MEAL Coordinator at Mercy-USA for Aid and Development

Mercy-USA for Aid and Development is currently seeking an experienced MEAL specialist to join the Country Office team as a MEAL Coordinator to be based in Mogadishu Somalia with frequent travel to the field offices and project sites. The MEAL Coordinator will serve as Mercy-USA’s focal point for MEAL systems and tools building, data management, monitoring and evaluation of projects, MEAL budgeting, recruitment, support to proposal writing and log frame development, capacity building, and accountability and learning in Health, Nutrition, WASH, Food Security & Livelihoods, Education and other sectors for the East Africa program portfolio.

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

MEAL System Design & Implementation

1. Lead on the development and oversee the roll-out of an organizational MEAL system, ensuring quality programming and accountability to beneficiaries and donors.
2. 1. Define specific processes, methodologies and tools for MEAL, in line with internal and donors requirements and regularly research innovative approaches.
3. Support the implementation and monitoring of the Accountability to Affected Populations procedure, including oversight of the Complaints and Feedback Mechanism and ensuring that protection and gender perspectives are incorporated into MEAL tools.
4. Assisting Mercy USA in the identification of potential implementation problems and bottlenecks, articulates these and ensuring institutional knowledge continues to be strengthened.
5. Share relevant MEAL findings with program teams and management and give recommendations in appropriate format to ensure the whole organization benefits from and applies program learning.
6. Plan and effectively manage MEAL team, activities and budget and ensure timely implementation of all MEAL activities through development of agreed MEAL work plans and effective resource management.
7. Oversee the development and management of learning systems and ensure that learning is incorporated in every program, department and process across the regional, country and field offices.
8. Contribute to the monitoring of programme progress and input into the consideration of programme adjustments as needed

Program Development & Management

1. Ensure that MEAL is an integral part of program design.
2. Support in program design and proposal development including through developing M&E plans and Log-Frames.
3. Ensure the implementation of the country level logical framework, ensuring that quality data is collected and reported for all indicators (goal, outcome and output levels) across all participating field offices.
4. Ensure that MEAL resources are incorporated in proposal development, including lessons learned from previous programs.
5. Prepare and train staff, primary stakeholders and implementing partners, as necessary, on MEAL concepts skills and tools.
6. Provide technical guidance to programme staff in incorporating appropriate MEAL systems into projects/programmes based on needs, Mercy USA and donor requirements, resources and capacities.
7. Plan, prepare, organize and conduct monitoring and evaluation activities for all projects.
8. Ensure implementation of high-quality MEAL process and ensure delivery of adequate MEAL products.
9. Support Project Managers and program teams in ensuring high quality and adequate monitoring and supervision visits to project sites as per the workplan, budgets and monitoring plan of each project.
10. Engage in supervisory site visits in Somalia and Kenya to monitor project activities and verify the quality and accuracy of data, assess the means of verification at the site and field office levels, and provide capacity building/coaching of field level staff on data management and reporting.

Data Management

1. Maintain a central database of accurate data capturing all projects for easy retrieval, extraction and analysis to support program team.
2. Ensure adequate data tools are in place to enable reporting on beneficiary disaggregation to the level required.
3. Prepare and share monthly/quarterly MEAL statistics.
4. Establish an inventory of reliable, secondary data sources of key statistics to contribute to program design and MEAL, and reduce the use of time and resources in primary data collection, as well as the negative impact (assessment fatigue) among the target populations.
5. Oversee quality assurance of all field data collection exercises, data management and analysis and develop new methods and approaches to data collection.
6. Routinely perform quality control checks of MEAL work, overseeing the recording and reporting of progress and performance of operation compared to targets.
7. Develop and maintain a Management Information System (MIS) for the programme, ensuring ongoing data analysis and aggregation
8. Prioritize integrity of data and reports support the project staff in upholding their accuracy and validity to the utmost standard, including through identifying potential ruptures in data integrity, applying corrective measures.
9. With the support of PDQC/HoPs, review annual work plans with specific attention to performance indicators and targets

Reporting

1. Produce regular monitoring reports, including running data analysis, with status of results and implementation progress.
2. Ensure quality and timely reporting on MEAL related issues (if required) in the donor reporting templates and deliver separate reports based on data collection and findings, particularly: baseline, endline surveys, KAP surveys, PDM, PIM, internal evaluations and others as required.
3. Provide guidance on the development and implementation of baseline and endline surveys to the country based MEAL teams, ensuring the implementation of the baseline survey tools identified in the country level MEAL plans
4. Aggregate baseline data for the country programme following completion of the country level baseline surveys
5. Provide training on baseline survey implementation and other aspects of monitoring and evaluation as required
6. Support program team in the development and adoption of specific planning, assessment, monitoring and reporting tools for consistent and quality data collection, coherent with and reinforcing Mercy USA’s guidelines for reporting

Coordination and Representation

1. Ensure proper MEAL coordination and streamlining structures between Mercy USA and partners are in place.
2. Ensure that Mercy’s USA MEAL system is linked to wider inter-agencies MEAL initiatives and developments, and liaise with technical teams to ensure coordination and participation in specific working groups.
3. Ensure that Mercy USA is represented at relevant inter-agencies and government meetings (related to MEAL) to enhance best practices and knowledge sharing.
4. Introduce and /or maintain MEAL forums among Mercy USA and its stakeholders, both partners and beneficiaries, to discuss and support quality programming and accountability standards.

Staff Management, Learning and Capacity Building

1. Support the country level MEAL officers and assistants to identify training needs in relation to M&E for Mercy-USA staff, sub implementing partners and state government
2. Develop an M&E training manual for adaption at country level to be used for internal training and sub implementing partners and state government staff
3. Carry out technical support missions with the head of programme, regional and country directors.
4. Provide technical MEAL support to the country management team and feed into regional review meetings.
5. Promote lessons learned and internal learning contributing to continuous program improvements and development.
6. Share MEAL findings and help to adapt and track recommendations.

EXPECTED DELIVERABLES:

1. Country M&E system in place and being implemented
2. Baselines completed for the entire target state government and a consolidated baseline report completed
3. Management Information System in place to facilitate the collection and aggregation of data
4. Country level M&E training needs identified
5. Training manuals developed
6. Capacity building in baselines and other M&E related tools completed

JOB SPECIFICATION

Academic

• Bachelor’s Degree, preferably in Business Administration, Economics, Statistics or related field
• Master’s Degree, preferably in Business Administration, Economics, Statistics or related field

Experience

• At least 7 years of experience in the design and implementation of MEAL in emergency and development projects implemented by national/international NGOs/UN bodies
• At least 7 years of experience in humanitarian/development sector
• Demonstrable experience in MEAL systems building, designing tools and strategies for data collection, analysis and production of reports
• Experience in designing and undertaking assessments and surveys and processing and analyzing data
• Experience in Health, Nutrition, WASH, Food Security and Education sectors
• Expertise in analyzing data using statistical software

Work related skills

• Ability to work effectively with others to achieve results, with strong advisory/facilitation skills
• Outstanding organizational and time management skills
• Strong communication and interpersonal skills
• Well-developed conceptual, critical, analytical thinking and planning skills
• Good understanding of cross-cutting issues
• Ability to multitask and prioritize daily workload
• Able to meet deadlines
• Excellent and persuasive writing skills
• Fluency in English required
• High degree of integrity and ethics, able to demonstrate past record of upholding the accuracy and validity of data/reports to the utmost standard.
• Fluency in English

Personal attributes

• Ability to work under pressure in fragile environments
• Ability to prioritize
• Trustworthy
• Responsiveness
• Culture awareness
• Team player