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

EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY

POSITION TITLE

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

Sri Lanka National Only

POSITION LOCATION : Jaffna, Northern Province, Sri Lanka

REPORTS TO : Senior Manager, GRIT

CONTRACT TERM : Two years

SALARY LEVEL : Based on experience and qualifications

APPLICATION DEADLINE : 10 June 2026

EXPECTED START DATE : July 2026

Background:

WUSC is a leading Canadian international development organization committed to providing education, economic and empowerment opportunities to improve the lives of millions of disadvantaged youth around the world, particularly women and displaced people. WUSC’s vision is a world where every young person thrives and belongs, and its mission is to catalyze positive education and economic outcomes for young people. WUSC works as a facilitator and a convener, bringing together diverse resources and stakeholders to tackle complex challenges at a systems level. WUSC leverages a wide network of actors from civil society, post-secondary education, the private sector and youth themselves to design and implement initiatives that will bring lasting change for the benefit of youth.

WUSC operates in over 25 countries across Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America, with an annual budget of over $45 million CAD. WUSC has over 300 staff globally implementing many development projects in collaboration with donors, such as Global Affairs Canada, the UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, and the Mastercard Foundation. With support from Global Affairs Canada and other funders, WUSC has worked in Sri Lanka (SL) since 1989, contributing to national development goals through partnerships with the Government of Sri Lanka, civil society, the private sector, and other key development actors. WUSC Sri Lanka country office currently implements three projects namely GRIT, STRIVE and IGNI+E; the specific project associated with this role is detailed below.

GRIT Project (Growth, Resilience, Investment and Training)

GRIT is a 6-year collaborative initiative (2023-2028) that will build sustainable pathways to enhance economic empowerment, well-being and inclusive growth in Sri Lanka, especially for young women in the North of the country. The GRIT project is testing innovative, sustainable models to improve the enabling environment and reduce gender-specific barriers to the equitable and sustainable growth of enterprises at all stages: incubation, start-up, early-stage and growth-stage. The project’s focus is on enterprises owned by, operated by, or serving women in the North of Sri Lanka.

By investing in social marketing, capacity building, knowledge exchange, and partnerships, GRIT aims to achieve transformative change within the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Sri Lanka that is sustainable and scalable. A wide array of key stakeholders, including incubators & accelerators; fund managers; members of the diaspora community; women's groups, including women’s rights organizations; and key technical experts will be engaged throughout the project cycle. This collaborative approach will strengthen the nascent entrepreneurial and impact-oriented investment ecosystem in the country.

Responsibilities:

Under the supervision of the Senior Program Manager (SPM) - GRIT, the MERL Coordinator is responsible for monitoring, evaluation and reporting activities under the GRIT project. GRIT is a gender-transformative project, and this role carries an explicit responsibility to ensure that gender equality and social inclusion (GESI) principles are reflected in what is measured, and in how data is collected, analysed and used.

Stakeholders

This role serves four key stakeholders, each with distinct needs:

• WUSC Sri Lanka: the country office and WUSC headquarters require accurate, timely data for program management, adaptive decision-making and corporate reporting. The MERL Coordinator works under the supervision of the Senior Program Manager (SPM) - GRIT, and operates as part of WUSC Sri Lanka's broader MERL team. Day-to-day technical guidance and quality oversight is provided by the Senior MERL Advisor, who leads the project's overall MERL function; the Coordinator is expected to work closely with the Advisor on methodology, tools and learning. The Coordinator also works closely with the GRIT GESI team to ensure gender equality and social inclusion principles are integrated across data collection, analysis and reporting. At the country level, the Coordinator collaborates with MERL staff across WUSC Sri Lanka's other projects to ensure consistency in approaches and contribute to shared systems. The Coordinator also participates in WUSC's global MERL Community of Practice, contributing project experience and drawing on cross-organisational learning.
• Implementing partners: local organisations who deliver GRIT activities. The MERL Coordinator’s mode of working is through these partners: building their capacity, strengthening their data systems, and supporting them to collect, validate and learn from evidence.
• The donor: requires rigorous, evidence-based reporting against agreed indicators and results frameworks, with gender disaggregation and GESI analysis as a core expectation.
• Government counterparts: require regular, clearly presented performance information. The MERL Coordinator takes the lead on this relationship, producing and presenting quarterly and annual performance reports and engaging proactively with relevant government mechanisms.
  

Capacity Building

Capacity building with partners is the foundation of this role. The quality of all monitoring, evaluation and reporting depends on partners having the skills, systems and understanding to collect data reliably, accurately and with a gender lens. The MERL Coordinator is responsible for ensuring this foundation is in place and continuously strengthened.

• Support assessments of the MERL capacity of implementing partners on an ongoing basis, identify gaps in skills, systems and data quality, and develop tailored capacity-building plans to address them.
• Work jointly with partner MERL focal points to design or strengthen data collection systems and tools, ensuring they are aligned with the GRIT Performance Measurement Framework (PMF); fit for the local context; and, to the extent possible, sustainable beyond the timeframe of the project.
• Build partner understanding of and commitment to gender-responsive data collection: what sex, age and disability disaggregation means in practice, why it matters for a gender-transformative project and partner learning, and how to collect it accurately and sensitively.
• Provide hands-on training, mentoring and day-to-day technical support to partner staff, equipping them to collect, manage, validate and report data to programme standards.
• Conduct verification and sense-checking of partner-submitted data as a quality assurance measure, identifying outliers, logical inconsistencies, missing disaggregation or gaps; and support partners to investigate and resolve issues rather than simply correcting data centrally.
• Maintain a shared knowledge hub for the project that supports WUSC and partner learning and meets the information needs of all relevant audiences.
  

Monitoring

The MERL Coordinator leads the project’s monitoring function across all stakeholders. Gender-transformative indicators and sex, age and disability-disaggregated data must be systematically tracked and reported at every level.

Partners

• Support partners to implement monitoring tools and processes consistently, ensuring data is collected against agreed indicators with appropriate disaggregation.
• Conduct regular field monitoring visits to partners and project participants; provide active, timely feedback on data quality, programme implementation and emerging issues.
• Lead data quality assurance procedures across partner submissions, including data cleaning, validation checks and maintaining data integrity protocols.
• Contribute to the deployment of gender-sensitive and inclusive community feedback mechanisms, ensuring partner-level processes are in place for timely analysis and response.

WUSC Sri Lanka

• Ensure that the WUSC GRIT team administers monitoring tools and undertakes monitoring processes consistently for WUSC-led activities, ensuring data is collected against agreed indicators with appropriate disaggregation.
• Maintain the project’s MERL databases and oversee the continuous update of output and outcome progress in WUSC’s corporate data management platform.
• Ensure consistency between partner data, WUSC-led activity data and the PMF; flag discrepancies and maintain data integrity protocols.
• Work closely with the GESI and MERL Advisors to monitor gender-transformative indicators and track progress on equality outcomes across the project.
• Collaborate with the MERL Advisor to track and follow up MERL-related action points from project review meetings, ensuring timely completion by project teams.

Evaluation and Learning

The MERL Coordinator supports the design and implementation of evaluation activities, ensuring findings are credible, gender-responsive and used to inform adaptive management.

• In collaboration with the MERL Advisor, support the design and implementation of evaluations, and learning studies in line with the GRIT MERL plan.
• Lead and coordinate field assessments and surveys with project participants, partners, consultants and stakeholders, ensuring adherence to ethical and methodological standards, including safe and dignified data collection with women and equity-denied groups.
• Provide operational support to external consultants and enumerators during evaluations and field exercises.
• Support quantitative and qualitative analyses to generate credible evidence; all analyses must apply a gender and social inclusion lens, examining outcomes disaggregated by sex, age, disability and other relevant dimensions.
• Ensure high quality and timely delivery of all MERL products as outlined in the GRIT MERL plan.

Reporting

Reporting requirements differ meaningfully across the four stakeholder groups. The MERL Coordinator is responsible for producing accurate, evidence-based reporting for each, with gender disaggregation and GESI analysis visible throughout.

Partners

• Work with partners to develop and maintain standardised reporting tools and templates that are clear, accessible and consistent with the PMF.
• Review partner reports for completeness, accuracy and GESI compliance; provide structured feedback and support partners to strengthen their reporting over time.

WUSC internally

• Consolidate partner and WUSC-led activity data into accurate, analysis-ready datasets and user-friendly knowledge products for internal project management and adaptive decision-making.
• Maintain updated progress against output and outcome indicators in WUSC’s corporate performance measurement systems.
• Contribute analytical inputs and data summaries that support evidence-based reflection, data interpretation, and organisational learning in line with WUSC's MERL strategy.

Donor

• Lead and contribute to the development of assigned donor reports, consolidating evidence from partners and WUSC-led activities to produce rigorous, well-evidenced reporting against PMF indicators.
• Ensure donor reports present disaggregated data and GESI analysis substantively, demonstrating the project’s progress on gender-transformative outcomes.
• Support generation of other knowledge products in line with donor requirements.

Government

• Take the lead on GRIT’s engagement with government counterparts on performance reporting, serving as the primary liaison with relevant government departments and coordination mechanisms.
• Prepare accurate, clearly presented quarterly performance reports for government, drawing on consolidated project data; produce supporting presentations and materials tailored to government audiences.
• Represent GRIT at District NGO Coordination Meetings (quarterly performance reviews), presenting results and responding to queries, as and when required.
• Maintain active co-ordination with NGO Coordinators at Districts Secretariats in the Northern Province for ongoing performance reporting and follow-up.

Research

The MERL Coordinator supports the MERL Advisor in advancing the project's learning agenda with implementing partners and key stakeholders.

• Support the MERL Advisor to design and facilitate learning events, reflective practice sessions and knowledge exchange processes with implementing partners.
• Contribute to the documentation and dissemination of project learning, including the preparation of learning briefs, case studies and other knowledge products as directed.
• Assist in coordinating research and learning activities with external consultants or academic partners, as and when required.

Other

• Input and support the work led by the Senior MERL Advisor, as and when needed.
• Participation in WUSC’s global MERL Community of Practice.
• Any other duties and responsibilities assigned by the SPM and Country Director, when required.

Qualifications and Competencies:

Education:

A university degree in a relevant field (social sciences, data science or other related field).

Experiences & Competencies:

• Minimum of three years work experience in monitoring, evaluation, research and learning, with an emphasis on reporting to diverse project stakeholders.
• Strong technical skills in monitoring and evaluation, including demonstrated ability developing quantitative and qualitative data collection instruments and analyse
  quantitative and qualitative data.
• Proficient in Google Workspace, relevant data management platforms, quantitative and qualitative data analysis software (e.g. SPSS, NVivo) and data collection software/applications.
• Experience working in partnership with local organisations and
  government departments.
• Demonstrated dedication to applying a gender equality, diversity and inclusion lens to monitoring, evaluation, research and learning.

Language:

• Fluency in English and Tamil is essential. Sinhala is an added advantage.
• Excellent writing skills required in English.

Why work with WUSC

WUSC offers a dynamic work environment with a diverse intercultural workforce. We offer employees and volunteers exciting opportunities to apply their skills and gain experience all while making a difference for youth around the world. We believe youth have the potential to provide for their families, build strong communities, and create positive social change for future generations. WUSC is an equal opportunity employer. Female candidates and persons with disabilities are encouraged to apply. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

Application

If you are interested in this position, Please apply through our website.