Humanitarian Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability & Learning (MEAL) Manager at Save the Children Nigeria

Save the Children is the leading independent organization for children in need, with programs in over 120 countries. We save children’s lives. We fight for their rights. We help them fulfil their potential. Save the Children is working in Nigeria because one in five children in Nigeria dies before their fifth birthday. About 40% of children miss out on school and have to work to survive while nearly 2 million children have lost one or both parents to an AIDS-related disease.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Humanitarian Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability & Learning (MEAL) Manager

Reference ID: 220001BC
Location: Maiduguri, Borno
Employee Status: Fixed Term
Team / Programme: Program Development and Quality (PDQ)
Grade: 2
Contract Length: 12 months
Reports to: Head of MEAL
Staff Directly Reporting to this Post: Borno office MEAL Coordinators, Accountability Coordinator

Child Safeguarding - Level 3

• The role holder will have contact with children and/or young people either frequently (e.g. once a week or more) or intensively (e.g. four days in one month or more or overnight) because they work in country programs; or are visiting country programs; or because they are responsible for implementing the police checking/vetting process staff.

Role Purpose

• The MEAL Manager oversees high quality monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning across Save the Children’s programmes in Borno. S/he is expected to lead on MEAL system design and implementation, evaluations, research, MEAL budgeting, recruitment, accountability system strengthening, as well as support proposal writing and log frame development for all projects.
• The post holder will be expected to mentor and/or capacity build existing MEAL staff, and work across functions to ensure that the learning from the monitoring, evaluation and accountability systems informs programme decision making.

Key Areas Of Accountability
MEAL System Development:

• Oversee the MEAL state team and provide high quality MEAL technical leadership, support and capacity building to the state implementation team.
• In collaboration with the programme & technical team, develop and implement project MEAL plans, quality benchmarks, research, assessments and evaluations to support an evidence and learning agenda as well as a process for knowledge sharing between SCI, stakeholders and partners in the state
• Ensure that the state office complies with SCI MEAL processes and standards and ensure standardization of MEAL formats/reports including grant-level Indicator Performance Tracking Tables (IPTTs).
• Bring together data and findings from across projects to form a coherent basis for analysis of impact which promotes learning and strategy development.
• Develop and increase utilization of accountability approaches, such as participation, complaints and response mechanisms.
• Keep abreast of MEAL sector trends and developments, for example in remote monitoring, and adapt and promote introduction of new methodologies, technologies, innovations and best practices where applicable in the state
• Formulate key program questions that will help to advance the evidence base, and lead design of targeted evaluations (including but not restricted to baseline, midline and end line evaluations) and pieces of operations research.
• Actively contribute to the process of learning, evaluation, capturing and disseminating lessons from the programme for continuous improvement of programme performance and overall outcome
• Contribute to proposal writing and review to ensure MEAL activities and costs are adequately covered. Develop standard guidance for incorporation of MEAL costs into proposals in specific responses.
• Ensure that the minimum standards of humanitarian relief are maintained in accordance with the Sphere Charter and Red Cross Code of Conduct, as well as Core Humanitarian Standard on Quality and Accountability.
• Ensure the considerations on gender, disability and inclusion re well integrated into the MEAL activities, tools, and analysis.
• Leads on the coordination with BHA Third Party Monitoring Initiatives (monthly).

Capacity Building:

• Identify learning and training needs as well as the opportunities for MEAL and other staff and work as a mentor and role model for staff.
• Conduct training and awareness raising activities for operations and programme technical staff at field level regarding MEAL priorities and quality standards.
• Coordinate trainings for MEAL and program staff in the relevant fields, such as on data collection tools, ICT solutions for MEAL, data analysis for both quantitative and qualitative data, etc.

Representation, Advocacy & Organisational Learning:

• Ensure that Save the Children's work is coordinated with efforts of other agencies and Government, and support Interagency Coordination forums, advocating for the specific needs of children. This may involve taking the lead in coordination working groups.  Participate in interagency coordinated joint MEAL activities (for instance, inter-agency working group).
• In collaboration with Save the Children MEAL and advocacy colleagues, feed in learning, experiences and evidence to relevant advocacy objectives and lead on response-specific learning activities.  For instance, support planning of After Action Review workshops, prepare lessons learnt reports and conduct accountability mechanism pilots. Take steps to document lessons learned for wider dissemination.
• Participate and feed into Save the Children regional and global working groups when needed.

General:

• Comply with Save the Children policies and practice with respect to child protection, code of conduct, health and safety, equal opportunities and other relevant policies and procedures.
• Any other duties emerge as CO priorities.

Qualifications and Experience
Essential:

• Graduate Degree in a relevant subject – ideally also a Post-graduate Degree
• Minimum of 5 years’ work experience in MEAL, especially monitoring, including in large-scale, complex emergencies generating high volumes of data where technical capacity of MEAL staff is varied and coordination between MEAL/sector teams is a challenge
• Experience of working in the North East Region of Nigeria on Humanitarian Projects
• Ability to create and implement MEAL plans and IPTTs based on logframes and other reporting requirements and support junior colleagues to do so
• Strong experience in collecting, processing, analyzing and reporting on quantitative and qualitative data and supporting other colleagues to do so – including ability to troubleshoot Kobo-related issues
• Ability to contribute to Awards reporting from a MEAL perspective in a timely and accurate manner.
• Ability to manage team work plans in contexts where workload is high and priorities shift frequently
• Ability to hit the ground running and work on own initiative – but also be comfortable asking for support where needed in a timely manner
• Highly organized, with the ability to juggle multiple tasks to meet tight deadlines
• Strong team player, with the desire and ability to take initiative to pick us tasks outside official responsibilities
• Proven capacity to supervise, train and coach staff
• Experience of representation and ability to represent Save the Children effectively in external forums
• Ability to write clear and well-argued assessment and project reports
• Excellent communication and influencing skills
• A high level of written and spoken English
• The capacity and willingness to be extremely flexible and accommodating in difficult and sometimes insecure working circumstances.
• Commitment to the aims and principles of Save the Children. In particular, a good understanding of the Save the children  mandate and child focus and an ability to ensure this continues to underpin our support.

Desirable:

• Ability to speak Hausa.

Skills and Behaviours (Our Values in Practice)
Accountability:

• Holds self-accountable for making decisions, managing resources efficiently, achieving results together with children and role modelling Save the Children values
• Holds the team and partners accountable to deliver on their responsibilities – giving them the freedom to deliver in the best way they see fit, providing the necessary development to improve performance and applying appropriate consequences when results are not achieved
• Creates a managerial environment in-country to lead, enable and maintain our culture of child safeguarding.

Ambition:

• Sets ambitious and challenging goals for self and team, takes responsibility for own personal development and encourages team to do the same
• Widely shares personal vision for Save the Children, engages and motivates others
• Future oriented, thinks strategically and on a global scale.

Collaboration:

• Builds and maintains effective relationships, with own team, colleagues, members, donors and partners
• Values diversity, sees it as a source of competitive strength
• Approachable, good listener, easy to talk to.

Creativity:

• Develops and encourages new and innovative solutions
• Willing to take disciplined risks.

Integrity:

• Honest, encourages openness and transparency
• Always acts in the best interests of children.

The Organisation

• We employ approximately 25,000 people across the globe and work on the ground in over 100 countries to help children affected by crises, or those that need better health care, education and child protection. We also campaign and advocate at the highest levels to realize the right of children and to ensure their voices are heard.
• We are working towards three breakthroughs in how the world treats children by 2030:
  • No child dies from preventable causes before their 5th birthday
  • All children learn from a quality basic education and that,
  • Violence against children is no longer tolerated
• We know that great people make a great organization and that our employees play a crucial role in helping us achieve our ambitions for children.  We value our people and offer a meaningful and rewarding career, along with a collaborative and inclusive workplace where ambition, creativity, and integrity are highly valued.
• Save the Children is committed to ensuring that all our personnel and programmes are absolutely safe for children.
• We undertake rigorous procedures to ensure that only people suitable to work with children are allowed to join our organization and all candidates will, therefore, be subject to this scrutiny.
• We need to keep children safe so our selection process reflects our commitment to the protection of children from abuse.

Application Closing Date
4th March, 2022.