Country: Ethiopia
Closing date: 26 Oct 2017
Background:
Catholic Relief Services (CRS) is an International non-governmental organization supporting relief and development work in over 110 countries around the world. CRS programs assist persons on the basis of need, regardless of creed, ethnicity or nationality. CRS works through local church and non-church partners to implement its programs, therefore, strengthening and building the capacity of these partner organizations is fundamental to programs in every country in which CRS operates.
Job Description:
The purpose of this position is to manage, strengthen, and provide strategic direction to CRS Ethiopia's Development Food Security Activity (DFSA) MEAL system, ensuring cross-learning in MEAL among projects, and to build capacity of MEAL staff. The MEAL Manager will be responsible for supervising DFSA MEAL activities, managing assessments and surveys for the DFSA. When possible, the MEAL Manager will also work closely with CRS program teams and partner staff to develop high quality monitoring systems and tools that address indicators set out in project proposals. He/she will ensure that learning from projects is systematically captured and used throughout the country program. He/she will also take learning needs into account, and develop and conduct capacity building for MEAL and program staff, with support of the Chief of Party (CoP), Deputy Chief of Party (DCoP) and the Regional Technical Advisor (RTA) for M&E.
The MEAL Manager is expected to have a high level of self-initiative and use critical thinking skills to identify and fill gaps. The MEAL Manager should have the ability to work sensitively and positively with programming teams and promote a learning environment -- success of the post relies on this.
Specific Responsibilities:
MEAL Strategy & Design
Provide strategic high level feedback, analysis and interpretation throughout the program startup and implementation processes.
Ensure that the DFSA MEAL systems are in compliance with CRS' global and regional policies, procedures, standards, and strategic initiatives, and compliant with USAID/FFP requirements.
Provide strategic direction for the development and maintenance of MEAL systems, and the roll-out of new initiatives.
Support Sectoral Managers and MEAL team/working group members in the design and implementation of assessments, gender analysis, stakeholder analysis, organizational capacity assessments, and other pre-program data collection and analysis.
Ensure the consistency of tools and indicators across all partners, sectors, and programs as appropriate, maintaining a bank of key program indicators.
Support programming staff to incorporate participatory methods into community level M&E systems and tools.
Collect and analyze lessons learned and best practices from previous and ongoing programs capturing the impact of activities, and ensure that these are incorporated into the design of new projects.
Leverage lessons learned, best practices, program data, evaluations, and other information to generate donor communication pieces, proposal annexes, success stories, case studies, and other high-quality, results-based documentation.
Work with senior management to identify and pursue strategic opportunities for program development, expansion, etc.
MEAL Implementation
Lead mandated evaluations, needs assessments, annual surveys, case studies, and other evaluation efforts.
Update DFSA MEAL operation manual as necessary to ensure that they are up-to-date, high quality, and contain tools, data flow maps, and analysis plans that address all information needed for program quality and donor reporting.
Manage agency driven MEAL inquiries, requirements i.e. end of year beneficiary counts, Annual MPP self-assessments, etc.
Contribute to donor proposals and reports, through high quality analysis of reports and interpretation of data.
Support the MEAL team in strategically preparing and reviewing MEAL calendars.
Support quarterly review and analysis meetings/visits at partner level, annual learning-to-action events and reflection sessions to systematically analyze data for programmatic use, and to document and incorporate lessons learned into program design and implementation.
Ensure that transparent high quality accountability mechanisms, including beneficiary feedback and response mechanisms, are in place for all programs and are regularly monitored and evaluated.
Ensure that beneficiary feedback is adequately captured, addressed, analyzed, and utilized by program teams.
Capacity Strengthening
With the Country Program (CP) MEAL Manager, support the CRS Ethiopia MEAL Community of Practice to share learning, resources, and support across offices.
Develop and co-facilitate MEAL workshops and modules for staff and partners, to share MEAL tools, processes, and best practices to cultivate a culture of learning.
Conduct orientations for new MEAL and program staff on CRS systems and key MEAL resources.
Provide mentoring/accompaniment to CRS and partner staff to increase capacity and to achieve annual performance and development plans.
Remain updated with developments among the CRS MEAL community and worldwide MEAL trends and resources, and ensure that the DFSA MEAL team is applying CRS MEAL guidance and policies appropriately and in a timely manner.
Conduct field monitoring visits events frequently with project teams and implementing partners
Provide feedback to senior project and MEAL staff to improve the overall MEAL system and ensure quality implementation of MEAL activities.
ICT for MEAL
Support MEAL and programming teams to develop strong project tracking, record keeping and filing methodologies for all activities.
Work with MEAL and IT staff to maximize the value and utility of ICT4MEAL initiatives.
Key Working Relationships:
Internal: CoP, DCoP, Technical Leads/Advisors (NRM, Health, Agriculture, Commodity, etc.), Project Managers, CP MEAL Manager, MEAL Advisors (Regional and HQ), CRS M&E Community of Practice
External: Donors, international and local partners and Govt. of Ethiopia
Person Qualifications:
- Master's degree in Statistics, Demography, Development Economics or a field related to international development
- At least eight years of managerial experience with an NGO (experience with INGO preferred); particularly with Title II, in addition to significant MEAL experience
- Experience working with large donors, including USAID/FFP
- Familiarity with principles and current approaches to MEAL in development programs using both quantitative and qualitative methods
- Experience with participatory MEAL systems
- Proficiency in database development/management, SPSS, EPI-Info, Access, Excel and skills in analyzing, interpreting and communicating information to various stakeholders
- Significant experience in conducting quantitative and qualitative assessments, surveys (including sound understanding of sampling issues), and managing consultants
- Experience with facilitation, capacity strengthening and partnership building, with the capacity to empower staff through opportunities for growth & development
- Ability and willingness to transfer knowledge through formal and informal training
- Supervisory experience and management and team building skills
- Excellent planning and organization skills
- Flexibility to work both in a team and independently
- Cultural sensitivity, patience and flexibility
- Demonstrated personal accountability and driven to serve others
- Fluency in English (written and spoken)
- Excellent oral and written communication skills, ability to work well with people, good judgment and commitment to CRS' mission
- Willingness to travel
Agency-wide Competencies (specific for this position):
These are rooted in the mission, values, and guiding principles of CRS and used by each staff member to fulfill his or her responsibilities and achieve the desired results. The following are specific to this position:
Serves with Integrity
Develops Constructive Relationships
Models Stewardship
Key MEAL Competencies (specific for this position):
MEAL in Design: Developing project-level Theories of Change, Proframes, related MEAL system tools and components, and accompanying MEAL narratives.
Monitoring: Implementing monitoring activities, including timely collection of quality data, set up and maintenance of databases, facilitation of participatory reflection on monitoring results, and submission of timely progress reports.
Evaluation: Supporting project and program evaluations and reviews by ensuring the quality of evaluation methods, tools, and data and facilitating the use of evaluation results to inform decision-making and enhance learning
Accountability: Improving our accountability to a range of stakeholders through increased participation, transparent communication, responsive feedback mechanisms and adherence to internal and external quality standards and requirements.
Learning: Promoting excellent knowledge management and collaborative learning processes at the project, program and institutional levels, generating robust evidence for project and programmatic learning that leads to action, decision-making and influence.
Analysis and Critical Thinking: Engaging with data, challenging biases and assumptions, posing thoughtful questions, pursuing deeper understanding of evidence through reflection and perspective-taking, and making informed programming decisions.
ICT for MEAL: Applying knowledge on information and communication technologies (ICT), both hardware and software, for opportune and accurate data collection, database management.
Supervisory Responsibilities: CRS Ethiopia DFSA MEAL Unit
CRS' talent acquisition procedures reflect our commitment to protecting children and vulnerable adults from abuse and exploitation.
Equal Opportunity Employer
How to apply:
Apply online:
https://recruiting.adp.com/srccar/nghome.guid?c=1161051&d=External&r=5000254616406