MEAL Consultant, Ukraine At Mines Advisory Group

Consultancy Opportunity – Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, and Learning (MEAL)

In line with MAG’s 2024-28 Strategic Plan, in addition to MAG Ukraine’s 2024-28 Country Strategy, MAG Ukraine is committed to introducing new innovations into its work that will broaden its toolbox of interventions to effectively support demining in Ukraine.

About MAG

MAG (Mines Advisory Group) is an international humanitarian organisation based in Manchester, UK, and working in 32 countries. We remove landmines and unexploded ordnance to release safe and productive land for communities, and work to reduce the threat of armed violence by supporting governments to safely manage weapons and ammunition. In 1997, MAG was a co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for our work campaigning for the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention.

About the Ukraine programme

Since the Russian invasion of 24th February 2022, Ukraine has been subjected to heavy artillery bombardment, missile, and air strikes, as well as the use of landmines and cluster munitions. The scale of the conflict and the use of high impact and indiscriminate weapons requires an urgent and extensive response. MAG responded to the crisis in 2022 and now employs nearly 200 staff in our Ukraine programme, in a range of operational and support/administrative activities with further scale-up planned during 2024. The programme has a representation office in Kyiv, and operational offices in Mykolaiv (also covering accessible areas of Kherson) and now in Kharkiv.

Purpose/Objective of the Consultancy

In line with MAG’s 2024-28 Strategic Plan, in addition to MAG Ukraine’s 2024-28 Country Strategy, MAG Ukraine is committed to introducing new innovations into its work that will broaden its toolbox of interventions to effectively support demining in Ukraine. MAG is also committed to expanding it’s internal capacity in Monitoring Evaluation Accountability and Learning within Ukraine and within the organisation more generally.

The programme has partnered with APOPO, a Belgian NGO who specialises in the use of animals, in order to introduce a new concept to Ukraine: Technical Survey Dogs (TSDs).

MAG, through the MEAL Consultant and team, will:

• Provide critical oversight on the introduction of this new concept for Ukraine.
• Advocate for the use of Technical Survey Dogs, (TSDs) in mine action efforts in Ukraine, and provide compelling evidence to the National Mine Action Authorities in Ukraine demonstrating their effectiveness, cost-efficiency, and safety advantages.
• Build sustainable, local capacity in Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning.

The Consultant will work in conjunction with a senior Dog Advisor, and other MAG mine action specialists who will provide the technical competency in the relevant subject matters (Technical Survey Dogs and Humanitarian Demining). The MEAL consultant will provide roll out the MEAL framework, support with meetings, reports and build internal capacity in MEAL with MAG through training of national Ukrainian staff.

For more information on Technical Survey Dogs, please visit Landmine Dogs (apopo.org).

Implementation arrangements

The estimated time for completing the consultancy is 109 working days in-country, with 8 additional travel days. The consultant will start work in-country preferably in October. There will be a Christmas stand down when the MAG office in Ukraine will close – the consultant will leave the country on the evening of Friday 20th December, returning for the morning of Monday 6th January. Accommodation, meeting MAG’s standards in terms of both personal welfare and security will be provided when in-country.

If in discussion the consultant thinks that some additional time can be used for remote working (for example for the write up of reports), this will be negotiable.

The consultancy is intended to begin as early as possible in October 2024.

Person Specification

The Consultant must present with the following requisite qualifications and competencies:

• Proven experience in leading the development and implementation of MEAL frameworks, ideally within humanitarian or development contexts, including designing comprehensive MEAL systems tailored to specific program needs, establishing clear indicators, methodologies, and data collection processes to track progress and impact.
• Proven experience in capacity building MEAL teams, including determining targeted training, mentoring and enhancing technical skills.
• Proven experience in consulting and building effective relationships with diverse internal and external stakeholders, including senior government officials, to produce high-quality, evidence-based reports with relevant recommendations and initiatives.
• Proven experience in delivering report findings in an inclusive and engaging manner ensuring that diverse audiences are able to understand and act on the findings, driving informed decision-making and positive outcomes.
• Experience working within Ukraine region is highly desirable.
• Fluency in English, knowledge of Ukrainian or Russian is highly desirable.