Senior Data & Information Officer - PlayMatters

PlayMatters reimagines childhood for refugees. It will bring play-based learning to 800,000 children across Ethiopia, Uganda and a to be confirmed third country. It will redefine education and cultivate a generation of lifelong builders. PlayMatters is inspired by LEGO Foundation’s call to challenge the status quo, to offer children the quality education they dream of. Children are not gaining the skills they need, teachers are under-supported and parents are overwhelmed. The systems built to serve them are failing them. PlayMatters proudly offers something different. It will be delivered by a coalition with a track record of thinking and delivering differently. We bring three distinct characteristics:

1. Outcomes. Everything we do is fueled by the social, emotional, cognitive, physical, creative and resilience outcomes we seek. We know learning happens when children are at the center and teachers, parents and the system surrounding them embrace children’s agency and have not only skills and resources, but the motivation to drive change.
2. Research And Learning. Effective delivery requires both rigor and a big heart. With LEGO Foundation, PlayMatters will generate scientific evidence that can transform our understanding of play and learning for refugees in East Africa and around the world.
3. Thought Leadership. The LEGO Foundation Humanitarian Initiative offers an opportunity to deliver and comes with the responsibility to lead. Our consortium’s members have a record mobilizing others.

The Sr Data and Information Officer will be a critical member of the PlayMatters regional project team, based in Kampala, Uganda.  The position will coordinate database development, dashboard creation and  data quality activities in diverse settings across Uganda and Ethiopia, and Tanzania with refugee and host communities.

Job Overview

Reporting to the Research, Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Advisor (RMEL Advisor), the Sr. Data and Information Officer will work closely with IRC implementation staff and consortium partners to support the development of the integrated database and dashboards, roll out digital data collection tools and ensure data quality.

The Sr Data and Information Officer will have primary responsibility for coordinating the fulfillment of these goals across PlayMatters consortium partner agencies.

Key Objectives

• Provide data to report on key indicators with necessary disaggreates;
• Support the process of designing and rolling out key digital M&E tools across consortium partners and with field teams, in service of the project goals;
• Support the process of designing, maintaining and rolling out key dashboards with data visualization in a timely manner so that data can be used for subsequent program design and scale up, including with partners and other humanitarian agencies;
• Conduct routine data quality checks with field implementation teams to ensure accuracy, reliability, timeliness and relevance of key monitoring data

Specific Duties and Responsibilities

Database Development and Management

• Provide technical support to enable field staff to implement protocols and plans safely, ethically, and rigorously.
• Support development and implementation of monitoring and evaluation tools and protocols
• Develop an integrated case management system with necessary registration and follow up forms
• Ensure backend data quality controls are in place and functional
• Build Capacity of field teams and M&E staff to use and test key M&E tools
• Co-create, maintain and disseminate dashboards with program staff and managers 
• Establish routine database quality checks and management procedures
• Ensure high-quality data collection and management. Provide training and support to M&E and research teams for data quality control, cleaning, and management.

Disseminating quality data

• Assure that monitoring and evaluation activities provide timely, relevant information for reporting and programming decisions.
• Analyze and report on key monitoring data to the RMEL Advisor and Project Teams
• Develop user-friendly dashboards and data visualizations for program teams and other key audiences
• Provide capacity building trainings to familiarize the teams with relevant database and dashboard procedures
• Support regional team activities to assure that data from research and monitoring activities are used to adjust and adapt programming over time.
• Leverage existing IRC staff and partner expertise or build capacity as needed to assure front-line staff participation in the interpretation and application of results, as well as design of data use plans and learning agendas.

Collaboration and accountability with internal stakeholders

• Report to RMEL Advisor about progress against approved workplans through formal and informal debriefings, annual and semi-annual reports.
• Maintain open communication with partner counterparts and country level staff to assure coherence and reasonable sequencing of work.

Collaboration and accountability with external stakeholders

• Establish and maintain solid cooperation with partner organizations as we design and refine the monitoring and evaluation framework
• Collaborate with the regional project team, partners, governments, and other humanitarian actors in developing methods to understand if and how early childhood and primary education inclusive of learning through play activities that are feasible and useful in humanitarian settings

Key Working Relationships

Position reports to:  RMEL Advisor, PlayMatters

Position supervises:TBD

Other Internal and/or external contacts

Internal:IRC country program staff; Regional staff such as Research, Communications and Advocacy; other technical units within IRC (Education, Health, Violence Prevention and Response, Economic Recovery and Development, Governance, Gender Equality)