The International Rescue Committee (IRC) responds to the world’s worst humanitarian crises, helping to restore health, safety, education, economic wellbeing, and power to people devastated by conflict and disaster. Founded in 1933 at the call of Albert Einstein, the IRC is one of the world’s largest international humanitarian non-governmental organizations (INGO), at work in more than 40 countries and 29 U.S. cities helping people to survive, reclaim control of their future and strengthen their communities. A force for humanity, IRC employees deliver lasting impact by restoring safety, dignity and hope to millions. If you’re a solutions-driven, passionate change-maker, come join us in positively impacting the lives of millions of people world-wide for a better future.
At PlayMatters, we seek a better, more hopeful future for 800,000 refugee and host community children ages 3-12+ living in Ethiopia, Tanzania and Uganda. We believe that if we provide these children with more opportunities to build their holistic skills and psychosocial well-being, then girls and boys can become agents of positive change and build a better, more hopeful future for themselves and the planet. We build teachers’ skills and motivations to integrate active, play-based, learner-centered methods into their classrooms, across subjects, in alignment with existing curricula, at pre-primary and primary levels, with children aged 3-12+. We facilitate inclusive learning spaces and improved access to teaching and learning materials that support our vision of active learning, including for children outside of the formal education system. To accomplish this, we strengthen and support existing education systems, curricula, teacher professional development models, and community structures to promote and incentivize the use of active and inclusive teaching and learning methods. Working through partners and education stakeholders, we identify, test, and promote innovative strategies that help educators overcome barriers to these changes.
Position Summary
The IRC is seeking a Regional Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, and Learning (MEAL) Coordinator who will work closely with the PlayMatters Project Director and technical staff to ensure that meaningful evidence is produced, data is collected, analyzed, and used to inform management, design and implementation decisions, and to provide project updates, as the need arises. A key role of the MEAL Coordinator is to support consortium staff to collect, use, and analyze data to track project progress and inform meaningful course correction and program decision discussions; and to also ensure senior management staff have data that is tailored to their decision making processes.
General Responsibilities:
• Provide oversight and management of MEAL activities.
• Support development and implementation of annual workplans, budgets, and deliverables. Identify and agree on course corrections with the Deputy Director, Technical, and partner technical experts to keep priorities on track.
• Develop and run a monitoring and evaluation system across all project components and partners that demonstrates qualitative and quantitative methods and draws from a variety of data sources to measure progress and evaluate impact, as well as support collaboration, learning, and adaptation.
o quantifying and measuring project progress over Outputs, Outcomes and Key Performance Indicators
o enhance and maintain an electronic, cloud-based database to be used by project M&E staff including the corresponding monitoring and measurement tools in line with IRC Monitoring standards.
o data collection, analysis, reporting and sharing through organization data platform.
o regular reviews of project data and progress to assist senior management to make evidence-based decisions and easy course correction.
• More specifically, support the project on:
o Routine monitoring of project activities, conduct data audits as needed;
o Utilize digital data collection where feasible
o Data storage and secure accessibility of data by project staff across partners and countries
• Regularly review data collection processes, perform data quality assessments, and adjust as needed.
• Conduct regular visits to project sites, as possible, to provide technical assistance and ensure accurate monitoring of project activities;
• Assure that learning activities provide timely, relevant information for policy-influencing opportunities (governmental or humanitarian) or programming decisions.
• Support regional team activities to assure that data from monitoring activities are used to adjust and adapt programming over time.
• Leverage existing IRC staff and partner expertise or build capacity as needed to assure front-line staff participation in the interpretation and application of results, as well as design of learning agendas and plans.
• Provide technical and management support to enable field staff to implement protocols and plans safely, ethically, and rigorously.
Capacity building:
• Contribute to capacity building of project staff and partner organizations to design and utilize MEAL tools, surveys, evaluations, and other MEAL activities
Project Management and compliance:
• Work with the country field teams to ensure that project indicators are properly tracked through regular field visits;
• Review all reports to ensure that data provided is complete, consistent, accurate and timely, and that target indicators are met and explanations provided where indicators are not met;
• Produce quarterly, semi-annual and annual reports for the Project Director and the donor, as needed and timely.
• Together with the Policy and Advocacy, Communications Specialist, support with summarizing key MEAL findings that can be used to improve project implementation and advocacy
Requirements:
• Advanced degree (PhD or MA) from an accredited university in M&E, statistics, education, international development, or related field;
• Minimum of five years of experience in M&E for similar Education programming, experience with projects designed to build systemic change in educational policy and practice for refugees and displaced populations preferred;
• Significant previous experience carrying out M&E activities in conflict or crisis situations;
• Experience working in East Africa and/or Ethiopia and Uganda on Education programming;
• Strong negotiation skills and the ability to develop relations with local counterparts, donors, and other partners;
• Strong communication skills, both oral and written;
• Proficiency in English required.
Key Working Relationships:
• Position Reports to: Project Director, PlayMatters
• Position supervises: Senior Data and Information Manager
• Other Internal and/or external contacts:
Internal: IRC country program M&E staff; Regional staff such as Outcome leads, Policy & Advocacy, Communications Specialist; research and learning coordinator
External: IRC Research & Innovations leadership, War Child Holland; Innovations for Poverty Action; Behavioral Insights Team; host government officials; other consortium partner organizations; community representatives.
Working Environment:
• Standard office work environment
• Travel required 25-40%
• Position is based in the IRC Regional PlayMatters office in Kampala, Uganda
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**Standard of Professional Conduct:**The IRC and the IRC workers must adhere to the values and principles outlined in the IRC Way – our Code of Conduct. These are Integrity, Service, Accountability, and Equality.
More Information
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