Junior National Monitoring Specialist

Organizational Setting

The position is located at the FAO Representation in Georgia under the European Neighbourhood Programme for Agriculture and Rural Development (ENPARD) IV programme. The main aim of the FAO country offices, which are headed by the FAO Representative, is to assist governments to develop policies, programmes and projects to achieve food security and to reduce hunger and malnutrition, to help develop the agricultural, fisheries and forestry sectors, and to use their environmental and natural resources in a sustainable manner.

Reporting Lines

The Junior National Monitoring Specialist shall operate under the overall responsibility of FAO Representative in Georgia, direct supervision of the FAO Programme Coordinator, in close coordination with the FAO National Monitoring and Evaluation Officer and following technical guidance from REU M&E team and other national and international colleagues of the EU funded projects in Georgia, and more concretely on the ENPARD Programme.

Technical Focus

The Junior Monitoring Specialist will assist in developing, implementing and following up on a monitoring system (comprised of M&E tools and reporting inputs) for the projects, and support in establishing necessary practical procedures and measures in order to operationalize monitoring in the projects.

Tasks and responsibilities

In close collaboration with National Monitoring and Evaluation Officer and the project GCP/GEO/022/EC, support in monitoring the successful and timely implementation of project activities and progress towards achieving project outputs, and more concretely:

• Lead the preparation and implementation of monitoring tools (data collection and analysis) plans, templates and processes.
• Plan and execute monitoring field visits to trained farmers, beneficiaries of matching grants, etc. Provide recommendation which are real time for programmatic course correction,
• Lead the monitoring system of ZOHO software and trains and oversee team members to use this system to enable real time information flow from the field to the programme management unit for all projects.
• Create and maintain a user-friendly data base, and generate weekly performance reports for the projects in the system.
• Establish and manage an Indicator Tracking Table for all projects and mapping estimated progress.
• Keep regular and close monitoring of the projects in Georgia, including in Abkhazia, including the preparation/revision of passports for indicators, methodology for monitoring and data collection of baselines and targets, and implementation indicators during the project duration.
• Assist in updating the monitoring and evaluation plans for all projects, in coherence with adjustments of the new work plan.
• Conduct the monitoring of project activities and progress towards achieving project outputs.
• Provide regular feedback on project activities and achievements.
• Follow-up and monitor internally implementation of previous evaluation and MTR recommendations for the ENPARD Programme in Georgia.
• Support gender mainstreaming work of ENPARD IV project in terms of awareness raising trainings on the issues of gender equality with women farmers and other stakeholders and other activities as requested; conduct monitoring visits to women beneficiaries and track the progress of the implementation of Gender Action plan of the project;
• Support the finalization of an enterprise survey and analyzing survey results.
• Support International Food Safety Expert in data and sample collection.
• Lead the implementation of REU M&E tool
• Contribute to Evaluation of the Rural Development Agency’s project “Co-financing of Processing and Storage Enterprises” (Desk research, Preparation of questionnaires, sampling, testing, finalization of results, data cleaning, analysis of results and drafting reports).
• Support the creation of baseline and endline data collection tools and follow up the baseline/endline data collection for all project beneficiaries.
• Support the mid-term and final external evaluations and ROM evaluation missions.
• Perform other related duties as required.

CANDIDATES WILL BE ASSESSED AGAINST THE FOLLOWING

Minimum Requirements

• University degree in economics, statistics, or related field
• Minimum 2 years of relevant experience in project monitoring and evaluation
• National of Georgia
• Working knowledge of English language and Georgian. Russian would be an asset.

FAO Core Competencies

• Results Focus
• Teamwork
• Communication
• Building Effective Relationships
• Knowledge Sharing and Continuous Improvement

Technical/Functional Skills

• Proven experience in designing and implementing operational monitoring system
• Capacity to analyse information and produce assessments

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION