Regional Research, Monitoring, and Learning Coordinator At International Rescue Committee

High-quality Early Childhood Development (ECD) programs provide the foundation for children’s future academic success, health, prosperity and wellbeing. A large body of scientific evidence emphasizes the need for increased investment in early childhood, particularly for children experiencing conflict, crisis and displacement; these children are extremely vulnerable to the long-lasting effects that prolonged stress has on the developing brain.

In December 2017, Sesame Workshop and the IRC were awarded the MacArthur Foundation’s inaugural 100&Change grant to make real progress toward solving a critical problem of our time and received $100 million to bring early education to vulnerable children affected by displacement and conflict from both refugee and host communities in the Middle East region. In December 2018, Sesame Workshop, the IRC, and other partners received another $100 million from the LEGO foundation for refugee and host community early education programs in the Middle East and Bangladesh. With these extraordinary investments, our partnership will transform the language, early reading, math, and social-emotional skills of a generation of children ages 0-8 affected by the Syrian conflict. Focusing on children in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria over the next five years, the inclusive plan combines the depth of in-person services, reaching 1.5 million children, with the breadth of mass media, reaching 9.4 million children. For more information, please visit: http://refugee.sesameinternational.org/.

Job Overview

The Regional Research, Monitoring, and Learning (RML) Coordinator leads project management for research, monitoring, and learning across Ahlan Simsim, working closely with the Ahlan Simsim Regional Research, Monitoring, and Learning (RML) lead, Ahlan Simsim RML senior managers in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, the Ahlan Simsim Regional Project Director, and the rest of the Ahlan Simsim team, to deliver on Ahlan Simsim’s ambitious goals for monitoring, research, learning, and learning uptake activities. The role involves liaising across regional, country, and HQ-based IRC RML and ECD program staff, academic research partners, NGO partners, and government scaling partners in the Middle East region to deliver on Ahlan Simsim monitoring, research, learning, and evidence generation and dissemination in a high-quality and efficient manner.

The RMEL Coordinator will be responsible for the following key objectives:

1. Monitoring systems and processes are high quality, accurate, user friendly, and appropriate for IRC and Partners.
2. Learning from monitoring and research results is systematically analyzed and used for program decisions and improvement.
3. Research, Monitoring, and Learning priorities, roles, and, responsibilities are organized and clear, supported by sound project management systems and structures.

Major Responsibilities

1. Project Management for Research, Monitoring and Learning

• Support Regional RML Lead in designing and implementing internal IRC project management processes as well as cross-organizational project management and communication systems for Ahlan Simsim monitoring, research, and learning such as maintaining and updating workplans, timelines, budgets, and dissemination and learning plans.

o This includes documenting team working guidelines and expectations, as well as ensuring adequate documentation of meeting notes among all team members (particularly key decisions)

• Assist and coordinate technical staff, partners and country offices to implement project management and tracking tools.

• Maintain comprehensive and standardized knowledge management files for the project, including key decisions and actions, and ensure project team and partners have access to relevant records.

• Provide support to Ahlan Simsim/ECD country teams on ways to improve (streamline and strengthen, as well as verify) monitoring, information management, tracking against indicator targets, and coordination between implementation and monitoring.

• Maintain and update Ahlan Simsim Learning Agenda, including tracking and documenting learning activities and products related to each learning question in a standardized way.

• Organize and document regional team learning and reflection meetings on at least a semi-annual basis in order to share, synthesize, and consolidate country and regional learnings across the whole Ahlan Simsim project.

• Conceptualize, write, and consolidate progress and donor reports inclusive of monitoring and research data and findings and learnings.

• Liaise with research partners at New York University and Sesame Workshop through leading or attending scheduled and ad hoc meetings upon the Regional RML Lead’s request to represent IRC and IRC’s interests by maintaining positive and constructive relationships with research partners.

2. Monitoring

• Ensure that the Ahlan Simsim theory of change, logical framework, and monitoring plan continue to effectively track progress against its theory of change and targets, including outputs and outcomes related to direct services delivered by IRC, mass media, and scaling up interventions with partners.·

• Assist, train, and coordinate Ahlan Simsim/ECD country teams to conduct project monitoring with high quality and consistency across all project activities and locations, in collaboration with Regional Information Management (IM) Officer.

• Supervise Regional IM Officer to maintain Ahlan Simsim’s regional information management system for quantitative and qualitative data collection, cleaning, analysis, quality checks, and reporting, and updating targets for all indicators, to ensure all Ahlan Simsim project, IRC, and donor requirements for monitoring are met.

• Lead and supervise analysis of Ahlan Simsim monitoring data at the regional level, aggregating data across countries and identifying trends and differences across Ahlan Simsim locations.

• Provide training and support to the ECD/Ahlan Simsim country teams in designing and adapting monitoring systems for sustainable use by scaling partners, including government ministries.

• Collaborate with Ahlan Simsim/ECD regional team to collect quantitative and qualitative feedback from IRC staff, clients, and scaling partners on Ahlan Simsim/ECD content (training manuals and sessions, activity guides, storybooks, videos, etc.), in coordination with partners from Sesame Workshop.

3. Reporting, Learning and Dissemination

• Ensure that monitoring and research results are disseminated in a timely way internally and externally, to align with and support IRC and partner implementation timelines and Ahlan Simsim advocacy and scaling efforts.

• Lead or contribute to design and creation of learning and dissemination products, including presentations, events, policy briefs, blogs, and infographics, to share Ahlan Simsim results with a variety of audiences, such as internal project teams, policymakers, other NGOs, and client communities.

o Assist, train, and coordinate Ahlan Simsim/ECD country teams to disseminate country-specific monitoring data and lessons internally and externally.

General

• Ensure all activities are child and gender sensitive and follow IRC Child Safeguarding Policy.

• Apply Do No Harm standards to ensure activities do not have detrimental effects on vulnerable communities.

• Conduct himself/herself both professionally and personally in such a manner as to reinforce the acceptance of IRC in the community.

• Participate in internal IRC and Ahlan Simsim office coordination and planning meetings and workshops.

• Flexibility on other duties as assigned for program or professional development.

• All IRC staff is required to adhere to THE IRC Way Standards for Professional Conduct and the IRC country employment policies.

Job Requirements

• Master’s degree in education, economics, political science, public health, industrial engineering, or other related field, or equivalent experience.

• At least 5 years of experience with demonstrated organization, coordination, and project management skills

• Proven ability to design and institutionalize efficient project management processes and systems for multi-country and/or multi-organization teams.

• Experience in designing and implementing research, monitoring, evaluation, or learning systems in the Middle East region.

• Experience facilitating use of and learning from data monitoring, evaluation, or research to inform program design and improvement.

• Proven ability to make research and monitoring data accessible and useable for a variety of audiences, including program implementation staff, clients, and policymakers.

• Fluency in written and spoken Arabic and English.

• Outstanding verbal and written communication skills, including the ability to edit, synthesize information and produce high quality reports, briefs, and other types of written products in Arabic and English

• Outstanding communication and interpersonal skills across a wide range including project clients, community members, IRC colleagues, government officials, academics, partners, donors, etc.

• Excellent IT skills (Microsoft Outlook, Word, Excel)

• The ability to work productively and accurately while under pressure in a fast-paced, demanding environment.

• Flexible work attitude: the ability to work in a team environment and independently to achieve results, and ability to meet unexpected demands.

• Ability to multi-task and prioritize effectively.

• Excellent attention to detail and organizational skills.

• Proven commitment to addressing inequalities and inequities in all the key areas of responsibility.

• Demonstrable understanding and experience of gender and diversity issues and inclusive programming.

• Must be eligible to work in one of the locations where this position could be based (Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Tunisia, United States).

Preferred:

• Previous experience in research, monitoring, evaluation, and/or learning with government ministries in the Middle East region.

• Experience in developing research, monitoring, evaluation, or learning systems and tools specifically for ECD or Education programs.

• Ability to program and experience in data collection and analysis with relevant software (e.g. Commcare, Ona, and/or Stata).

• Experience conducting impact evaluations (randomized controlled trials) of development or humanitarian interventions.

Working Environment:

The position can be based in Amman, Jordan; Beirut, Lebanon; Tunis, Tunisia; Erbil, Iraq; or New York, NY, USA with frequent travel to IRC offices throughout in Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Turkey, and Northeast Syria.

Women of all backgrounds are strongly encouraged to apply

The IRC and IRC workers must adhere to the values and principles outlined in IRC Way – Standards for Professional Conduct. These are Integrity, Equality, Service, and Accountability. In accordance with these values, the IRC operates and enforces policies on Beneficiary Protection from Exploitation and Abuse, Child Safeguarding, Anti Workplace Harassment, Fiscal Integrity, and Anti-Retaliation.