MERL (Monitoring, Evaluation, Research, and Learning) Officer

About Project:

The ‘Girls Get Equal 2.0: Realising Rights and Building Resilience’ Project has been funded by Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD) and implemented in partnership with Plan International Bangladesh, aims to ensure that adolescents—especially girls aged 10–24—have access to safe, inclusive, climate-resilient, and quality education.

The project addresses systemic barriers such as gender inequality, child marriage, limited access to SRHR information, and weak school systems, while strengthening youth empowerment and community engagement.

Due to economic hardship or poverty, unsafe and absence of enabling environment in schools and roads, high teacher-student ratio hindered the quality of education, lack of menstrual hygiene management, parental unawareness and societal traditional gender norms, lack of career prospects, absence of climate resilient and child-centered education system etc. that forces girls into discontinuation from formal education and engage them in domestic work, limiting their time and resources for education and the ultimate result is to increase dropout from education which consequences the child early and forced marriage. This project outlines potential interventions and strategies to tackle the various challenges faced by girls in accessing and staying in education in Bangladesh. It suggests actions such as providing financial support, improving infrastructure and security, raising awareness, offering career guidance, and enhancing educational quality to promote girls’ education and empowerment.

Job Purpose:

The MERL (Monitoring, Evaluation, Research, and Learning) Officer will be responsible for developing and implementing monitoring, evaluation, advocacy, and learning strategies to enhance program effectiveness. The position requires strong analytical skills, data management expertise, and the ability to translate insights into actionable recommendations. The MERL Officer will work closely with program teams, partners, and stakeholders to ensure data-driven decision-making and continuous program improvement.

The MERL Officer will have the following duties and responsibilities:

• Develop and implement MERL frameworks, tools, and methodologies for program monitoring and evaluation.
• Collect, analyze, and interpret program data to assess effectiveness and impact.
• Design and conduct surveys, assessments, and evaluations to generate evidence for decision-making.
• Ensure accurate and timely reporting of program performance indicators.
• Provide capacity-building support to staff and partners on MERL processes and best practices.
• Facilitate knowledge-sharing and learning initiatives to improve program strategies and outcomes.
• Support advocacy efforts by generating data-driven reports and case studies.
• Maintain and update MERL databases and ensure data quality and integrity.
• Collaborate with stakeholders to enhance MERL processes and align with donor requirements.
• Develop and present reports, dashboards, and recommendations to senior management.
• Support senior management to prepare different type of report as per requirements.
• Responsible to do any other task assigned by management.
• Safeguarding and PSEA: To meet the program`s objectives for safeguarding and PSEA implementation, make sure team members are protected from any harm, abuse, neglect, harassment, and exploitation. Serve as a major resource for help, direction, and knowledge on safeguarding & Child protection for developing a safe workplace. To ensure that safeguarding standards are used in every course of action, team members should practice, advocate, and embrace safeguarding policy concerns.