Iraq: MEL Manager for WASH and Cash Portfolio

Feb 11, 2019 | Mercy Corps
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Mercy Corps is a leading global organization powered by the belief that a better world is possible.

In disaster, in hardship, in more than 40 countries around the world, we partner to put bold solutions

into action — helping people triumph over adversity and build stronger communities from within.

Now, and for the future.

Program/ Department Summary

Mercy Corps works in places of transition, where conflict, disaster, political upheaval, or economic collapse present opportunities to build more secure, productive, and just communities. Providing emergency relief in times of crisis, we move quickly to help communities recover and build resilience to future shocks, and promote sustainable change by supporting community-led and market-driven initiatives. Recognizing both the great potential and the complex challenges faced by the Middle East, since 1989 Mercy Corps has been implementing a range of humanitarian assistance and development programs tailored to the specific needs of the region and of those communities where we work.

Mercy Corps has been working across Iraq's 18 governorates since 2003, implementing relief and development programming, more than a third of which has focused on the specific needs of refugees and displaced persons. Mercy Corps Iraq current goal is to work with new and existing civil society, public and private sector partners to meet immediate and long-term needs by strengthening communities' ability to rebuild amidst increasing crisis. Mercy Corps Iraq focuses on (1) a relief-to-resilience pathway to meet the needs of conflict-affected communities leveraging agency expertise in conflict management and civil society development (2) a humanitarian response that empowers conflict-affected populations to meet their own needs (3) partnering with conflict-affected adolescents to address their diverse needs, promoting leadership and linkages with civil society.

General Position Summary

Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Manager WASH and Cash is an important position in the Mercy Corps Iraq Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) team, which provides technical leadership to advance Mercy Corps' principles, policies and best practices in monitoring, evaluation and learning, through the provision of guidance, tools, resources, capacity building and technology. Successful candidate is responsible for contributing to strategy discussions on MEL, providing technical assistance on M&E for each programmatic sector within the humanitarian portfolio and developing successful mechanisms for learning across all humanitarian programs.

S/he will be responsible for cross-cutting programmatic information management, monitoring and evaluation, ensuring that information collected is reflected upon, used to improve ongoing programs, and is incorporated into consistently high quality reports and proposal development. The MEL Manager will ensure that MEL systems are in place, robust and effectively used in coordination with the Heads of Sectors and PAQ Director. In coordination with sector managers, program managers and other team members, s/he will be responsible for developing, coordinating, maintaining and constantly improving the MEL systems in Multi-purpose cash assistance, NFI and WASH interventions as well as implementing an internal M&E and ICT capacity building strategy that trains and mentors M&E staff and promotes a culture of learning.

ESSENTIAL JOB FUNCTIONS

STRATEGY & VISION

  • Work with Iraq technical team and supervisor to formalize a strategy and workplan for MEL Cash and WASH around coordination and communication with program teams.
  • Work with the program and MEL teams from other sectors to contribute to a holistic country-level MEL system to accurately collect, monitor and verify program activities and ensure they are aligned with the country strategic and annual plan

TECHNICAL LEADERSHIP

  • Contribute to program design to ensure adherence to Mercy Corps' Program Management at Mercy Corps (PM@MC) standards, including reviewing lessons learned from past programming, development of logical frameworks, use of standardized indicators and documentation methodologies.
  • Provide leadership and training in the development of M&E Plans, M&E tools, survey design, methodology, data analysis, and other services as may be required for program monitoring and evaluation.
  • Ensure programs use the necessary M&E systems and tools to inform and improve each individual program, as well as feed into a broader data management system.
  • Provide guidance, recommendations, supervision, and leadership to ensure that the relevant MEL systems meet the needs of real time decision making.
  • Address shortfalls in monitoring, evaluation and information management systems that affect program implementation. Provides guidance on data digitalization
  • Provide technical support to MEL staff on design of specific data collection tools (such as surveys, questionnaires) and appropriate sampling strategies as needed by the programs
  • Take the lead in aligning, collecting and reporting on relevant indicators to the organizational-wide MEL systems, and other external systems, as relevant

MANAGEMENT OF DATA AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS

  • Works with the program and M&E teams to adopt M&E systems to the needs of WASH and cash activities and to more accurately collect, monitor and verify program activities, ensure they are aligned with effective indicator reporting.
  • Provides guidance, recommendations, and leadership to ensure that the M&E systems meet the needs of Programs Managers and help address shortfalls in M&E and data management that affect program implementation.
  • Review project/program reports to ensure that reports contain accurate, clear, and high-quality data.
  • Refine program and operational reporting templates to facilitate the acquisition, aggregation and flow of information in programs.

TEAM MANAGEMENT

  • Recruit, manage the MEL team across all target areas; organize the teams to perform M&E activities.
  • Build the capacity of all relevant team members to develop and maintain an excellent M&E system, including the periodic reflection and analysis of program monitoring data
  • Develop and oversees implementation of the MEL staff performance appraisal process and ensure a work environment that promotes a culture of learning through systematic analysis and reflection of work and feedback to the team
  • Promote accountability, communicate expectations and provide constructive feedback via regular performance reviews. Supervise, hire and orient new team members as necessary.
  • Create and sustain a work environment of mutual respect where team members strive to achieve excellence.
  • Develop/adopt training materials and conduct training programs to relevant staff of field offices.

PROGRAM QUALITY

  • Harmonize and give guidance on methodologies/tools: including needs assessments, indicators definitions, reporting on indicators, beneficiary counting and tracking, research approaches and evaluations.
  • Support the collaboration between MEL and program teams to capture the progress and impact of MC activities and overall program footprint.
  • Support programme processes, particularly on logic of intervention (country program logical frameworks and MEAL plans), and contribute to Ensure compliance with PM@MC and Design for Impact (DIG) requirements, applying MC's internal Program Management standard procedures.
  • Update and manage indicators to ensure the program level database is up to date.
  • Support program teams to ensure indicators are linked to appropriate evidence within the cloud-based system.
  • Contribute to the knowledge management repository with best practices in MEL and ensure that it is accessible to all staff and partners.
  • Act as lead on the establishment of an improved beneficiary database system (including needs assessment, engaging appropriate technical support, and supporting roll-out across the programme)

INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL COORDINATION

  • Strengthen linkages with other internal resources, including the Digital Library, Hub, Connect, Workspace to enhance organizational learning where relevant to Program Performance.
  • Participate in M&E-related working groups and maintain close working relationships with MEL counterparts in other relevant international NGOs, and local NGOs and associations in Iraq.

SECURITY

  • Ensure compliance with security procedures and policies as determined by country leadership.
  • Proactively ensure that team members operate in a secure environment and are aware of policies.

ACCOUNTABILITY TO BENEFICIARIES

Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts towards accountability, specifically to our beneficiaries and to international standards guiding international relief and development work, while actively engaging beneficiary communities as equal partners in the design, monitoring and evaluation of our field projects.

ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING

As part of our commitment to organizational learning and in support of our understanding that learning organizations are more effective, efficient and relevant to the communities they serve - we expect all team members to commit 5% of their time to learning activities that benefit Mercy Corps as well as themselves.

Knowledge and Experience

  • BA/S or equivalent in International Development or a related field required; coursework in research and evaluation methodologies and statistical analysis is preferred.
  • 4 years of active M&E work experience in humanitarian programming required, understanding of complex programs required; ideal candidate will have both theoretical and practical background in M&E and skilled in qualitative and quantitative M&E methodologies and techniques including rapid appraisal techniques and remote monitoring of projects in environments with limited to no access.
  • Experience managing a team and remote management experience beneficial.
  • Previous experience living and working in challenging or insecure environments.
  • Demonstrated experience with designing projects and indicators as part of successful project start up and ensuring they are kept relevant throughout the project lifecycle.
  • Experience with data management including the ability to structure and collate data sets for ease of analysis.
  • Ability to managing quantitative data while not losing sight of the bigger picture and meaning
  • Proven ability to work productively with a variety of stakeholders to run participatory processes and meet tight deadlines with an emphasis on producing quality products.
  • Experience with a range of institutional donors such as ECHO, GAC, GIZ, USAID/OFDA, BPRM and DFID.
  • Excellent computer skills, including experience with: Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher, SPSS, Access, SQL, and any other statistical packages.
  • Experience developing and using mobile-based monitoring systems and dashboards or willingness to learn.
  • Commitment to local capacity building and the ability to engage local stakeholders in the project implementation and monitoring.
  • Fluency in spoken and written English is required.
  • Arabic or Kurdish skills are beneficial.