Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Lead

Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF) is on a mission to create a world where no mother, child or family is devastated by HIV and AIDS. Join us on our fight for an AIDS-free generation. Reports To: Director Health Systems Strengthening. Department: Technical Excellence; Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning. Location: Remote, Preferably Africa Based. Classification: Full-time, Regular Travel: Up to 30% International travel to EGPAF supported Countries Position Overview The Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Lead provides MEL and strategic information management technical leadership, capacity, and support for EGPAF country teams. The MEL Lead works within the Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) team and in collaboration with the Digital Health and Data Analytics (DHDA) team to develop, strengthen, standardize M&E systems and data governance, ensure data quality, data use for program improvement and decision-making, and integration of Foundation data systems with national health management information systems (HMIS) in EGPAF-supported countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The MEL Lead’s role will be executed in alignment with EGPAF's 2026–2028 Strategic Direction — advancing triple elimination, ending pediatric AIDS, preventing maternal morbidity and mortality, child survival, and health system sustainability. Within this broad scope, the MEL Lead will primarily support M&E activities in countries funded by the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Global Health Security and Diplomacy (GHSD), the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in addition to other responsibilities within the global MEL unit of the Technical Excellence department. This position also supports EGPAF's adaptation to the evolving global health financing landscape, including the U.S. Department of State's America First Global Health Strategy (AFGHS) and its emphasis on bilateral, co-financed country partnerships, milestone-based or performance-based funding, and transition planning to country ownership of health programs. The MEL Lead will work closely with other global SI&E/DHDA and Technical Excellence team members, country program teams, donors and national Ministries of Health and other external partners in activities aimed at sustaining progress toward 95-95-95 outcomes for pregnant women, children, and adolescents and reaching the WHO elimination milestones (mother-to-child transmission rates under 5%, fewer than 50 infections per 100,000 live births, and HBV prevalence under 0.1% in children under five), while ensuring standards and strengthening organizational and country program M&E capacity. Key Responsibilities Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Plans and Frameworks Lead the adaptation of MEL guidance from the America First Global Health Strategy, GHSD and CDC into the Department of State (DoS) and CDC funded projects. Lead the design and implementation of project monitoring and evaluation plans (PMEPs). Lead the refinement of project monitoring indicators, milestones and targets in collaboration with global technical leads and country technical and M&E leads. Contribute to building digital systems for milestone tracking and performance monitoring for the performance-based financing mechanism.    Contribute to designing M&E frameworks for Foundation program priorities and integrate these into DoS and CDC-funded projects. Data System Development and Support, Data Collection and Reporting Provide technical leadership in designing and establishing data systems for milestone-based MEL for the DoS and CDC-funded projects. Define and establish Foundation systems for milestone data collection, verification and use at country and global level for performance monitoring and improvement. Spearhead data collection in supported countries, including data verification, cleaning and reporting in fulfilment of donor requirements and reporting milestones.   Data Quality Assurance Develop guidance documents and tools for routine data quality assessments and supportive supervision for implementation across countries to ensure high-quality data is collected and used. Support country teams to conduct routine data quality assessments and supportive supervision activities across supported countries to ensure high-quality data is collected, used and reported. Review data quality on program dashboards and ensure that country teams address identified data quality issues. Promote a culture of data quality assurance through routine data quality checks, data quality audits, ongoing capacity building in data management, and developing and implementing data quality improvement (QI) projects using the plan-do-study-act (PDSA) cycle.    Data Use for Program Improvement Lead the design and development of data dashboards for democratization of data access and use in project implementation and performance management and improvement.  Regularly review and analyze program data to track progress toward deliverables, key performance targets, milestones and quality of care standards and inform technical support needs. Conduct and synthesize landscape assessments and outcome and impact data to generate program intelligence information for continuous program improvement. Support innovation efforts in MEL and the application of lessons learned to ensure evidence-based practices are translated into program implementation and improvement. Evaluation, Research and Learning Contribute to evaluation planning and implementation, including baseline, midterm, outcome, and endline, and other evaluations. Actively contribute to documentation and dissemination of lessons learned, innovations, and best practices through technical briefs, conference abstracts, manuscripts, and other knowledge products. Promote systematic use of evidence from evaluations and program data to inform program adaptation and improvement to promote learning and cross-country and broader knowledge exchange from the DoS and CDC funded projects. Donor Engagement and Proposal Development Collaborate with the program management team in all donor engagements for the DoS and CDC funded projects. Promote the active engagement of in-country MEL leadership for the DoS and CDC funded projects in M&E technical working groups and engagement with Ministries of Health and other stakeholders, including USG country offices and other partners to strengthen country HMIS. Contribute to new business development efforts by writing MEL and PMEP sections of new business proposals, concept notes, sole-source applications, including GHSD-funded bilateral and co-financed mechanisms. Capacity Building and Collaboration Strengthen capacities of country-level technical and MEL staff through mentorship and developing and sharing MEL materials and resources and facilitating training as needed. Facilitate a community of practice of MEL staff for the DoS and CDC funded projects for cross-country learning exchange in Milestone-based MEL under the America First Global Health Strategy. Strengthen capacities and support country teams to advance the transitioning of data systems to Ministries of Health and strengthening HMIS using G2G and domestic resources. Key Deliverables Under GHSD-funded and related EGPAF program, the MEL Lead is expected to produce the listed deliverables, in addition to achievement of specific annual targets and milestones defined in the award's PMEP and annual workplan. Final PMEPs — used for planning, managing, and documenting how performance and evaluation data are collected, managed, analyzed and used in the projects. Annual targets — annual targets set, aligned with donor and country priorities, accepted and approved by the donor. Project data systems — integrated and interoperable data systems developed – digital data collection tools, data quality assurance tools, cloud-based data warehouse, data access tools. Data visualization and use dashboards — dynamic and up-to-date data