Monitoring and Evaluation Officer job description
A Monitoring and Evaluation Officer sets up and runs data collection that shows whether an NGO or social enterprise programme is reaching its goals. The role supports donor reports and better programme decisions.
Why the role exists
Donors and trustees ask whether a programme is working, and field teams need clear numbers to adjust. The Monitoring and Evaluation Officer designs indicators and tools, trains field staff to collect data, checks quality and turns results into reports. The role usually reports to the programme head or M&E manager.
What the person does
- Set up indicators, baselines and data collection tools for each programme using the donor's results framework.
- Train field coordinators and volunteers to use forms and mobile apps and to record data correctly.
- Check incoming field data for gaps, duplicates and errors and send corrections back to the team.
- Visit project sites to verify records against what is happening on the ground, including random spot checks.
- Clean and analyse data in Excel, SPSS or similar tools and prepare monthly and quarterly dashboards.
- Write the results sections of donor reports and support baseline, midline and endline studies.
- Facilitate review meetings where programme teams look at results and decide what to change.
- Coordinate with external evaluators by sharing data, arranging field visits and answering questions on methods.
Skills and tools
- Results frameworks, logical frameworks and indicator design
- Mobile data collection with KoBoToolbox, ODK or CommCare
- Data cleaning and analysis in Excel, SPSS, Stata or R
- Survey design and sampling basics
- Dashboards in Power BI, Google Looker Studio or Excel
- Training field staff in plain language
- Writing results for donors in clear, honest English
- Qualitative methods such as focus groups and interviews
Education and experience
Preferred, never a bar: equivalent experience counts.
- Postgraduate degree in statistics, social sciences, public policy or development studies is preferred, or equivalent experience.
- Experience in M&E for a programme-based NGO or research project is preferred.
- Hands-on use of a mobile data tool and a statistics package is useful.
- Ability to travel to project sites for data checks is preferred.
How the work is judged
- Field data is complete, accurate and available by the reporting deadline
- Indicators and tools match the donor framework and are used consistently by field teams
- Dashboards and reports help programme teams make decisions
- Data quality checks happen on schedule and gaps are followed up
- Donors and evaluators find results reports clear and well supported
Where the role can lead
- Senior M&E Officer or M&E Manager leading several programmes
- Learning and Research Lead, or Head of Impact in a larger organisation
- Moves into evaluation consulting, research or programme management
Interview questions to ask
Ask every candidate the same questions in the same order and score them against written anchors, so the decision rests on the work and not the impression.
- How would you design a simple tool to measure change in school attendance across several villages?
- Field data shows implausible numbers from one block. What steps do you take?
- Tell us about a time you convinced a programme team to change course because of data.
- How do you train field staff who are not comfortable with mobile phones or forms?
- A donor wants more indicators than the team can collect. How do you handle that?
- Explain the difference between an output and an outcome using a programme you know.
Hiring tips for this role
- Look for a person who is comfortable both in a spreadsheet and in a village. Pure desk analysts struggle with field data quality.
- Test with a small dataset that contains errors. Ask the candidate to find them and explain how they would prevent them.
- A common mistake is asking one person to handle every report and every study. Agree the scope with the programme head at the start.
- Ask for a sample report or dashboard they built. Check that the language is plain and that weak results are shown honestly.
Questions about hiring a monitoring and evaluation officer
The person designs data tools, trains field staff, checks data quality, analyses results and prepares reports for donors and management. The goal is to show whether a programme is working and what to change.
Not always. Many M&E staff come from social sciences or development studies. What matters is the ability to design tools, handle data and explain results. Treat degree as preferred, with equivalent experience accepted.
Common tools include KoBoToolbox or ODK for data collection, Excel for cleaning, and SPSS, Stata or R for analysis. Dashboard tools such as Power BI are useful. The right mix depends on your programme.
Yes. GullyHR helps with permanent hiring: it agrees the job description with you, finds and screens candidates with monitoring and evaluation experience, and supports the offer stage. You make the final choice.
Hiring a monitoring and evaluation officer?
GullyHR runs talent acquisition for permanent roles. We agree the job description with you, find and screen candidates against it, and support the offer through to joining. We recruit permanent employees. We do not supply contract or temporary staff.