Near East Foundation
Job Title: Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Officer
Reports to: MEL Manger
Location: Mosul, Iraq
Project Duration: July 1, 2025 – December 31, 2025
Travel: Yes, 30%
Project Title: Innovate Mosul: Strengthening the Green and Digital SME Ecosystem
Organizational Background
The Near East Foundation (NEF) is an international non-profit organization that has worked for over 100 years to build more sustainable, prosperous, and inclusive communities in the Middle East and Africa. NEF operates through country offices and local partners across ten countries: Armenia, Jordan, Lebanon, Mali, Morocco, Palestine, Senegal, South Sudan, Syria, and Sudan. NEF’s programs focus on Inclusive Economic Development, Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resource Management, and Peacebuilding.
As part of its Iraq portfolio, NEF is implementing the UNDP-funded Innovate Mosul project, which aims to strengthen the green and digital SME ecosystem in Mosul and surrounding areas, enabling small and medium enterprises to grow, create jobs, and access new markets.
Project Context
Years of conflict, weak business support systems, and limited access to capital have impacted livelihoods in Mosul, particularly for youth, women, persons with disabilities, and marginalized groups. The Innovate Mosul project aims to address these challenges by supporting 200 startups and SMEs through business development training, coaching, financial support, networking, climate-smart entrepreneurship, and digital business registration solutions. Accurate monitoring and learning are critical to ensure successful implementation, quality service delivery, evidence-based decision-making, and full donor compliance.
Position Overview
The Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Officer will play a critical role in ensuring the effective tracking, measurement, reporting, and learning of the Innovate Mosul project. The M&E Officer will design and implement monitoring systems to capture project outputs, outcomes, and impacts; ensure data quality and integrity; coordinate learning activities; and support adaptive management processes in line with NEF, UNDP, and donor requirements.
The M&E Officer will work closely with project teams, partners, and stakeholders to ensure that all project components are properly monitored, that progress is accurately reported, and that data is used to improve project performance and inform future programming.
Key Responsibilities
1.Monitoring System Design and Implementation
- Develop, update, and implement the project’s Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) framework and tools in alignment with NEF and UNDP requirements.
- Establish clear indicators, data collection methodologies, and reporting schedules for all project outputs, outcomes, and impact indicators.
- Ensure proper integration of gender, youth inclusion, disability, and climate-smart indicators across the MEL system.
- Train project staff and partners on M&E tools, data collection protocols, and reporting requirements.
2. Data Collection, Management, and Quality Assurance
- Lead the collection, management, verification, and cleaning of quantitative and qualitative project data.
- Conduct routine data quality assurance (DQA) checks to ensure accuracy, validity, and reliability of data collected by field staff.
- Monitor participant registration, training attendance, coaching, financial support disbursement, and business performance tracking.
- Oversee pre- and post-training assessments, satisfaction surveys, and participant feedback mechanisms.
- Maintain up-to-date databases, dashboards, and project management systems to track overall project performance.
3. Reporting and Donor Compliance
- Prepare high-quality data summaries, indicator reports, and analysis for monthly, quarterly, and donor reports.
- Ensure that all reports submitted to UNDP are fully accurate, evidence-based, and compliant with donor templates and deadlines.
- Support preparation of narrative reports by providing data-driven summaries and analysis to inform written reports.
4. Learning, Evaluation, and Adaptive Management
- Conduct periodic analysis of project data to inform adaptive management and continuous improvement of project design.
- Facilitate internal reflection sessions, learning reviews, and after-action reviews to assess lessons learned.
- Support the design, implementation, and documentation of success stories, case studies, and outcome-level change narratives.
- Prepare data and coordinate external evaluations, donor verifications, and project audits as required.
5. Coordination and Support
- Coordinate with technical teams, including business development, finance, coaching, procurement, and digital systems to ensure comprehensive monitoring.
- Participate actively in project team meetings and planning sessions to ensure data-driven program management.
- Support beneficiary satisfaction monitoring and grievance response mechanisms as required.
- Perform other duties as assigned by the Project Manager.
Required Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in Monitoring & Evaluation, Economics, Statistics, Business Administration, Social Sciences, Development Studies, or a related field.
- Minimum of 3 years of demonstrated experience in designing and managing M&E systems for livelihood, SME development, private sector development, or donor-funded projects.
- Strong skills in designing indicators, data collection tools, and MEL frameworks.
- Experience in both quantitative and qualitative data collection, analysis, and reporting.
- Familiarity with inclusion frameworks, vulnerability assessments, and gender-disaggregated data collection.
- Proficiency in Microsoft Office (Excel, Word, Outlook, PowerPoint); experience with data analysis software (e.g. Power BI, SPSS, KoboToolbox, etc.) is a strong asset.
- Excellent organizational, planning, and problem-solving skills.
- Strong interpersonal and communication skills in both Arabic and English.
- Ability and willingness to travel regularly to field locations.
NEF will accept applications on a rolling basis until the position is filled. Interested candidates are encouraged to apply as soon as possible. The deadline will be on June 14, 2025.
To apply:
Please apply by submitting the following documents on the Near East Foundation's career page at:
https://neareast.bamboohr.com/careers/459?source=aWQ9MTY%3D
- Cover letter outlining relevant experience and skills based on the requirements outlined above;
- Curriculum Vitae;
- List of three references (including one from current, or most recent, employer).
Please note only shortlisted candidates will be contacted. Female candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.
Applicants are strongly encouraged to familiarize themselves with the Near East Foundation by visiting the NEF website at www.neareast.org.
The Near East Foundation promotes Equal Opportunities for all applicants seeking employment and NEF employees.
Pre-employment Checks
Any Employment with the Near East Foundation will be subject to the following checks prior to start date:
- A satisfactory Restricted Party Screening;
- Receipt of satisfactory references;
- Proof of eligibility to work in the national location for this role.
NEF's strength is its people. Our team is our fuel to achieving the innovation, quality programming, community focus, mutual trust, sustainability, and learning needed to realize our mission. To help our team thrive, we support a working structure that prioritizes flexibility, personal commitments, and staff well-being while promoting a work culture of teamwork, collaboration, respect, integrity, and excellence.
As an international organization, we value a truly diverse workforce and prioritize a culture of inclusivity and belonging. We strive to create a high-achieving work environment informed by different cultures, perspectives, and experiences. With a commitment to diversity, equality, equity, and inclusion in all we do, our aim is to ensure that people feel heard, protected, and empowered to contribute to NEF's mission from day one.
