP as the model of choice to advance social and economic development, improve lives, and secure lasting change. Spark is now active in 500+ villages in 6 countries, improving the lives of over 500,000 people. In Uganda the CoP is implementing the FCAP in locations of West Nile and Bulambuli district in Uganda. Our partnership with Centre for Community Development in West Nile covering 20 partner communities spread across the Omugo and Rhino Camp refugee settlements housing both refugees from South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. We also have a memorandum of Understanding to implement the FCAP in Bulambuli district with 55 partner communities currently.

As a team, we share a set of common values that shape how we work. These are:
1. Facilitators. We don’t impose; we enable others to generate impact.

2. Community-driven. We are motivated by what is best for the community.
3. Process-centered. The how of what we do is just as important as the what.
4. Authentic. Our vision and values live in everything we do.
5. Dynamic. We seek opportunities and are willing to take risks to serve our community partners better

About The Role
This role is crucial as we adopt and scale our model for families facing poverty to engage and lead in local planning and action. We need you to make sure we have 100% confidence in our data and can use them to make smart decisions as an organization as well as help our partners do the same. Under the supervision of the Community of Practice (partnerships) Senior M&E Officer, the M&E Assistant will play an integral role in the collection, analysis and reporting of impact data at our District office at Bulambuli. You will be responsible for ensuring that high quality data are collected and utilized by the program team in decision making.

Your Responsibilities Will Include:
• Contributing to the development and design of logical measurement frameworks, monitoring systems and evaluation strategies, including participatory monitoring and feedback mechanisms for communities.
• Supporting the development of data collection tools especially for case studies and pilot monitoring and assessment.

• Ensure timely collection of continuous monitoring, research and learning data from all communities of operation in Bulambuli District including; Community monitoring data, Facilitator monitoring data, Project Monitoring data, Community evaluation data and bespoke research data by CBFs, Partner trainers and enumerators.

• Training, coordinating & overseeing 155 Community Based Facilitators (CBFs) on the use of the spark monitoring system to collect high quality routine monitoring data
• Training CoP staff attached to Bulambuli, Bulambuli Local government officials, Partner trainers and CBFs on how to use dashboards to develop actions based on the reports in the dashboards
• Conducting monitoring field visits frequently with the program staff to monitor progress of community projects, supporting community members to record project monitoring data to ensure that the collected data are of the right quality
• Conducting data quality audits through field visits, spot checks and working with the Quality Assurance officer to do data verification quarterly
• Analyzing Bulambuli monitoring data, and presenting findings in CoP meetings on a weekly, monthly and quarterly basis.
• Being a liaison between product and communities by collecting any feedback/queries/issues on our monitoring system (commcare & dashboards) and working with the product team to resolve/act on them.
• Following up with CBFs and Partner trainers to ensure that data related action points from CoP meetings are implemented
• Preparing quarterly reports to Local Government offices and representing Spark at the implementing partners’ meetings at District offices.
• Working with the Program team to document lessons learnt and community success stories on a quarterly basis about the FCAP and any running pilots.
• Contributing to any other assignments as identified by your supervisor.

Who We Are Looking for:
Essential:
1. A bachelor’s degree in a quantitative discipline from a recognized university
2. Strong quantitative analysis skills
3. One to two years’ work experience in program/project monitoring and evaluation, research, or data management and analysis position
4. Strong knowledge of R/Stata/Excel (Added advantage if good with R)
5. Experience in report writing for project monitoring and evaluation
6. Ability to communicate effectively in English, both written and spoken
7. Ability to communicate effectively in Lugisu/Lumasaba (spoken)
8. Ability to communicate in a highly professional manner with a variety of audiences
9. High level of attention to detail
10. Flexible and able to adapt to change

Desirable:
1. A Bachelor's degree in a quantitative discipline like Statistics, quantitative economics, Mathematics, Monitoring and Evaluation or a related course
2. Experience in qualitative and quantitative data collection using Mobile technology
3. Demonstrated passion for community led development projects/programs
4. Understanding of analysis software: R or STATA (R Preferred)
5. Experience in managing a team of enumerators/staff

WHY WORK WITH US?
• You will be joining a dynamic team that hails from ten countries around the world and is committed to our vision
• You will have the freedom and autonomy to make your role your own. We want to hear your innovative ideas, your vision for the future, and your critical questions.
• We respect and value work-life balance and your need for downtime, vacation, and reflection.
• You will join a dynamic and growing organization with a clear pathway to learning and career advancement.

OTHER INFORMATION:
• Location will be Bulambuli District, with ~50% travel within the communities in Bulambuli where Spark operates.
• We will agree on learning and performance objectives for an initial probation period lasting three months from on-boarding.
• Application end date: On a rolling basis, we reserve the right to close this recruitment process at any time.
• Expected Start Date: As soon as possible.

Work Hours: 8

Experience in Months: 24

Level of Education: Bachelor Degree