Category: Careers

Food Rights Alliance is looking to recruit a Monitoring Evaluation Accountability and Learning Officer.

Deadline: April 7th, 2021 at 5:00pm

JOB DESCRIPTION AND PERSON SPECIFICATION
Job Title: MEAL Project Officer
Reports to: Programme Quality Manager

Job Purpose:
The primary role of the MEAL Officer is to work directly with program staff at all levels, member organisations and partners to ensure implementation of high quality MEAL throughout Food Rights Alliance (FRA) Programme Management Cycle. You will provide technical analysis and support in the area of Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning in line with FRA program quality principles and standards, donor guidelines, and industry best practice to technical staff, and member organisation staff to advance the delivery of high-quality
programming to the poor and vulnerable food producers and consumers. Working closely with technical experts, your skills and knowledge will contribute to determining how effective, adaptive and innovative FRA’s MEAL programming is across all programmes.

You will be required to support the development of effective MEAL systems and data collection tools; collect data using qualitative and quantitative methods, conduct data entry and analysis, and accompany partner and member organisation staff in doing the same. The MEAL Officer will be dedicated to support FRA’s direct projects as his/her primary role.

Main Duties & Responsibilities:
Responsibility 1: Lead the development and establishment of a functional FRA MEAL system
 Together with the Head of Programmes and the Executive Director develop and test a robust FRA MEAL system in line with the organisational programme management cycle.
 Support proposal development activities to ensure the MEAL component is well developed right from the start;
 Monitor compliance against MEAL requirements set in priority programmes under implementation: regularly update the MEAL database, keep internal MEAL mapping file up to date and ensure relevant MEAL docs are saved in on the server where staff can easily access them;
 Support the development of effective data collection tools for routine monitoring, project databases and reporting formats for existing and new projects;
 Support the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) for project MEAL, as required;
 Ensure appropriate, high quality orientation and training of FRA staff, Member Organisations and partners on project MEAL system and tools, as required;
 Contribute to the development of MEAL capacity in the field through field missions, dedicated remote support, training and resource sharing as needed.

Responsibility 2: Strengthen implementation of MEAL system in a strategic manner:
 Support the Head of Programmes in piloting a MEAL framework applicable to FRA programmes; support implementation of cross-learning and accountability component;
 Advise and provide support to Programme Managers and Officers as required on the implementation of Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning components. To this extent also provide advice and support on MEAL plans, baseline studies, data collection tools and databases as required; review and provide feedback to project progress and final reports;
 Provide support in project evaluations by sharing templates and available tools at the planning stage; reviewing evaluation TORs, inception reports and draft evaluation report to ensure quality and rigor in the process;
 Collect and organize existing internal and key external MEAL tools and resources, and share them as needed;
 Ensure timely trend analysis of monitoring data to support project reporting and decision making;
 Support Programme Managers and Officers in consolidating learning and reporting on programmes;
 Support the Members Organisations, Partners and Regional Working Groups on Monitoring and Learning components;

Responsibility 3: Coordinate the work on Programme Quality led by Programme Committee of the Board, Knowledge Management & MEAL Group
 Liaise with FRA work on Quality Framework + Key Performance Indicators and ensure alignment with FRA secretariat internal work on programme Quality Criteria;
 Support the Head of Programme and the Executive Director is setting up Knowledge Management & MEAL working group to test and implement quality FRA programmes;
 Represent FRA in CSO programme quality forums and take lead in completing programme quality related documents and tools that are either statutory for renewal of registration or compliance to international and national programme quality standards;
 Ensure regular informal feedback from beneficiaries and project stakeholders is collected, analysed, used and recorded.

Responsibility 4: Strengthen Knowledge management and learning
 Research and analyse technical information from a variety of sources for technical problems to support programme teams in achieving technical excellence in ongoing programs/projects;
 Contribute to the learning agenda by carrying studies, conducting literature reviews, mappings or information gathering from various internal and external sources on assigned topics. Coordinate maintenance of virtual resource and documentation databases on the FRA website;
 Ensure regular informal feedback from beneficiaries and project stakeholders is collected, analysed, used and recorded.
 Support documentation of project processes and learning right from programme development, baseline, implementation strategies and approaches, routine monitoring, structures

Responsibility 6: Working as a team member in FRA
 Establish and develop effective working relationship with entire FRA staff, Volunteers, Interns, Member organisation staff, Government staff to ensure team work and integration.
 Participating in team decision making process including but not limited to, planning and review meetings, staff meetings and events.
 Adhering to all FRA organisational policies.
 Undertaking any other activities assigned by the Executive Director.

PERSON SPECIFICATIONS
Education & Qualifications Required:
 Degree in statistics /economics or other relevant areas. Post-graduate qualification preferred
 Experience or related work in monitoring and evaluation in development sector
 Minimum of two to three years of relevant work experience with an international NGO
 Good knowledge of technical principles and concepts in MEAL
 Knowledge of program design requirements and regulations of major donors.
 Knowledge of project design and proposal development.
 Knowledge of latest technological tools that have the potential to be applied in MEAL
 Strong English writing skills.
 Proficient in MS Office packages (Excel, Word, PowerPoint), Web Conferencing Applications, knowledge-sharing networks.
 Proficiency with statistical packages such as SPSS or STAT a plus.

Personal Skills

 Good relationship management skills with ability to work collaboratively as part of a multidisciplinary and multicultural teams
 Strategic, analytical, problem-solving and systems thinking capacity and skills
 Good writing skills
 Strong data collection and research skills and ability to interpret and analyse data
 Proactive, resourceful and results-oriented

Competencies
1) Managing yourself – Integrity

2) Leadership
3) Communicating and working with others

4) Delivering Results
5) Planning and Decision making

6) Creativity and Innovation
7) Influence, Advocacy and Networking

8) Change management

Deadline for receiving applications is April 7th, 2021 at 5:00pm. Applications should be sent to fra@fra.ug under the subject Application for MEAL Officer

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