MEAL Officer

The MEAL Officer supports the effective monitoring, accountability and evaluation of DRC Syria's programme in Dar'a, ensuring achievement of MEAL standards and program quality. The role involves conducting monitoring visits, supporting data collection and analysis, tool design, and collecting M&E information from field sites for effective information management, accountability and reporting.

Responsibilities

• Work in accordance to the location-specific MEAL plan, coordinating with the MEAL Specialist as well as other area offices to ensure all activities are completed to the highest quality.
• Participate in the development of M&E tools and guidelines for data collection, collation and reporting (ensuring these are gender sensitive) and that they are translated correctly.
• Support the relevant programme team to carry out data collection in accordance with the M&E plan, including use of various monitoring and assessment tools, such as surveys, focus group discussions, interviews, and pre- and post- training questionnaires.
• Support the programme team, MEAL Manager, and MEAL Specialist on all field data collection exercises and data management, involving recruitment and training of data collectors, carrying out and supervising field data collection and data entry, gathering feedback from beneficiaries and community stakeholders on activity implementation, outcome and impact.
• Undertake periodic monitoring visits to project sites to assess progress against agreed MEAL system and indicators and monitor implementation quality and progress.
• Update programme indicator performance tracker on a monthly basis in collaboration with program team and assessment of appropriate MoVs.
• Ensure monitoring schedule, data collection targets, and reporting deadlines are adhered to.
• Draft and share with the MEAL Manager the daily/weekly/monthly work plan.
• Systematically check data for quality, accuracy and consistency, and providing feedback as necessary.
• Provide area-specific analysis on findings with support from the MEAL Specialist, and communicate back to programs teams in the areas.
• Report/alert to project team on regular basis on any anticipated project issues, risks and any emerging opportunities and threats to the project implementation, related to this role.
• Co-ordinate with the MEAL Officer in Dar’a, for holistic analysis of MEAL activities in the South Area.
• Provide ad-hoc support to partners for specific tasks based on guidance from the MEAL Manager and MEAL Specialist.
• Support in the roll out of CHS accountability findings/recommendations and share regularly in an appropriate format.
• Support collection of beneficiary data through DRC FCRM mechanism, and ensure that feedback is channeled to programme teams and that follow up to beneficiaries is tracked, ensuring adherence to agreed standards.
• Uphold the professional standards related to the provision of humanitarian assistance, as well as DRC's Code of Conduct, and ensure their compliance within project activities.
• Support in the roll out of trainings of accountability standards such as CHS, SPHERE, PSEA, DRC Code of Conduct etc.
• Support the MEAL Manager in developing materials for accountability, Code of Conduct etc.
• Carry out training to identified focal points across all teams on DRC Code of Conduct to beneficiaries, volunteers, &/or service providers.
• Share relevant MEAL findings with programme team in an appropriate format and follow-up their implementation.
• Assist the programme team in documenting lessons learnt and provide support to internal/external reviews, evaluations, and lessons learned exercises.
• Collect best practices and case studies which demonstrate qualitative and quantitative changes over the period.
• Support monitoring reviews and learning events.
• Draft monitoring reports recording results of monitoring activities (progress and quality).
• Participate in analysis of quantitative and qualitative data.
• Support the MEAL Manager in presenting the results of the analysis, and share the findings in an appropriate format.
• Contribute requested inputs towards monthly or quarterly donor reports as necessary.
• Work closely with the grants, program, and information management team to ensure that data collected can be verified, analysed and reported accurately and in a timely manner.
• Complete all necessary operations support tasks (relating to role), including related to administration, finances and logistics, in compliance with internal directive and policies as communicated by the MEAL Manager and/or the relevant DRC support departments.
• Work closely with enumerators on service contract and provide support as appropriate.
• Proactively participate in programme coordination meetings.
• Work closely with the programme teams to implement MEAL and reporting; facilitating peer-to-peer learning.
• Ensure all MEAL-related data and files are properly organized and stored in the available archival system.
• Assist with other duties as required by the MEAL Manager.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree preferred in a related field of social science, such as anthropology, humanitarian, or development studies.
• At least 2-3 years of experience related to humanitarian assistance, international development, M&E, or social science research.
• Demonstrable experience in project/program planning, implementation, reporting, monitoring and evaluation.
• Demonstrable experience in producing analytical information products from primary and secondary data sources.
• Sufficient knowledge and understanding with humanitarian principles, especially Core Humanitarian Standards and Do No Harm Framework.
• Demonstrable experience in training and facilitation skills.
• Strong analytical skills, especially in Microsoft Office Suite (good Word and Excel skills essential).
• Excellent interpersonal and problem-solving skills, creativity and flexibility.
• Self-motivated and organized with a demonstrated capacity to manage time and personal work plan.
• Works well in and promotes teamwork, comfortable in a multi-cultural environment, flexible and able to handle pressure well.
• Demonstrated ability to handle sensitive issues with discretion and confidentiality along with attention to detail.
• Fluent in written and spoken English and Arabic.
• Willingness to travel and visit field.
• Potential and flexibility of attitude to learn.
• Experience using survey and/or database software and tools - statistical package such as SPSS, Stata, or PSPP preferred.

Skills

• Monitoring and Evaluation
• Project Planning
• Program Implementation
• Data Analysis
• Report Writing
• Humanitarian Principles
• Core Humanitarian Standards
• Do No Harm Principle
• Training Facilitation
• MS Word
• MS Excel
• Survey Software
• Database Software
• SPSS
• STATA
• PSPP
• Information Management
• Accountability Reporting
• Time Management
• Confidential Information Handling

Languages

English, Arabic