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

iDE is an international nonprofit organisation dedicated to ending poverty. Our work in agriculture, sanitation, climate change resilience, and gender equality stands out because we don’t simply hand out handouts. Instead, iDE believes in powering small-scale entrepreneurs and building robust market ecosystems that lay the groundwork for low-income and marginalized people to prosper on their own terms. iDE currently works in 11 developing countries, with over 500 staff spread around the globe. To date, iDE has impacted more than 40 million people.

Since 1992, iDE Nepal has been actively fostering prosperity by establishing value chains and innovative business models in key sectors, including agriculture, nutrition, market systems development, water and sanitation, climate resilience, and gender equality. Our approach aims to catalyse the development of beneficial, cost-effective products and services that contribute to sustainable growth and enhanced well-being. Our long-standing presence in Nepal is a testimony to adaptive learning, continual innovation, and commitment to delivering meaningful impact. iDE Nepal’s holistic approach to market development is what truly sets us apart.

iDE Nepal is currently seeking a Monitoring, Evaluation, Research and Learning (MERL) Lead to join our Programs Unit. The MERL Lead will provide strategic leadership and technical oversight for the design, implementation, and continuous improvement of monitoring, evaluation, and learning systems across iDE Nepal's programs. The role is responsible for ensuring high-quality data collection, analysis, reporting, and learning to support evidence-based decision-making, adaptive program management, and donor compliance. Working closely with program teams and partners, the MERL Lead will strengthen organizational capacity, promote a culture of learning and accountability, and ensure that program outcomes and impacts are effectively measured, documented, and communicated.

The MERL Lead at iDE Nepal provides strategic and technical leadership for the organization’s monitoring, evaluation, research, and learning. The role designs and runs the MERL strategy, frameworks, and systems that align with iDE Nepal’s strategic priorities, program objectives, and donor requirements, and ensures that results are measured credibly and reported with quality at the output, outcome, and impact levels. It leads operational research, evaluations, and evidence generation to show what works, for whom, and under what conditions in market-based approaches, and it builds organizational learning and adaptive management so that evidence feeds directly into program design, implementation, and scale-up. The role also builds the MERL capacity of staff, project MERL leads and partners, and works closely with the Global MERL team on reporting, KPIs and the management dashboard. Through clear, evidence-based insights, it informs management decisions, donor engagement, resource mobilization, partnerships and policy influence, and positions iDE Nepal as a leader in results measurement for market systems development, nutrition and climate resilience.

Key Responsibilities and Tasks

The key responsibilities of the MERL Lead will include the following:

• Lead the development and implementation of iDE Nepal’s MERL strategy, frameworks and systems, and align them with the organization’s strategic priorities, program objectives, donor requirements and intended development outcomes.
• Oversee results frameworks, performance indicators, data collection and analysis, data quality assurance, and impact measurement, in order to assess program effectiveness and demonstrate performance and impact.
• Lead operational research, impact assessments, and evidence generation that evaluate innovative, market-based approaches and show what works, for whom, and under what conditions.
• Build organizational learning and adaptive management by facilitating reflection sessions, bringing in stakeholder feedback and lessons learned, and turning evidence into improvements in program design, implementation, and scale-up.
• Ensure high-quality results reporting, and present evidence, insights, and practical recommendations that inform management decisions, donor engagement, resource mobilization, partnerships, and policy influence.
• Liaise and work closely with the Global MERL team to report regularly on monitoring, results measurement (impact and outcome level), key performance indicators (KPIs), and the management dashboard for iDE Nepal.
• Support projects in developing study and assessment plans, data collection and analysis tools, reporting outlines and formats, and process management tools, and in training teams on assessments and data collection.
• Support projects in reviewing data analysis methods and in report writing.
• Support the development of project proposals by advising on goals and targets, drafting M&E plans, logical frameworks and theories of change, selecting appropriate indicators, and reviewing M&E activity budgets.
• Develop and maintain the project documentation required for MERL.
• Strengthen the skills of staff and implementing partners in MERL methods, tools, data management, and evidence-based programming.

Other Responsibilities:

• Support the development of project proposals by advising on goals and targets, drafting M&E plans, logical frameworks and theories of change, selecting appropriate indicators, and reviewing M&E activity budgets.
• Develop and maintain the project documentation required for MERL.
• Strengthen the skills of staff and implementing partners in MERL methods, tools, data management, and evidence-based programming.
• Undertake other relevant responsibilities related to monitoring, evaluation, research, and learning as assigned by the supervisor.