COLLABORATION, LEARNING, AND ADAPTING (CLA) ASSISTANT
Position Description
Location: Monrovia (1)
Position Status Full-time, Regular
Salary Level: 4
Current Team Member New position
About Mercy Corps
Mercy Corps is a leading global organization powered by the belief that a better world is possible.
In disaster, in hardship, in more than 40 countries around the world, we partner to put bold solutions
into action — helping people triumph over adversity and build stronger communities from within.
Now, and for the future. Mercy Corps has been working in Liberia since 2002.
Program / Department Summary
Mercy Corps and its’ consortium partners are implementing the Incentivize Learning Activity (ILA). This Activity
is a five- year program, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The
program aims to address food security needs and incentivize school enrollment and ensure access to
education for vulnerable and underserved school age children. The program will provide school meals,
targeted financial incentives, engage communities and parents and conduct social, and behavior change
communication. The program will be implemented by Mercy Corps and its’ consortium partners in Grand
Bassa, Bong, Nimba, Margibi, Montserrado and Lofa counties.
GENERAL POSITION SUMMARY:
The Collaboration, Learning and Adapting (CLA) Assistant will work in close collaboration with the CLA/MEL
Manager and the Program team to track, analyse and report learning of all ILA interventions. S/he will help
create tracking tools to ensure team members and community members are reaching their goals. S/he will
work with teams to document case studies, success stories by engaging with various program participants
across the operational Counties, and Districts. S/he will also support the monitoring and evaluation sector in
data management, analysis and dissemination of the learnings of the ILA program.

The CLA Assistant will support the CLA/MEL Lead to use USAID’s CLA principles to effectively integrate real-
time monitoring and learning back into the project strategy and program implementation and ensure

knowledge is shared with the broader participants and various stakeholders.

ESSENTIAL JOB FUNCTIONS:
Monitoring and Evaluation:
• Coordinate learning and reflection sessions at the community, County level with different
stakeholders
• Support teams in collecting sex and age disaggregated data and using gender-sensitive data
collection methods to understand and respond to program results with diverse participants.
• In collaboration with the CLA/MEL Lead, develop tools to simplify data gathering and reporting and
ensure teams gather and report necessary data

• Support program staff in monitoring and evaluating the progress and impact of work including setting
and measuring benchmarks along results chains;
• Manage program data; including information that will be relevant in telling the stories of ILA to various
stakeholders.
• Prepare stories to be used in quarterly program strategic reviews, annual reports, and other
evaluations.
• Disseminate research learnings and recommendations to team members, beneficiaries and other
relevant audiences.
• Perform spot checks on the team’s data collected and reports each month especially the qualitative
data.
• Lead in documenting the programme success stories and case studies
• In collaboration with the CLA/MEL Lead, coordinate ILA lessons learned and develop key actions of
improvement
• Participate in all research activities of the project
ADAPTING
• In collaboration with the CLA/MEL Lead, proposing changes to program approaches based on
learnings and research findings.
• Follow up to make sure that action plans for adaptation are implemented
INFORMATION MANAGEMENT:
• Works with the program and M&E teams to adopt a holistic program-level CLA system.
• Provides guidance, recommendations to ensure that the CLA systems meet the needs of Programs
Manager and Country Leadership and help address shortfalls in CLA that affect program
implementation.
• Contributes to program design to ensure adherence to CLA and Mercy Corps’ best practices
CAPACITY BUILDING
• In collaboration with the CLA/MEL Lead, develops and oversees the implementation of the partner
capacity building strategy that promotes a culture of learning through systematic analysis and
reflection of program data.
• In collaboration with the CLA/MEL Lead, build the capacity of all relevant team members to develop
and maintain an excellent M&E system, including regular reflection and analysis of program monitoring
data.
• Contributes to the knowledge management repository with best practices in M&E and ensures that it
is accessible to all staff and partners.
• Create and sustain a work environment of mutual respect where team members strive to achieve
excellence.
COMMUNICATION AND PUBLICATION:

• Contribute data, analysis and write-ups to regular organizational publications and reports;
• Work with the relevant focal point to develop fact sheets for ILA.
FINANCE & COMPLIANCE MANAGEMENT
• Ensure compliance with donor and Mercy Corps regulations related to peace and conflict
programming.
SECURITY
• Ensure compliance with security procedures and policies as determined by country leadership.
• Proactively ensure that team members operate in a secure environment and are aware of policies.
ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING
• As part of our commitment to organizational learning and in support of our understanding that
learning organizations are more effective, efficient and relevant to the communities they serve, we
expect all team members to commit 5% of their time to learning activities that benefit Mercy Corps
as well as themselves.
ACCOUNTABILITY TO BENEFICIARIES
• Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts toward accountability, specifically
to our beneficiaries and to international standards guiding international relief and development work,
while actively engaging beneficiary communities as equal partners in the design, monitoring and
evaluation of our field projects.
Supervisory Responsibility
None
Accountability
Reports Directly to: CLA/MEL Lead
• Works Directly with: Partner staff, Program Manager, Program Officers, Gender team, MEL team

Knowledge and Experience
• BA/S Degree in Development Studies, Research Methods, Statistics, Economics, Social Sciences,
Monitoring and Evaluation, Project Management or other relevant field required.
• 2-3 years of active M&E work experience in emergency and development programming required
with the proven use of program technology
• Experience with a theoretical and practical background in M&E and skilled in participatory
qualitative and quantitative M&E methodologies and techniques.
• Excellent qualitative skills and power users with Excel; Experience with USAID CLA framework.

• Experience with data management including the ability to structure and collate data sets for ease of
analysis.
• Experience using any software in analyzing qualitative data.
• Fluency in spoken and written English required.
• Knowledge of other local dialects is preferred.
• Demonstrated attention to detail, ability to follow procedures, meet deadlines and work
independently and cooperatively with team members.
Success Factors
The successful Collaboration, Learning and Adapting (CLA) Assistant will combine exceptional
Communication and information sharing management skills and experience in data management,
development of learning tools, learning agenda and case studies and success stories. S/he will have an ability
to think creatively about operationalizing and improving the M&E and documentation of the program. S/he will
have proven experience with cross-cultural team and capacity building, individual staff development and
strong mentoring skills. Multi-tasking, prioritizing, problem solving and simultaneous attention to detail as well
as strategic vision are essential. The most successful Mercy Corps staff members have a strong commitment
to teamwork and accountability, thrive in evolving and changing environments and make effective written and
verbal communication a priority in all situations. A good sense of humor and the ability to learn from mistakes
also goes a long way.