Roving Senior MEAL Manager

BACKGROUND: The International Rescue Committee (IRC) responds to the world’s worst humanitarian crises and helps people to survive and rebuild their lives. Founded in 1933 at the request of Albert Einstein, the IRC offers lifesaving care and life-changing assistance to refugees forced to flee from war or disaster. At work today in over 40 countries and 22 U.S. cities, we restore safety, dignity and hope to millions who are uprooted and struggling to endure. The IRC leads the way from harm to home.

The IRC Yemen began its programs in October 2012. Since establishing its presence in the South of Yemen, in the Red Sea Coastal city of Aden, the organization has grown from just an implementing small projects to handling large scale emergency and relief operations. Following the war which broke out in Yemen in March of 2015 and the humanitarian disaster, which was crafted by the same, IRC launched one an emergency response program in the southern governorates of Aden, Lahj, Abyan, Shabwah and Al Dhale’e. Currently, IRC Yemen is operating in eight governorates in the south and north of Yemen and Sana’a and Al-Hodeidah in the North through direct programming and through local partnerships, in Health, WASH, Nutrition, Economic Recovery Development, Education, Child Protection, Gender and Women Protection and Empowerment.

Scope of work:

Under the direct supervision of the MEAL Coordinator, the Senior Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, and Learning (MEAL) Manager will lead the design and delivery of monitoring, evaluation, accountability, and learning activities in Yemen under the FCDO funding. They will be responsible for the day-to-day support and implementation of the MEAL framework to the Partner’s MEAL focal persons. The Senior MEAL Manager will ensure standardization and overall coherence of monitoring and reporting tools within the consortium. They is expected to provide technical support in data gathering, aggregation, tool development, support electronic data platforms, databases, and select technologies to collect and organize data in a usable format. The Senior MEAL Manager will work closely with the CRA Manager for client responsiveness and IRC sector Data Managers/Officers and the Partners MEAL focal persons in the South and North.

Working relations:

The position reports to the MEAL Coordinator and directly supervises the IRC MEAL officers under FCDO. They will work closely with the CRA Manager for client responsiveness the IRC M&E Manager, sector Data Managers/Officers, and the Partners MEAL focal persons.

Indirect Reporting: This position works closely with programs in terms of collecting monitoring data, data analysis and sharing main findings back with programs to enhance the quality of programs.

Main responsibilities:

Monitoring and evaluation

• Ensure the development of a robust monitoring plan, monitoring and evaluation framework, and indicators for the FCDO project in close collaboration with the MEAL Coordinator and Partner MEAL focal persons.
• Lead in the design and standardization of data collection tools and data collection methodologies for all the Partners.
• Provide leadership and guidance in the evaluations and surveys process, ensuring the full participation of all Partners from planning through data collection to reporting and drawing of conclusions, recommendations, and lessons learned with support from the MEAL Coordinator.
• Advocate for and support the expansion of standard mobile data technology and online dashboards to enhance the timeliness and quality of data collection, analysis, and visualization.
• Produce quality reports for the consortium and update dashboards with key findings that foster learning and decision-making and share during learning meetings and Partner review meetings.
• Present findings during consortium data review and learning meetings as required and foster utilization.
• Provide data and information to MEAL Coordinator as well as the Consortium Manager about the project performance and regularly update the indicator tracking table to monitor progress.
• Offer relevant, timely, and quality MEAL support to Partner MEAL focal persons.
• Support Partners' data quality audits and lead data review meetings and document findings, of program data to identify and resolve systemic problems affecting data quality.
• Build the capacity of Partner MEAL staff through organizing relevant MEAL training.

Accountability

• Provide technical leadership to external accountability commitments to Partners through the implementation of sound accountability, client feedback, and response mechanisms.
• Support the design, development, and management of the consortium feedback database and other data tools; and understand, document, and ensure data quality, accuracy, consistency, and comparability.
• Set up and handle the feedback registry and other tools developed to ensure that they are fully functional, secure, and used by the consortium.
• Support all Partners to strengthen their existing feedback mechanisms.
• Conduct rigorous quantitative and qualitative data analysis for feedback received through the different channels and present the findings in clear formats to highlight feedback trends to the consortium management team.
• Work closely with the CRA Manager in preparing reports and presentations to share with the consortium Management Team.
• Assess the utility and efficiency of the established data management platforms and propose recommendations for improvements.

Learning

• Organize learning sessions for the consortium and generate lessons learned notes from evaluations, surveys and assessments conducted, and share the lessons with respective Partner MEAL focal persons.
• Use learning, evidence, and data from the project to inform future project proposal design and strategic decision-making.
• Develop standard learning tools and ensure that outcome monitoring learning is systematically captured on a quarterly basis.