Program Quality, Evidence & Learning Director - Nigeria

**Contingent upon Donor Funding**

He/she will oversee the PaQ unit in Nigeria, ensuring the establishment and implementation of organization-wide systems that promote consistent standards, processes, and best practices in program management. The position will play a central role in fostering evidence-based programming and adaptive management, while building a strong culture of training, coaching, and technical rigor to improve program effectiveness and efficiency.

In addition, the position holder will be responsible for producing high-quality learning documents, reflection briefs, case studies, and best-practice notes. These outputs will be strategically communicated to donors, state stakeholders, and partners to showcase Mercy Corps’ approaches, achievements, innovations, and impact in humanitarian response. The PaQ Director will strengthen program visibility and external positioning by translating field-level results into clear, evidence-driven narratives that support donor engagement and future resource mobilization.

• Provide strategic leadership to ensure clearly defined roles, accountability structures, and alignment with life-saving humanitarian priorities in Borno State.
• Lead the integration of program data, context analysis, and evidence into country and sector strategies to ensure evidence-based, adaptive programming.
• Establish and institutionalize systems that strengthen program quality, monitoring, learning, reporting, and community accountability mechanisms across the portfolio.
• Develop processes that ensure cross-program learning is systematically captured and integrated into program adaptation and future design.
• In collaboration with other departments, strengthen cross-team coordination to ensure coherence, technical rigor, and operational efficiency across all sectors.

• Lead the design and oversight of robust MEL, research, reporting, and Community Accountability and Response Mechanisms (CARM) systems aligned with humanitarian standards and donor expectations.
• Ensure technical excellence and quality assurance across all sectors (WASH, Nutrition, Food Security, Cash, Protection, Shelter, etc.), including participation in start-up reviews, quality audits, field spot checks, and program close-outs.
• Promote adaptive management by ensuring real-time data informs operational decisions in rapidly evolving humanitarian contexts.
• Ensure efficient and transparent data capture systems that support evidence-based decision-making and timely internal and external reporting.
• Support proposal development processes by integrating lessons learned, sector evidence, and strong accountability frameworks into program design.

• Lead the production of high-quality learning products, including evaluation briefs, lessons learned reports, case studies, reflection notes, and best-practice documentation.
• Translate field-level evidence and results into clear, compelling narratives that showcase Mercy Corps’ approaches, innovations, and impact to donors, government stakeholders, and coordination platforms.
• Ensure timely, high-quality internal and external reporting that demonstrates accountability, results, and value for money.
• Institutionalize mechanisms for capturing impact stories, evidence, and operational insights to strengthen donor engagement and future resource mobilization.
• Ensure high-quality evaluations and internal data quality assessments to demonstrate measurable outcomes and accountability.

• Strengthen and institutionalize Community Accountability and Response Mechanisms (CARM), ensuring communities can safely and effectively provide feedback.
• Ensure compliance with Gender and Social Inclusion (GESI) standards, including SADD data minimum requirements and protection mainstreaming.
• Promote inclusive, gender-sensitive, and protection-aware programming across all life-saving interventions.
• Support the integration of Do No Harm and safeguarding principles throughout the program lifecycle.

• Build and lead a high-performing PaQ team with a culture of accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
• Provide supervision, coaching, and performance management to ensure technical excellence and alignment with strategic objectives.
• Ensure effective internal communication and coordination between field offices, sectors, and support departments.
• Recruit, orient, and develop team members to strengthen mission-wide program quality and learning capacity.

• Represent Prosper Global in donor engagements, coordination forums, and technical working groups related to program quality, learning, and accountability.
• Share best practices and contribute to sector-wide learning at state, and national levels.
• Engage with regional and global PaQ team to ensure Nigeria contributes to and benefits from organizational learning and innovation.

• Actively learns about safeguarding and integrates it into their work, including safeguarding risks and mitigations related to their area of work.
• Practices the values of Prosper Global including respecting the dignity and well-being of participants and fellow team members.
• Encourages openness and communication in their team; encourages team members to submit reports if they have any concerns using reporting mechanisms e.g., Integrity Hotline and other options.

MEL Manager, CARM Coordinator, and Senior Learning and Communication Officer

Accountability

Reports Directly To: Programs Director - Humanitarian

• Bachelor’s degree required, master’s degree in Humanitarian Studies, International Development, or a related field preferred.
• Minimum 12 years of progressive experience in humanitarian or development programming, including 4 years of leadership and coordination in complex, high-risk contexts (Africa experience preferred).
• Strong expertise in Program Quality, Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, and Learning (MEAL), including remote monitoring, mobile data collection, evaluations, and data quality assurance.
• Strong knowledge of statistical packages and software
• Demonstrated ability to institutionalize systems for program quality, community accountability, adaptive management, and evidence-based decision-making.
• Proven experience in producing high-quality reports, learning documents, and donor-facing communications that showcase program impact and best practices.
• Strong analytical, facilitation, and capacity-building skills, with the ability to work independently and meet tight deadlines.
• Willingness and ability to travel frequently to field locations, including insecure environments.
• Fluent written and spoken English required.

Success Factors

Living / Environmental conditions

This is an unaccompanied position based in Maiduguri, Borno State. The position holder will reside in shared staff housing in accordance with Prosper Global policies. Living conditions are basic but functional, with access to essential amenities, health services (including medical evacuation options), internet, and mobile connectivity.

Maiduguri is a high-risk operational environment. Travel to operational areas is required and is conducted primarily via UNHAS scheduled flights in line with security protocols. All movements are closely coordinated and monitored by the country security team, and strict adherence to security procedures is mandatory.

Ongoing Learning

Team Engagement and Effectiveness

Achieving our mission starts with how we build our team and collaborate. By bringing together individuals with a variety of experiences, backgrounds, and perspectives, we strengthen our ability to solve complex challenges and drive innovation. We foster a culture of trust and respect, where every team member is valued for their contributions, empowered to reach their full potential, and motivated to do their best work.

We recognize that building a strong and effective team is an ongoing process, and we remain committed to learning, improving, and growing together.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Safeguarding & Ethics

Prosper Global is committed to ensuring that all individuals we come into contact with through our work, whether team members, community members, program participants or others, are treated with respect and dignity. We are committed to the core principles regarding prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse laid out by the UN Secretary General and IASC and have signed on to the Interagency Misconduct Disclosure Scheme. We will not tolerate child abuse, sexual exploitation, abuse, or harassment by or of our team members. As part of our commitment to a safe and inclusive work environment, team members are expected to conduct themselves in a professional manner, respect local laws and customs, and to adhere to Prosper Global Code of Conduct Policies and values at all times. Team members are required to complete mandatory Code of Conduct elearning courses upon hire and on an annual basis.

As an applicant, if you witness or experience any form of sexual misconduct during the recruitment process, please report this to Prosper Global Integrity Hotline ([email protected]).