Much as the MEL function is critical to achieve program results, the success depends on its effectiveness. An effective MEL system provides a guidance to the program implementation. Therefore, it gathers data required to satisfy stakeholder’s information needs, thereby being a consolidated source of program performance information, a point for dialogue on development progress, a path for learning and improvement, a platform for actors to learn from each other’s experiences, a framework for transparency and accountability reporting, a reliable institutional memory, and a way to assess critical links between implementers and beneficiaries as well as between decision-makers (International Platform on Sport & Development, n.d.).
Being a critical function requiring a multi-disciplinary knowledge (statistics, data science, project/program management, socio-economic science, etc.), MEL professional should have the required competences and skills through a certification process. At least, the certification would guarantee the due diligence and accountability when discharging MEL roles and responsibilities.
Who can benefit from MEL Career Development Program ?
The students graduating from universities and other learning institutions have basic knowledge and are short of professional experience and practical know-how that would enable them to be directly selected for employment opportunities. This is because the recruiters or labor market strictly require the experience and professional skills. Under such conditions, those students would rather enroll in the Horizon of Excellence in order to apply what they have learned and therefore gain professional skills, recommendations, advocacy and guidance that would help them realize their dreams.
Labor market, on the other hand, would like to hire the best candidates in terms of competence, behavior, professional skills such as analysis, presentation, team working, etc. Therefore, meeting with potential employees in occasions of career fairs and receiving reliable recommendation from Horizon of Excellence would help employers better know the staff before hiring them.
Finally, practitioners need to update and improve their skills without living their jobs. This is possible while working with the Horizon of Excellence and this is a less expensive offer. This can thus improve their performance in their respective positions and, as a result, can increase their opportunities in the labor market.
HOREX’s MEL Career Development Program
The career development program offered by the Horizon of Excellence aims at putting in place a knowledgeable and professional team capable to undertake robust evaluation assignments, through:
- improving skills in project design and management with more focus on monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL).
- building rigorous research and analytical hands-on capacities related to socio-program evaluation
- improving opportunities of young professional to get the desired jobs in the East African Community and elsewhere in the world.
It is a Continuous Development Program (CPD) involving the following three-level graduation based on nine professional skills that are continuously monitored.
GRADUATE PROFILE OF MEL PROFESSIONAL (MEL LEVEL I)
- Good understanding of MEL work environment in the project management complexity;
- Technical know-how on setting up and maintaining an effective M&E system;
- Ability to go through the sampling process using Excel, survey design and data collection using modern technologies such as Open Data Kit (ODK);
- Ability to statistically handle missing values and calculating sample weights
- Hands-on skills using Excel to summarize and visualize data, and to statistically validate hypotheses and conclusions;
- Hands-on skills on creating MEL Dashboards including google maps using Power BI
- Understanding of the qualitative designs
- Hands-on experience through an internship project
GRADUATE PROFILE OF ADVANCED MEL PROFESSIONAL (MEL LEVEL II)
- Knowledge and skills from Level 1;
- Statistical knowledge and skills using Stata;
- Good understanding of statistical assumptions and different data distributions;
- Hands-on skills related to developing regression models fitting different circumstances and conditions, adequacy checking, and interpretation;
- Qualitative data collection and analysis using qualitative software such as NVivo.
- Hands-on experience through an internship project
GRADUATE PROFILE OF EVALUATION RESEARCHER (MEL LEVEL III)
- Knowledge and skills from Level 1 & 2;
- Statistical knowledge and skills in using R
- Practical knowledge of data mining strategies to represent big data in reduced dimensions that will help create indices or key performance indicators for program analysis
- Ability to use R for GIS and skills for spatial analysis as an exploratory process focusing on the statistical analysis of spatial patterns and underlying processes to confirm or not whether the outcomes are associated with intervention locations;
- Good understanding of the data science and opportunities for leveraging big data in MEL activities.
- Specialization in Impact Evaluation, Performance analysis, or efficiency analysis
- Hands-on experience through an internship project
SKILL STATEMENT
“Think strategically, learn for adaptive management, coordinate inclusively, communicate effectively, and build capacities as an ICT user and social researcher with a specialized and updated knowledge”.