MEAL Officer (fixed-term contract of Egyptian law) At Asmae

1- ORGANIZATION BACKGROUND:

Asmae is a French international solidarity NGO specialized in child development. It is independent, non-religious, non-political, and open to everyone.

Created in 1980 by Sister Emmanuelle following her experience with scavengers in Egypt’s slums, Asmae keeps on respecting its founder’s values and methods: listening and proximity, pragmatism, respect of the differences, professionalism and reciprocity.

Asmae’s action aims to support vulnerable children& youth and their families through providing tailor-made and long lasting support to local stakeholders working on education and child protection.

Its vision, “A fair world which guarantees that children can live and grow with dignity within their environment, to become free women and men who contribute to society”, is broken down into four missions:

• Stimulate child & youth development through a global approach. To do this, Asmae also works on family support by taking their environment into account;
• Build the capacity of local stakeholders involved in child development, boost cooperation amongst them and maximize their social impact;
• Stand up for children by raising awareness and advocating;
• Experiment, disseminate and share practices.

Nowadays Asmae supports education and child protection projects in six countries and manages a mother and childcare center in France.

In Egypt, Asmae is registered under the Ministry of Solidarity since May 2015. Currently, Asmae works in four thematic areas, namely: Access to quality education, protection, professional integration and promoting co-existence and diversity.

Asmae is currently implementing two projects:

• ”Promoting youth participation, inclusion and protection” project, funded by the French Agency of Development (AFD) and Sawiris Foundation, in which, Asmae supports 2 Egyptian civil society organizations to empower youth to become agents for change in their communities and advocate for the rights of youth with disabilities.
• “Safer Environment for Change” project that works with two local civil society organizations to enhance their child protection mechanisms inside their centers and in four public schools.

In December 2022, Asmae started its new “Youth Inclusive Empowerment Project” funded by the European Commission, that targets the training and empowerment of 300 youth (including youth with disabilities) in 9 targeted areas. The project is implemented in partnership with two local civil society organizations that have experience in the rehabilitation and employment of youth with disabilities and equipping youth with the needed skills for their future employment.

Asmae Egypt’ team is based in Cairo with 10 staff members: Egypt Country Representative, Projects and Partnership Manager to be hired, 3 Project officers, 2 Technical Advisors for Protection, MEAL Officer to be hired, 1 Administrative and Financial Officer and 1 Admin Finance Assistant and an Operations and Procurement Officer.

2. GENERAL OVERVIEW OF POSITION / WORKING CONDITIONS:

Job Title: MEAL Officer

Location: Cairo, Egypt

Line Manager: Projects and Partnerships Manager

Main functional relationships:

• Country Office: Country Representative, Projects Technical Advisors, Projects Officers, and Senior Administrative and Finance Officer
• Head Office: Expertise Department at HO, Programme Manager, Grants Manager.

3. MISSION:

The Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL) Officer is responsible for all planning, monitoring, documentation, learning and research activities, both quantitative and qualitative for Asmae Programs to ensure their quality in terms of efficiency and effectiveness. S/he will collect data, analyse it and share it with the Asmae team to ensure the alignment of M&E activities with projects goals and expected results.

This position is crucial to the management and implementation of programs by providing a strong evidence base and continual learning throughout the project’s implementation by an improved monitoring of programs. S/he will ensure that lessons learnt, good practices are disseminated, and used to improve program delivery and design. S/he will build the capacity of partner CSO staff and strengthen their monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning systems and approaches. In collaboration with the Project team, s/he will assume responsibility for full-cycle monitoring and evaluation of Asmae’s programs, developing appropriate methodologies and tools to design evaluations and to collect data during the implementation.

The MEAL Officer will manage information and contribute to reporting processes and products to ensure professional, high-quality communication about Asmae’s programmatic activities and results.

The MEAL Officer follows the local security and safety rules and procedures and participates to the security context analysis. S/he is committed to Asmae Child Protection Policy and contributes to maintain a safe environment for children within Asmae’s activities.

4. RESPONSIBILITIES:

4.1. Planning and Implementation of M&E framework, systems in Country Office:

• Develop, implement, and assess monitoring frameworks for all Asmae partnerships and projects, as well as for funding proposals
• Develop the overall framework for projects M&E systems in collaboration with donor and senior project staff, including requirements, reporting, baseline, and evaluation surveys; develop and monitor project management plan to systematically document performance
• Facilitate design of “SMART” objectives, logic models, monitoring frameworks, and evaluation plans during annual work-planning process
• Ensure the alignment of M&E activities with projects goals and Asmae strategy
• Ensure adherence to specific monitoring and reporting requirements for Asmae-funded projects, including requirements related to Asmae Global M&E system (GMES) system
• Maintain existing indicator tracking tools; develop additional tracking tools as needed to demonstrate the effectiveness of project interventions
• Support Asmae team to work with partners to ensure quality programming and Monitoring and Evaluation and adherence to Asmae’s standards, values and principles, as well as the mainstreaming of crosscutting themes (Gender, Participation, and Inclusion).

4.2 Data collection, analysis and reporting:

• Develop tools to gather relevant data according to donor and Asmae log-frames and train field staff on data collection process.
• Conduct field visits for data validation and to monitor the quality and completeness of data sets; coordinate data collection at project sites to monitor program development and ensure timely compilation and reporting of data; capture and document lessons learned; and champion the scaling up best practices
• Contribute to developing and reporting of project reviews, assessments, surveys, and other analytic or evaluation processes and products
• Synthesize and analyse M&E quantitative and qualitative data received on a monthly basis.
• Ensure a master beneficiary database is developed for Asmae projects and is updated regularly.
• Ensure submission of quality and accurate data in timely manner for project reporting.

4.3 Capacity building and dissemination of learnings:

• Orient Asmae staff and our partners to MEL requirements of their projects and their role in ensuring an effective MEL system for the project.
• Participates in the induction of the new employees to get them acquainted with Asmae M&E system, tools and reporting mechanism.
• Coordinate periodic review with Asmae project team and partners to facilitate dialogue, reflection from assessments, program progress monitoring to improve project implementation and project quality.
• Conduct capitalization workshops for knowledge sharing and adopting best practices.
• Support the development, design, and writing of project proposals/ concept notes for related programming information management with Asmae fundraising team and partners.

4.4. Facilitation of Internal and External Relationships:

• Participate in M&E working groups with Asmae stakeholders, partners and donors.
• Participate in Head Office missions, donors, Asmae partners and institutional actors field visits
• Contributes to facilitating team meetings
• Contributes to implementing intersecting activities from the HQ Program department
• Other duties as assigned

5. PROFILE

Education / Experience

• Bachelor’s degree required, Master’s degree in statistics, demographics, public health, or international development preferred
• Minimum of five years of experience working in the field of monitoring and evaluation
• Experience in strategic planning and performance management, including indicator selection, target setting, reporting, database management, and developing M&E and performance monitoring plans
• Knowledge of the major evaluation methodologies (qualitative, quantitative, mixed method, and impact) and data collection and analysis methodologies
• Experience in planning and managing surveys, developing and refining data collection tools, and with data quality assessments and oversight
• Proven experience in gender transformative programming, and inclusion promotion.
• Fully aware of protection dimension, and safeguarding programming.
• Multi-sectorial knowledge is highly preferred.

Professional/ Personal Skills:

• Autonomous, proactive
• Positive, respectful attitude and collaborative approach to problem solving and for offering support to partners.
• Demonstrated attention to detail; ability to follow procedures, meet deadlines and work independently as well as cooperatively with team members.
• Ability to analyse, synthesize information and communicate it effectively to diverse audiences;
• Proficiency in excel, digital data collection tools and possess high analytical skills
• Fluency in English; excellent written and oral communication and reporting skills, including facilitation and cross-cultural communication.

5.PRACTICAL INFORMATION

Duration: 1 Year (renewable upon satisfactory performance)

Starting date: April 1st, 2023

Contract: Egyptian fixed–term contract (Full time job)

Location: Cairo