About CWMAC

The Community Wildlife Management Areas Consortium (CWMAC) is the national umbrella body for all Authorised Associations (AAs) managing Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs) in Tanzania.

Founded in 2010 and registered under the Societies Act (S.A.16619), CWMAC represents 24 member WMAs spread across Tanzanzania. CWMAC’s mission is to enable WMAs to sustainably manage and benefit from Tanzania’s natural resources while improving community livelihoods.

The opportunity

CWMAC is seeking a skilled, proactive, and analytically minded Monitoring and Evaluation Officer to lead the design, implementation, and ongoing management of the organisation’s Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) systems. This is a pivotal role in CWMAC’s Impact Department, working closely with the Impact Manager, Programmes team, Fundraising Officer, and the CEO to ensure that evidence sits at the heart of everything CWMAC does.

Key responsibilities

MEL Framework Design and Management

• Design, develop, and continuously improve CWMAC’s organisational MEL framework, anchored in the revised Theory of Change and aligned with the three strategic pillars: Voice, Hub, and Expert, as well as CWMAC’s organisational resilience and sustainability.
• Develop a comprehensive Results Framework with output, outcome, and impact indicators, data sources, baseline values, targets, and data collection methods for each indicator.
• Establish and maintain a centralised, well-organised data management system for all programme and organisational performance data, ensuring data quality, accessibility, and security.
• Lead the development and regular updating of programme-level MEL plans for all CWMAC initiatives and grant-funded projects, in close collaboration with programme staff and the Impact Manager.
• Ensure all MEL systems and tools are practical, proportionate to CWMAC’s team capacity, and capable of generating timely, reliable data without creating disproportionate reporting burden.

Data Collection, Analysis, and Reporting

• Design, pilot, and maintain all data collection instruments used by CWMAC staff and WMA partners, including field survey tools, monitoring forms, interview guides, database templates, and digital data collection tools.
• Conduct regular field monitoring visits to member WMAs to verify programme implementation progress, collect qualitative and quantitative data, identify emerging challenges, and support site-level data collection practices.
• Aggregate, clean, analyse, and interpret data from multiple sources to produce regular, high-quality performance dashboards, monthly updates, quarterly progress reports, and annual programme reports for the management team and donors.
• Prepare the MEL sections of all donor reports, ensuring that performance data is accurate, clearly presented, contextualised with qualitative evidence, and directly responsive to donor reporting frameworks.
• Contribute to proposal development by providing up-to-date baseline data, impact evidence, and well-constructed MEL plans, indicators, and evaluation budgets for new funding applications.
• Lead the development of CWMAC’s annual State of WMAs report, providing the data analysis, evidence synthesis, and performance narrative that demonstrates the collective impact of Tanzania’s WMA landscape.

Evaluation, Learning, and Adaptation

• Coordinate and manage internal reviews and periodic programme evaluations, including mid-term and end-of-project assessments. Develop terms of reference, support the procurement of external evaluators where required, and oversee quality assurance of evaluation processes and products.
• Facilitate structured learning and reflection sessions with programme teams, partners, and WMA representatives at regular intervals, ensuring that MEL findings are actively used to improve programme design, implementation approaches, and resource allocation decisions.
• Develop and maintain a knowledge management system to capture, organise, and share lessons learned, case studies, innovation examples, and best practices from CWMAC’s programmes and member WMAs.
• Produce accessible, high-quality learning products including briefs, case studies, data visualisations, and learning summaries for use by CWMAC staff, WMA members, donors, and conservation sector partners.
• Support CWMAC’s contribution to regional and international evidence bases on community-based conservation, including participation in relevant research, learning networks, and knowledge exchange platforms.

WMA Member MEL Capacity Building

• Conduct a systematic assessment of MEL capacity across WMAs, identifying priority gaps and designing a targeted, practical capacity support programme.
• Develop simple, contextually appropriate MEL tools, monitoring templates, and guidance materials for member WMAs, taking into account varying levels of technical capacity, literacy, and available resources.
• Provide direct MEL coaching and training to WMA managers, Authorised Association staff, and community monitors, equipping them to track their own performance, identify challenges, and report credibly to their stakeholders.
• Support WMAs to align their internal monitoring systems with their General Management Plans, Business Plans, and any donor reporting requirements, reducing duplication and improving the quality of performance information flowing from WMAs to CWMAC.
• Build a network of WMA-level data champions who can support peer learning and ongoing monitoring activities within their own landscapes.

Accountability, Compliance, and Governance

• Ensure all M&E activities and data management practices comply with donor requirements, CWMAC’s organisational policies, and applicable ethical standards for data collection, storage, and use.
• Maintain complete, accurate, and well-organised MEL documentation, including approved MEL plans, data collection tools, datasets, analysis files, and evaluation reports.
• Provide reliable, timely performance data to CWMAC’s governance bodies, including the Board of Trustees and Executive Committee, to support evidence-based strategic decision-making at the highest level of the organisation.
• Contribute to CWMAC’s compliance with donor audit requirements by maintaining an auditable trail of programme performance data and evaluation processes.

Qualifications and experience

Essential

• Bachelor’s degree in Monitoring and Evaluation, Project Management, Statistics, Social Sciences, Development Studies, Environmental Science, or a closely related field.
• A minimum of four years of professional experience in M&E roles within the NGO, conservation, or international development sector.
• Demonstrated experience in designing MEL frameworks, Results Frameworks, and Theories of Change, including indicator selection, baseline setting, and data collection planning.
• Strong quantitative data analysis skills, including proficiency in Excel for data management and analysis. Familiarity with statistical software such as SPSS, Stata, or R is an advantage.
• Experience with digital data collection tools such as KoboToolbox, ODK, CommCare, or equivalent platforms.
• Experience preparing donor M&E reports and contributing to grant proposal development, including writing MEL plans, log frames, and indicator tables.
• Experience facilitating learning and reflection sessions with diverse teams and community-based stakeholders.
• Excellent written communication skills in English, including the ability to produce clear, compelling reports, briefs, and data visualisations for non-technical audiences.
• Working proficiency in Swahili for engagement with WMA communities, field partners, and government counterparts.

Desirable

• Master’s degree in Monitoring and Evaluation, Statistics, Development Studies, Conservation Science, or a related field.
• Experience in conservation, natural resource management, or community development MEL, including familiarity with conservation-specific indicator frameworks.
• Knowledge of Tanzania’s WMA governance system, the Wildlife Conservation Act, and the broader community conservation policy landscape.
• Experience using outcome harvesting, Most Significant Change, or other theory-based and participatory evaluation methodologies.
• Experience working with consortium or network organisations where M&E must span multiple member entities with differing capacities.
• Familiarity with GIS or spatial data tools used in conservation monitoring.

Key competencies and personal qualities

• A rigorous analytical mindset combined with an instinct for translating data into actionable insight.
• Strong facilitation skills and the ability to lead learning processes that are genuinely useful rather than performative.
• Excellent organisational skills with the ability to manage multiple concurrent data streams, reporting timelines, and stakeholder needs without losing quality.
• A collaborative and capacity-building orientation, able to work effectively with programme staff, community partners, and WMA managers who have varying levels of M&E familiarity.
• Intellectual curiosity and openness to negative findings as much as positive ones, with the confidence to present honest evidence to leadership and donors.
• Commitment to the principles of accountability, transparency, and learning that underpin CWMAC’s organisational values.
• Sensitivity to community contexts and the ability to collect data and engage with WMA stakeholders in a respectful, culturally appropriate manner.

• Design, develop, and continuously improve CWMAC’s organisational MEL framework, anchored in the revised Theory of Change and aligned with the three strategic pillars: Voice, Hub, and Expert, as well as CWMAC’s organisational resilience and sustainability.
• Develop a comprehensive Results Framework with output, outcome, and impact indicators, data sources, baseline values, targets, and data collection methods for each indicator.
• Establish and maintain a centralised, well-organised data management system for all programme and organisational performance data, ensuring data quality, accessibility, and security.
• Lead the development and regular updating of programme-level MEL plans for all CWMAC initiatives and grant-funded projects, in close collaboration with programme staff and the Impact Manager.
• Ensure all MEL systems and tools are practical, proportionate to CWMAC’s team capacity, and capable of generating timely, reliable data without creating disproportionate reporting burden.
• Design, pilot, and maintain all data collection instruments used by CWMAC staff and WMA partners, including field survey tools, monitoring forms, interview guides, database templates, and digital data collection tools.
• Conduct regular field monitoring visits to member WMAs to verify programme implementation progress, collect qualitative and quantitative data, identify emerging challenges, and support site-level data collection practices.
• Aggregate, clean, analyse, and interpret data from multiple sources to produce regular, high-quality performance dashboards, monthly updates, quarterly progress reports, and annual programme reports for the management team and donors.
• Prepare the MEL sections of all donor reports, ensuring that performance data is accurate, clearly presented, contextualised with qualitative evidence, and directly responsive to donor reporting frameworks.
• Contribute to proposal development by providing up-to-date baseline data, impact evidence, and well-constructed MEL plans, indicators, and evaluation budgets for new funding applications.
• Lead the development of CWMAC’s annual State of WMAs report, providing the data analysis, evidence synthesis, and performance narrative that demonstrates the collective impact of Tanzania’s WMA landscape.
• Coordinate and manage internal reviews and periodic programme evaluations, including mid-term and end-of-project assessments. Develop terms of reference, support the procurement of external evaluators where required, and oversee quality assurance of evaluation processes and products.
• Facilitate structured learning and reflection sessions with programme teams, partners, and WMA representatives at regular intervals, ensuring that MEL findings are actively used to improve programme design, implementation approaches, and resource allocation decisions.
• Develop and maintain a knowledge management system to capture, organise, and share lessons learned, case studies, innovation examples, and best practices from CWMAC’s programmes and member WMAs.
• Produce accessible, high-quality learning products including briefs, case studies, data visualisations, and learning summaries for use by CWMAC staff, WMA members, donors, and conservation sector partners.
• Support CWMAC’s contribution to regional and international evidence bases on community-based conservation, including participation in relevant research, learning networks, and knowledge exchange platforms.
• Conduct a systematic assessment of MEL capacity across WMAs, identifying priority gaps and designing a targeted, practical capacity support programme.
• Develop simple, contextually appropriate MEL tools, monitoring templates, and guidance materials for member WMAs, taking into account varying levels of technical capacity, literacy, and available resources.
• Provide direct MEL coaching and training to WMA managers, Authorised Association staff, and community monitors, equipping them to track their own performance, identify challenges, and report credibly to their stakeholders.
• Support WMAs to align their internal monitoring systems with their General Management Plans, Business Plans, and any donor reporting requirements, reducing duplication and improving the quality of performance information flowing from WMAs to CWMAC.
• Build a network of WMA-level data champions who can support peer learning and ongoing monitoring activities within their own landscapes.
• Ensure all M&E activities and data management practices comply with donor requirements, CWMAC’s organisational policies, and applicable ethical standards for data collection, storage, and use.
• Maintain complete, accurate, and well-organised MEL documentation, including approved MEL plans, data collection tools, datasets, analysis files, and evaluation reports.
• Provide reliable, timely performance data to CWMAC’s governance bodies, including the Board of Trustees and Executive Committee, to support evidence-based strategic decision-making at the highest level of the organisation.
• Contribute to CWMAC’s compliance with donor audit requirements by maintaining an auditable trail of programme performance data and evaluation processes.

• Proficiency in Excel for data management and analysis
• Familiarity with statistical software such as SPSS, Stata, or R
• Experience with digital data collection tools such as KoboToolbox, ODK, CommCare, or equivalent platforms
• Excellent written communication skills in English
• Working proficiency in Swahili
• Rigorous analytical mindset
• Strong facilitation skills
• Excellent organisational skills
• Collaborative and capacity-building orientation
• Intellectual curiosity
• Sensitivity to community contexts

• Bachelor’s degree in Monitoring and Evaluation, Project Management, Statistics, Social Sciences, Development Studies, Environmental Science, or a closely related field.
• A minimum of four years of professional experience in M&E roles within the NGO, conservation, or international development sector.
• Demonstrated experience in designing MEL frameworks, Results Frameworks, and Theories of Change, including indicator selection, baseline setting, and data collection planning.
• Strong quantitative data analysis skills.
• Experience preparing donor M&E reports and contributing to grant proposal development, including writing MEL plans, log frames, and indicator tables.
• Experience facilitating learning and reflection sessions with diverse teams and community-based stakeholders.
• Master’s degree in Monitoring and Evaluation, Statistics, Development Studies, Conservation Science, or a related field (Desirable).
• Experience in conservation, natural resource management, or community development MEL (Desirable).
• Knowledge of Tanzania’s WMA governance system, the Wildlife Conservation Act, and the broader community conservation policy landscape (Desirable).
• Experience using outcome harvesting, Most Significant Change, or other theory-based and participatory evaluation methodologies (Desirable).
• Experience working with consortium or network organisations where M&E must span multiple member entities with differing capacities (Desirable).
• Familiarity with GIS or spatial data tools used in conservation monitoring (Desirable).