MEAL Project Officer at Trócaire

The MEAL Project Officer will support in designing, developing and implementing effective M&E and accountability systems and processes to improve Trócaire’s programme quality in Turkana in line with donor requirements.

S/he will ensure that Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning within our programmes in Turkana are effectively supported and that increased accountability to beneficiaries, donors and other stakeholders is achieved in line with Trócaire and donor policies and practices. In particular, the MEAL Support officer’s performance will be judged against the ability to deliver on Trocaire’s Core Accountability Commitments.

The role is being advertised as a fixed term position up to end October 2020.

Reporting to the Turkana Programme Manager with a dotted line to the MEAL Manager based in Nairobi. The Turkana MEAL Project officer will also liaise with the Strategy and Impact Unit at HQ (Maynooth, Ireland).

Safeguarding Children Policy:The successful applicant will be expected to sign up to and adhere to Trócaire’s Safeguarding Policy.

Key Duties & ResponsibilitiesProject Support/Technical Assistance:

• Support Trócaire and partner staff in the planning, design and implementation of all MEAL activities throughout the project cycle; from baseline to endline.
• 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 beneficiaries (downward accountability), 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 and the MPM to support partner use of results based management (RBM) 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 and climate sensitive data.
• Train and support partners to use analysed data to inform programme quality control, to produce quality donor reports, to document lessons learned and programme impact and to inform future project development.
• Support partners to implement monitoring in a manner that is sensitive to the different needs, responsibilities and capabilities of vulnerable project participants and communities.
• 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 Climate change governance and Natural resource management.
• 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 which engage with issues of climate change governance and natural resource management.
• 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:

• 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 Climate change governance and Natural resource 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 which engage with issues of climate change governance and natural resource management.
• 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.

Qualification

• Graduate degree - preferably in a directly related field, such as Public policy, Monitoring and Evaluation, Research, project management etc.
• Significant work experience in a directly related field will be considered in lieu of a directly related graduate degree.
• Knowledge of the principles and current approaches to MEAL, using both quantitative and qualitative methods, in all stages of programme cycle management.
• Demonstrated MEAL field experience; skilled in collecting, synthesizing and analyzing data to meet both organisational and donor priorities.
• Experience developing SMART indicators and MEAL systems that would capture the impact of Trócaire’s work.
• Understanding of donor expectations and trends for MEAL; especially institutional donors like DFID, EU, USAID etc.
• Experience in producing timely, detailed, accurate and informative reports to meet organisational and donor requirements
• Experience of working closely and in participation with local communities in the development and implementation of MEAL systems
• Experience working on issues of Climate Change, and climate change governance, an understanding of devolution and county and national government systems and processes is desirable.

Two years of relevant professional MEAL experience.

(E) Experience

A good understanding of policy analysis and evaluation, critical thinking and ability to support evaluations, and development of reports and policy briefs

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