MEAL Officer – Yemen at INTERSOS

INTERSOS is an independent humanitarian organization that assists the victims of natural disasters, armed conflicts and exclusion. Its activities are based on the principles of solidarity, justice, human dignity, equality of rights and opportunities, respect for diversity and coexistence, paying special attention to the most vulnerable people.

Terms of reference

Job Title: MEAL Officer

Code: SR-35-2115

Duty station: Aden and frequent visits to other field offices in South Yemen

Starting date: 01/01/2022

Contract duration: 6 months

Reporting to: MEAL coordinator

Supervision of: MEAL Officers, PDM Officers

Dependents: Non-family Duty station

General context of the project

In Yemen, INTERSOS has been engaged since 2008, providing protection assistance to refugees and migrants (mostly but not exclusively from the Horn of Africa). Since 2015 INTERSOS scaled up its operations to ensure a robust response to the IDPs crisis and the needs of other conflict affected Yemenis, and also expanded its geographical scope (covering Aden, Taiz, Hajja, Ibb, Hadramout and Lahj). INTERSOS’ protection programming for IDPs and conflict affected Yemenis focused on provision of emergency protection services: protection monitoring, provision of legal assistance, general case management services for GBV/PwSN/CP, including provision of cash assistance, rental subsidies, material assistance, livelihoods and life skills trainings. Moreover, from 2015 onwards INTERSOS started to implement health programming (with integration of nutrition), based on a needs-analysis of the conflict- affected communities in Yemen: with the rapidly collapsing Yemeni health care system, it has been paramount to support partially and non-functional health facilities to prevent total collapse/meltdown of health care system. Such programme includes: immunization, ANC, PNC, BEmONC, IMCI, OPD screening for malnutrition, treatment of SAM cases, health education, deworming, vitamin A supplementation and referral services. Besides attention for EPHC, INTERSOS ensures also attention for Secondary Health care to ensure referral services, while supporting the WHO/MOPHP strategy to ensure the minimum service package (MSP).

Moreover INTERSOS has integrated livelihoods and WASH activities in its main programming.

General purpose of the position

The MEAL Officer is expected to support the MEAL Coordinator in completing the setting up and implementation of MEAL system of the Mission, ensuring strong coordination with Program Unit made up of several departments.

To accomplish this role, s/he will need to work collaboratively with other M&E staff, sector technical heads and heads of departments, Project Managers or Coordinators by promoting and fostering a culture of shared learning and accountability, and promoting innovation within the programme. This includes the development and integration of: programme quality standards, accountability, learning in all design, assessments, monitoring, data management, programme review and evaluation as well as consistent documentation of learning and progress in this area

Main responsibilities and tasks

Strategic development of MEAL System

• Support MEAL Officers to continuously map out main MEAL task/needs and priorities and develop/update workplan and other relevant MEAL documents like SOPs/Manual/Guides.

• Support the MEAL Officers to develop Performance management plan (indicator plans) and indicator reference sheet (IRS) for every project to guide indicator measurement.

• Support in Identification, development of new or revision of existing data collection tools/templates (questionnaire, checklist, other tools where necessary)

• Support project reporting officers, activity coordinators or PMs to develop and maintain clean and updated database for tracking indicators (Indicator performance tracking tables, google data studios)

• Provide feedback loop to the MEAL Coordinator and management regarding the MEAL system and any suggestion of area for improvement and solution.

• Help the MEAL Coordinator to assemble and maintain MEAL toolkit (Manual, Guidelines, SOPs, tools)

• Support the MEAL Coordinator in development and roll out of the web-based data management and reporting system (information management system) that improves efficiency of data management and reduce data error and lost.

• Facilitate orientation of project team on agreed tools, methodologies, tasks and data or project quality requirements

Monitoring

• Continually review narrative & PAT (project appraisal tool) reports and ensure indicators are collected, calculated and reported properly and timely using right methodologies.

• Continuously identify any data and implementation issues and flag them off to PMs, technical coordinators, Reporting Officers for clarification or corrective action.

• Support project managers and technical sector leads as needed to analyze project progress data and developing quality indicators/checklist and conducting programme quality monitoring.

• Plan for and conduct regular field monitoring visit to different field locations to validate information and provide monitoring support (Backstopping) to different projects and field team whenever necessary in coordination with other MEAL staff, PMs or Activity Coordinators.

• Supports external (donor) monitoring visits, review and provide inputs to TPM reports and donor feedback and respond promptly to external monitoring needs.

• Support MEAL Coordinator to review PDM and other assessment including FGD and KIIs that are conducted by project staff, PDM & MEAL Officers and ensure they are conducted as per guideline, plan and approved tools

• Conduct data quality assessment-DQA (review databases, reports and data collection tools and processes of collection)

• Lead the MEAL and Reporting Officers in creating interactive, user-friendly visualizations by collecting, analyzing, and producing graphics using GIS data and tools.

Evaluations

• Support evaluation planning and implementation (development/review of evaluation ToR, plans/scope of work, data collection tools, supervising data collection, analysis, drafting reports).

• Support dissemination of evaluation findings and other M&E data or research products in coordination with grant and MEAL Coordinator.

• With support of MEAL Coordinator and in coordination with Senior Management Team (SMT), disseminate or present evaluation findings to the team to stir discussion and utilization.

Accountability

• Support the MEAL Officers to monitor the popularization of the CRM among staff and in communities by assessing the awareness mechanism (orientation to staff, distribution of posters in project sites, sensitization during group activities etc).

• Ensure all assessments (PDM, Satisfaction survey, Evaluation, FGD/KII) include questions to assess INTERSOS’ community accountability mechanism.

• Support the integration of CRM data into MEAL system, by ensuring CRM data is frequently analyzed by CRM focal point and reflected on/discussed by all relevant team members and use for improvement.

• Support the SMT in the strategies development that improve and promote high level of community participation.

Learning and knowledge management

• Review reports, identify or extract and compile lessons, validate and timely share the lessons with relevant team members using most appropriate means in order to promote learning and improvement.

• Ensure MEAL Officers regularly update lessons learned documents and storage in organization shared space.

• In coordination with the PMs and Programme Coordinators, and with support of MEAL Officers, organized and facilitate reflection/learning sessions on monitoring data.

• Promote the constant knowledge management effort among the projects by ensuring continuous documentation and integration of knowledge/lessons learned in their daily activities. This can be done by regularly conducting field visits and implementation review and disseminating the recommendation as timely as possible.

HR Management (Capacity building)

• In coordination with PM and technical coordinators, identify capacity building need for different project team & plan and organize training session where necessary.

• With support of MEAL Coordinator, provide continuous review of M&E Officer’s outputs and provide continuous objective feedback and coaching to support improvement.

• Support orientation of field staff on selected MEAL methodology, tools, processes and plan, priorities and quality standards and or requirements.

• Participate in regular project review exercises and technical working group meetings.

• Provide information as required to the respective technical clusters and donors in relation to humanitarian data.

• Represent MEAL department in all internal meetings (planning, coordination, technical etc), in some cases represent INTERSOS in external fora.

• Where necessary, perform any other duty as and when called upon or in the absence of technical supervisor.

Required profile and experience

Education

• Minimum of Bachelor’s degree in quantitative discipline (preferably in Statistic, economics, GIS, information management, social sciences, development studies, M&E or related fields). Master’s degree is preferred.

Professional Experience

• At least 1 year (with masters’ degree) OR 3 years (with undergraduate degree) of professional experience working in M&E or information management or project management positions in INGO.

Professional Requirements

• Demonstrated familiarity with MEAL terminologies, processes and tools.

• Prior experience working with humanitarian organizations will be considered as an asset.

• Prior experience working on information management levels for protection programming.

• Experience in data collection and analysis (Survey data, FGD, KII, Literature review)

• Knowledge of developing and maintaining databases.

• High level of proficiency in Excel and knowledge of any one Statistical Software (SPSS, STATA, SAS, R, Epi Info) in addition to ODK/Kobo. Knowledge of qualitative data analysis software like Nvivo, Atlas.ti etc, is a plus!

• Knowledge of major quantitative & qualitative monitoring methodologies and proven ability to design and validate monitoring instrumentation/tools (Questionnaire, FGD/KII guides, Checklist).

• Proven skills in research, data and information analysis, presentation/visualization and report writing.

• Ability to draft and edit good analytical reports and other M&E documents.

• Knowledge of data quality dimensions, evaluation criteria and evaluation designs

• Ability to provide capacity building in M&E.

• Good management, communication (oral and written), planning (prioritization and adherence to datelines) and organizational skills; flexibility and ability to multi-task.

Languages

• Excellent written and spoken English – Knowledge of Arabic would be asset**

Personal Requirements

• Strong team spirit, comfortable in a multi-cultural environment.

• Excellent analytical skills, observation and analysis capacity.

• Ability to deal with heavy work pressure and manage stress.

• Willingness and ability to move to and within Yemen (North, Central and South).

• Readiness to commit and adhere to the values, mission and vision of INTERSOS.

• Adhere to strict confidentiality and information management standards and protocols, sharing information only in compliance with these standards;

• High level of discipline, professionalism, self-motivated, problem solver and innovative thinking.