Ref N: PROG/002/2020
Sector: Program
Location: Nairobi with frequent field visits in Kenya/Somalia
Reports to: Kenya Programme Coordinator and Regional Coordinator
Supervises: MEAL Officers
Start of work: 24th February 2020
Duration: 1 year with possibility of renewal
Background Information:
CISP is an equal employment opportunity employer with its Headquarters in Rome. Currently CISP has various field offices in Kenya and Somali, including a Regional office in Nairobi. CISP carries out projects in areas of development by supporting National and County Authorities to provide quality, equitable, transparent and accountable services in the sectors of Health and Nutrition, Higher Education, Child Protection and Governance.
Role purpose:
CISP is currently seeking an experienced MEAL specialist to join the East Africa office as a MEAL Manager to be based in Nairobi with frequent travel to field offices and project sites in Kenya and Somalia. The MEAL Manager will serve as CISP’s focal point for MEAL systems and tools building, data management, monitoring and evaluation of projects, MEAL budgeting, recruitment, support for proposal writing and log frame development, capacity building for CISP staff and consortium partners, and accountability and learning in Child Protection, Nutrition, WASH, Food Security, Education and other sectors for the East Africa program portfolio.
Key Responsibilities
MEAL System Design and Implementation
Develop and oversee the roll-out of a country-wide MEAL system that ensures both quality programming and accountability to beneficiaries and donors.
Develop MEAL plans, data collection tools, monitoring tools and reporting templates for new projects.
Design and conduct baseline, midline and end line surveys (including KAP and FGDs), impact evaluations and other assessments as needed.
Plan and effectively manage MEAL staff, activities and budget and ensure timely implementation of all MEAL activities through development of MEAL workplans and effective resource management.
Conduct stakeholder consultative meeting (DCS, MOH, MOA, etc.) to identify priority target locations for new projects based on agreed criteria.
Identify potential bottlenecks and implementation problems, communicate to the relevant team and ensure institutional knowledge is improved.
Support the implementation and monitoring of the country-wide procedure for accountability to beneficiaries, including developing and rolling out the Complaints and Feedback Mechanism and ensuring that protection and gender sensitivities are incorporated into MEAL tools.
Design, organize and conduct frequent monitoring and supervision visits to all project sites and field offices to monitor project activities and verify the quality and accuracy of data, assess the means of verification and provide capacity building to field level project staff.
Regularly research innovative approaches for MEAL which are in line with internal and donor requirements.
• Ensure that MEAL is an integral part of program design through supporting in proposal development, including through developing MEAL plans, Log Frames, capturing lessons learned from previous programs and ensuring that MEAL resources are adequately captured.
Capacity Building and Learning
Manage the MEAL team (including MEAL Officers) by setting objectives, supervising, coaching and mentoring the staff to ensure that MEAL system operates effectively.
Oversee and provide technical support and training to the MEAL teams from the consortium partners.
Provide technical MEAL support to regional management team and feed into regional review meetings.
Provide training sessions and capacity building workshops for project staff from both CISP and consortium implementing partners on data integrity, data quality, data collection, analysis and utilization, reporting and specific methodologies (such as social norms assessment).
Oversee the development and management of learning systems and ensure that learning is incorporated in every project, department and process across the country and field offices.
Share relevant MEAL findings with project teams and management and provide recommendations to the organization to enhance program learning.
Support Project Managers and project teams in ensuring high quality and adequate monitoring and supervision visits to project sites as per the workplan, budgets and monitoring plan of each project.
Institutionalize an organizational culture of “integrity first” with respect to data and reporting.
Data Management
• Maintain a central database of accurate data capturing all projects for easy retrieval, extraction and analysis to support program team
• Prepare and share monthly/quarterly MEAL statistics with project managers
• Establish an inventory of reliable, secondary data sources of key statistics to contribute to program design and MEAL.
• Oversee quality assurance of all field data collection exercises, data management and analysis and develop new methods and approaches to data collection.
• Routinely perform quality control checks of MEAL work, overseeing the recording and reporting of progress and performance of operation compared to targets.
• Prioritize integrity of data and reports support the project staff in upholding their accuracy and validity to the utmost standard, including through identifying potential ruptures in data integrity and applying corrective measures.
Reporting
• Produce reports on the findings of assessments and surveys (such as baseline/ending, KAP surveys, client satisfaction surveys, social norms assessments, household surveys, internal evaluations, etc.)
• Produce regular monitoring reports on results of implementation progress including data analysis.
• Ensure quality and timely reporting on MEAL-related issues in the external/donor reports.
• Support project team in the development and adoption of guidelines for reporting.
• Support in the entry, cleaning and consolidation of data collected at the field level.
Coordination & Representation
Ensure that CISP is adequately represented at relevant inter-agency and government meetings to enhance best practices and knowledge sharing.
Ensure proper MEAL coordination and streamlining structures between CISP and consortium partners are in place.
Ensure that CISP’s MEAL system is linked to wider trends and developments in the sector and liaise with technical teams to ensure coordination and participation in specific working groups.
Ensure that CISP is represented at relevant inter-agency and government meetings related to MEAL to enhance best practices and knowledge sharing.
Introduce MEAL forums among CISP and its stakeholders, both partners and beneficiaries, to discuss and support quality programming and accountability standards.
Eligibility Requirements:
Qualification and Experience
· Master’s Degree, preferably in Economics, Statistics or related field
· At least 5 years of experience in the design and implementation of MEAL in emergency and development projects implemented by national/international NGOs/UN agencies
· At least 7 years of experience in humanitarian/development programming with technical knowledge of Child Protection, Food Security, Agriculture, Nutrition, WASH and Education sectors
· Demonstrable experience in MEAL systems building, designing tools and strategies for data collection, analysis and production of reports
· Experience in designing and undertaking assessments and surveys and processing and analyzing data
· Expertise in analyzing data using statistical software
Skills:
Ability to work effectively with others to achieve results, with strong advisory/facilitation skills
Outstanding organizational and time management skills
Strong communication and interpersonal skills
Well-developed conceptual, critical, analytical thinking and planning skills
Good understanding of cross-cutting issues
Ability to multitask and prioritize daily workload
Able to meet deadlines
Excellent and persuasive writing skills
High degree of integrity and ethics, able to demonstrate past record of upholding the accuracy and validity of data/reports to the utmost standard. Fluency in English required; Fluency in Kiswahili is desirable
