Senior Specialist, MEAL at International Rescue Committee

Job Overview:

The Senior Specialist, MEAL serves as an organization-wide specialist for performance indicators, program monitoring, and evaluation.  The position acts as a central counterpart to sector-specific Technical Unit (TU) MEAL Focal Persons and Regional METAL Teams, helping them to implement and learn from organizational/program indicator data and evaluations.

Major Responsibilities:

• Lead IRC’s annual statistics and global reach calculation process, which requires coordination across sectoral Technical Units, Country Programs, and Regional Measurement Advisors to collect, review, analyze, and present data on key organizational indicators.
• Maintain and routinely coordinate updates of IRC’s core indicator list, indicator selection tool, and supporting resources. Provide leadership on indicator standards and quality; work closely with Technical Units to ensure the indicators and definitions are relevant to IRC’s organizational priorities and aligned with global standards.
• Support the development, maintenance, and translation of standard organizational MEAL tools, capacity building resources, and learning platforms to improve data quality and use across the organization.
• Support strategic global and regional evaluations as needed; provide technical guidance and quality assurance on evaluation planning, design/methods, analysis, dissemination, and data use for decision-making.
• Lead trainings for sectoral Technical Units, Country Programs, and Regional staff on various MEAL topics.
• Leverage opportunities for learning between technical units, country programs, and other relevant units across the IRC. 

Key Working Relationships:

Position reports to: Global MEAL Practice Lead

Job Requirements:

Essential qualifications, skills and experience

• Advanced degree in relevant field such as economics, statistics, international development, public policy, or other social sciences.
• Minimum five years of experience designing, implementing, and supporting M&E frameworks and results, with extensive experience supporting field-based M&E design and reporting.
• Experience managing program performance indicator definitions, data collection, and reporting.
• Experience with the challenges of effective monitoring in the field, including cultural, gender, and access considerations with the aim of enhancing project learning, inclusivity, quality, and data-driven decision making.
• Proven ability to operate in a complex organization, across functions and projects, on own initiative and collaboratively as part of diverse teams, including project management experience.
• Excellent communication skills, including superior writing skills and the ability to plan for and prepare strategic communications and presentations.
• Strong computer skills: proficiency with MS Office and analytic tools such as MS PowerBI.
• Fluency in English.

Highly desirable

• Proficiency with MS PowerApps.
• Experience with direct program implementation in emergency and low resource contexts.
• Advanced training in quantitative data analysis and/or evaluation methodologies.
• Experience rolling out organizational initiatives, particularly related to monitoring and evaluation.
• Proficiency in French, Spanish, or Arabic.