Global MEL Senior Associate (Fixed-Term)

About One Acre Fund

Founded in 2006, One Acre Fund equips 5.5 million smallholder farmers to make their farms more productive. Across nine countries that together are home to two-thirds of Africa's farmers, we provide high-quality farm supplies, tree seedlings, accessible credit, modern agronomic training, and a wide range of other agricultural services. On average, this model enables any farmer to increase their income and assets on supported land by more than 35 percent, while permanently improving their resilience.

This is all made possible by our team of 9,000+ full-time staff, drawn from diverse backgrounds and professions. To learn more, please see our Why Work Here blog post.

About the Role

We are looking for a strong analyst to provide technical guidance, analytical support, and quality assurance across a portfolio of 2–3 country programs within One Acre Fund’s growth country portfolio. Countries of operation currently include Tanzania, DRC, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Uganda, Zambia, and Burundi.

Country MEL Leads are responsible for day-to-day MEL operations in their respective programs. The Global MEL Senior Associate complements this by bringing dedicated technical depth and cross-country perspective reviewing and strengthening analytical approaches, advising on evaluation methodology, building tools and frameworks that leads can adopt, and surfacing learnings across the portfolio. Over time, this role is expected to meaningfully build MEL capacity in the countries it supports.

Beyond country support, the role contributes to selected Global MEL initiatives such as the design and rollout of team trainings, development of shared tools and templates, and cross-program methodology work. Depending on candidate's profile, the portfolio may also include analytical support for One Acre Fund’s Agroforestry program, a large and technically complex area with significant opportunity for rigorous measurement work.

The Global MEL Senior Associate will report to a Senior Manager on the Global MEL Team.

Responsibilities

• Country Portfolio Support
• Serve as the primary technical resource for country MEL Leads in your assigned portfolio, providing structured guidance, review, and feedback throughout the program cycle.
• Review and strengthen survey instruments and data collection approaches, including questionnaire design and programming in CommCare (or equivalent), prior to deployment.
• Assess and improve data quality backcheck processes, identifying opportunities to automate checks and strengthen data validation pipelines.
• Review and advise on country-level data analysis (Stata required; R a plus), ensuring analytical integrity, reproducibility, and appropriate interpretation of results.
• Quality-control MEL deliverables — including reports, dashboards, and presentations — and provide actionable feedback to raise the standard of country outputs.
• Help country MEL Leads translate data and evaluation findings into clear, decision-relevant insights for program teams and leadership.
• Actively identify and share learnings across your portfolio — bringing effective approaches from one country to another and flagging common challenges to the broader Global MEL team.
• Evaluation Design & Methodology
• Advise on evaluation design and review methodology across assigned programs, with fluency in quasi-experimental approaches (propensity score matching, difference-in-differences) and randomized controlled trials.
• Proactively identify methodological gaps or risks in ongoing evaluations and surface these to the relevant Global Senior Manager and MEL Director early — not just at reporting time.
• Contribute to the development and documentation of global MEL standards, evaluation frameworks, and shared analytical tools for use across country programs.
• Global MEL Initiatives
• Contribute to the design and rollout of MEL trainings and capacity-building programs for country MEL teams, translating global standards into practical, accessible learning materials.
• Support the development of shared tools, templates, and guidance documents that improve consistency and quality across One Acre Fund’s MEL portfolio.
• Contribute to cross-program methodology projects and special initiatives as prioritized by the Global MEL Director, which may include piloting new approaches, conducting portfolio-level analyses, or supporting strategic planning.
• Depending on candidate profile, provide dedicated analytical support to One Acre Fund’s Agroforestry portfolio. This is a large and technically complex program area with a range of open methodological questions; a key value of this support is having someone with the bandwidth to engage with these questions proactively throughout the year. Work would involve close collaboration with the Agroforestry team and MEL Director on measurement approaches, data systems, and building the evidence base for tree-related program outcomes.
• Peer review cross-country workstreams, providing quality control and suggesting areas for improvement.

Qualifications

• Across all roles, these are the general qualifications we look for.

For this role specifically, you will have:

We are seeking a technically strong MEL professional with a passion for smallholder agriculture and a commitment to evidence-based program improvement. Candidates who fit the following criteria are strongly encouraged to apply:

Analytical Excellence

Advanced quantitative skills; proficiency in Stata is required. R is a strong plus.

Demonstrated experience with impact evaluation design and methods, including propensity score matching (PSM), difference-in-differences (DiD), and/or randomized controlled trials (RCTs).

Strong attention to detail and commitment to analytical rigor and reproducibility.

Survey & Data Systems

Experience designing and programming surveys for mobile data collection; CommCare experience is preferred.

Demonstrated ability to design and improve data quality assurance processes, including back-check surveys and automated data validation.

Experience & Education

Minimum 3 years of professional experience in monitoring, evaluation, and/or applied research, preferably in international development.

Master’s degree in economics, applied statistics, agricultural economics, or a closely related field.

Experience working in Sub-Saharan Africa and with smallholder agricultural programs strongly preferred.

Domain Knowledge

Background in agriculture required; familiarity with common agricultural MEL frameworks and indicators (e.g., yield estimation, adoption surveys, income measurement) is a plus.

Experience with agroforestry, tree planting programs, or forest ecosystem measurement is strongly preferred and will be a significant advantage in portfolio assignment.

Communication & Collaboration

Professional fluency in English required; strong written and verbal communication skills, including ability to translate complex findings for non-technical audiences.

Professional fluency in French is a significant asset, particularly for candidates supporting DRC.

Collaborative working style with a service orientation; comfortable providing structured feedback and coaching to peers and junior colleagues.

Willingness to travel within the region (approximately 10–25% of time).

Preferred Start Date

As soon as possible

Job Location

Flexible, Countries of Operations