Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL) Officer at Trocaire

Description

Trócaire has been working in Kenya for over 30 years and established an office in Nairobi in 1994. Working with over twelve local partner organisations, Trócaire takes a rights based approach while focusing on Equitable Access to and use of Resources, Women’s Empowerment and the Protection of Human Dignity in Humanitarian Crisis. (Organisational Strategic Plan-CSP: 2016-20). The Trócaire Kenya country programme is built on a model that integrates a change process from micro to meso to macro levels through working with strong local partners, a commitment to capacity building, clear advocacy priorities, high levels of financial oversight and integrated programme design to bring about social change.

The MEAL Officer will support the Kenya office in ensuring that monitoring, evaluation, accountability, learning within our programmes is effectively supported, and that increased accountability to project participants, donors and other stakeholders. In particular, the MEAL Officer’s performance will be judged against the ability to deliver on Trocaire’s Core Accountability Commitments.

Reporting to the Director of Programmes and the role holder will work closely with the Programme Managers for Resilience, Advocacy and Women’s Empowerment programmes.

Key Duties & Responsibilities

Project Support/Technical Assistance:

• Support Trócaire and partner staff in the planning, design and implementation of all MEAL activities throughout the project cycle,
• Provide hands-on technical assistance in the planning, design and implementation of MEAL systems and tools and in supporting evaluation and learning processes.
• Support accountability to project participants, ensuring that their involvement at every stage of the project cycle is the critical lens though which any MEAL framework is designed.
• Support capacity development of partner staff in MEAL skills, including mentoring as necessary.
• Work with project staff to support partner use of results based management and engagement with programme learning and review processes.
• Through training and coaching support partner staff to develop skills and competences to gather, manage and analyse quality gender-sensitive data
• Train partners on using analysed data to inform programme quality control, produce quality donor reports and document lessons learned and programme
• Support partners to implement monitoring in a manner that is sensitive to the different needs, responsibilities and capabilities of vulnerable female and male programme participants.
• Develop good working relations with partner organizations and communities.
• Exchange information and experience and contribute actively to an MEAL learning community within Trócaire and among partner organizations.
• Assist in the establishment and maintenance of mechanisms for capturing, analyzing, reporting, sharing and applying MEAL findings, information, lessons learned, and best practices among Trócaire, its donors and partner staff.
• Sharing of partner MEAL tools and training resources developed, particularly those engaging with Women’s Empowerment
• Ensure that gender and vulnerability issues are addressed in all aspects of MEAL work, in relation to partners and in working with colleagues in Trócaire. In particular, champion monitoring and learning approaches that engage with issues of Gender, Vulnerability and Women’s Empowerment.
• Support the programme team in strategic targeting of beneficiaries in project design.
• Any other reasonable duty as may be assigned by the line manager that is consistent with the nature of the job and its level of responsibility.
• Communication/Information Management:

Other Tasks

• Ensure that gender and vulnerability issues are addressed in all aspects of MEAL work, in relation to partners and in working with colleagues in Trócaire. In particular, champion monitoring and learning approaches that engage with issues of Gender, Vulnerability and Women’s Empowerment.
• Support the programme team in strategic targeting of beneficiaries in project design.

Any other reasonable duty as may be assigned by the line manager that is consistent with the nature of the job and its level of responsibility.

Requirements

Person Specification – Essential Requirements

Qualification

Undergraduate degree – preferably in a directly related field, e.g. development studies, project management, operational research, statistics etc.

• At least 2 years’ experience working in the development sector, with specific MEAL experience.

Experience

• Knowledge of the principles and current approaches to MEAL, using both quantitative and qualitative methods, in all stages of programme cycle management.
• Experience of designing and use of digital data collection systems is an advantage
• Demonstrated understanding and ability to work with local partner organizations.
• Strong analytical skills
• Ability to work both independently and in a team.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills in English
• Good understanding of institutional donor contract management
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, both written and oral

Skills

• Technical skills to implement MEAL in a gender-sensitive manner, including tool design, sampling, data collection, analysis, and report writing.
• Participatory rural appraisal, policy analysis and evaluation, stakeholder mapping, political economy analysis and policy communication through policy briefs and impact reports.
• Ability to develop indicators, tools and processes for monitoring climate change governance, and linking outcomes to impact are particularly desirable.
• Demonstrated ability to transfer knowledge to diverse audiences through training, mentoring, and other formal and non-formal methods
• Computer Skills: High level of proficiency in Excel, PowerPoint. Good knowledge of IT systems such as cloud platforms, apps, Excel, databases.
• Ability to synthesize large amounts of data into different formats (e.g., reports, short summaries, presentations).
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, both written and oral
• Ability to manage heavy workloads, to multitask and to meet deadlines

Qualities

• A sensitive and patient approach to advising and mentoring of partners
• Dynamic and willing to take initiative
• A team player but also willing and able to work with minimal supervision
• Capacity to be flexible and adaptable to changing contexts and priorities
• Empathy with and commitment to the principles of Catholic social teaching

Other

• Experience of working with marginalised rural and urban communities.
• Thorough knowledge of English and Kiswahili

Benefits

For the candidate with the required experience and passion for the role, Trócaire offers a competitive package of salary and benefits.