Job Description

Part (1): Job Specification

• Job Title: MEARL Manager
• Status: Full time
• Duty station: Sana’a, Yemen
• Duration: 1 year
• No. of staff required: 1

An Overview about ADO

Abs Development Organization for Women and Child (ADO) is a well-established national, humanitarian, developmental, non-profit, and non-governmental organization, founded in August 1996 by a group of Yemeni girls to provide a better life for women, children, and youths. ADO has been operating in Yemen for more than 27 years, with an outstanding coverage of deprived rural areas located on the coast of Tehama and various other areas in Yemen, aiming to eradicate poverty and infectious diseases. Since its inception, ADO has implemented over 213 developmental and humanitarian projects. By the end of 2021, a total of 6,695,412 people had benefited from these interventions. Consequently, the organization has established itself as one of the most effective civil society organizations in Yemen, working on livelihood, health, education, and WASH, supporting women, children, and youth. Operating from its Headquarters office in Sana’a, and through its branch offices in Al Hodeida, Hajjah, Abs, Raymah, Taiz, and Aden, ADO provides educational, health, livelihood, and WASH services to urban and rural communities. ADO believes that women are the essence of life and has dedicated all its activities and programs to empower and educate women to lead to a modern and just state. ADO also believes that protecting and caring for children will result in a prosperous future, free from crime and terrorism. Furthermore, ADO believes that youth are the potential and driving force of any modern civil society.

Job Objectives/Scope

The purpose of this position is to manage, strengthen, and provide strategic direction to the ADO Program’s Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, and Learning (MEAL) Policies and Procedures, ensuring cross-learning among projects, creating systems for accountability to beneficiaries, donors, and other stakeholders, and to build the capacity of MEAL staff. The MEAL Manager will supervise MEAL activities, particularly during times of emergency, and assessments required for proposal development. Under the supervision of the Quality, Development & Research Manager, the MEAL Manager will work closely with ADO program teams and partner staff to develop high-quality monitoring systems and tools that address indicators set out in project proposals. He/she will ensure that learning from projects is systematically captured and used throughout ADO programs. He/she will also take learning needs into account, develop and conduct capacity building for MEAL and program staff, with support from the Programs Manager and the Quality, Development & Research Manager. The MEAL Manager is expected to have a high level of self-initiative and use critical thinking skills to identify and fill gaps in MEAL. The MEAL Manager will also work closely with the Quality, Development & Research Manager and Programs Manager to ensure that ADO's programs comply with the agency’s regional and global MEAL systems, standards, and good practices. The MEAL Manager should have the ability to work sensitively and positively with programming teams and promote a learning environment – success of the post relies on this.

• Reports to: Quality, Development & Research Manager
• Supervisor on: MEAL officers, accountability officer, Research officer

Duties & Responsibilities

Under the supervision of the Quality, Development & Research Manager, and in cooperation with project managers and MEAL staff in the operational bases of its responsibility, the MEAL manager:

• Strategy: Develop and roll out the mission MEAL strategy at the base level.
• Training and technical support: Provide training and technical support to all program teams on technical questions linked to MEAL and cross-cutting issues.
• Monitoring and evaluation: Support operational teams in monitoring and evaluation of ADO programs.
• Accountability: Roll-out accountability activities at base level.
• Knowledge building: Contribute to lessons learned and institutional knowledge building.
• Resources Management: Manage the MEAL team in Sana’a and all sub-offices, focusing on capacity building of the MEAL teams in all bases.
• Representation and reporting: Support the bases in reporting, communication, and representation in his/her field of expertise.

Note: The responsibility for some assessments, monitoring, and evaluation of program activities will remain the primary responsibility of the program teams. The MEAL manager, in link with the Quality, Development & Research Manager, will ensure the proper tools are developed and are made available to the field teams.

Specific Objectives and Linked Activities

• Develop and roll out the mission MEAL strategy:

  • Participate in developing a sector-based strategy (M&E, accountability, gender, do no harm) in accordance with ADO's strategy and in link with ADO's MEAL framework.
  • Participate in programming work at the base level.

• Training and technical support:

  • Develop MEAL teams’ capacities in the department’s field of expertise: data collection and analysis (method, format, software etc.), measure of indicators, feedback and response mechanism, do no harm analysis etc.
  • Deploy ADO’s MEAL Framework trainings and develop tailored training modules in link with the Quality, Development & Research Manager.
  • Provide program teams with technical and methodological support for M&E activities, data management (questionnaire design, sampling, data entry, extraction of useful data and interpretation), and integration of cross-cutting issues.
  • Support program teams in creating or adapting tools for PMT, indicators monitoring, impact monitoring (MEAL plan and survey tools) or risk analysis.

• Monitoring and evaluation of ADO's programs:

  • Contribute to the elaboration, review, and harmonization of M&E tools, data management, especially in the PMTs (indicators table) and the MEAL Plans.
  • Create/revise the tools needed to implement program-based evaluation monitoring (database, survey form ...) and ensure that the monitoring tools developed work and are correctly used by the teams.
  • Define/improve/monitor and ensure the quality of information and data collected in the field and participate in data quality assessment.
  • Design baseline and baseline studies to collect information on performance indicators and project results.
  • Check relevance of reports, analysis, maps, and recommendations produced.
  • Propose adjustments, new activities to improve the quality of the operations or approaches, in consultation with PMs and program/technical coordinators.
  • Upon ad hoc request from the program/technical coordinator, perform advanced analysis.
  • Contribute to terms of references for external evaluations and studies.
  • Accompany teams in drafting project proposals and reports for donors. Be proactive in identifying innovative indicators and collection methods.

• Accountability:

  • Support the design and roll-out of complaint feedback and response mechanisms.
  • Ensure the key principles of the feedback mechanism are respected.
  • Produce regular analysis of the complaints and feedbacks received.
  • Ensure a participatory approach is initiated with local actors and partners in the implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of projects.
  • Design and improve accountability mechanisms in collaboration with program teams.

• Lessons learnt and institutional knowledge building:

  • Build on institutional knowledge on M&E activities and missions’ results (lessons learned and recommendations) and make sure these are known by PMs and other team members.
  • Support recommendation tracking process and work on action plans.
  • Use ADO's tools to document MEAL tools and methodologies/approaches.
  • Ensure learning activities are included in project activities.
  • Ensure implementation of the recommendation tracking process at the base level and work together with PMs on action plans.
  • Contribute to the preparation of kick-off and learning meetings per project and ensure capitalization of its content.

• HR management/capacity development:

  • Brief new staff on MEAL’s roles and responsibilities.
  • Participate in the evaluation and assessment of the performance of collaborators under his/her supervision.
  • Identify training needs.
  • Supervise and support MEAL teams in implementing their action plan and achievement of their objectives.

• Reporting / communication / representation:

  • Participate in writing project proposals and reports’ paragraphs on crosscutting issues and MEAL.
  • Ensure the right reporting formats are used and delays are respected.
  • Represent ADO when asked and/or delegated to do so.
  • Develop articles, case studies, and success stories in collaboration with programs.
  • Perform any other duty as and when called upon by the line manager or in the absence of a technical supervisor.

Required Personal Characteristics

• Ability to work independently, take initiative, and responsibility proactively.
• Self-motivated, flexible, and adaptable to the needs of the team and organization.
• Strong commitment to humanitarian principles.
• Good communicator.
• Highly gender-sensitive.
• Resilience to stress.
• Diplomacy and open-mindedness.
• Good analytical skills.
• Organization and ability to manage and follow up on priorities.
• Ability to manage a varied workload.
• Ability to guarantee effective and timely outputs.
• Problem-solving and leadership skills.
• Ability to work and manage the team professionally and maturely.

Part (2) Person Specification for this Job

Required Qualifications and Experience:

• A Bachelor’s degree or higher in relevant field (Development or Social Studies).
• At least 5 years (at least 4 years for Master’s degree holders) field experience in a relief or development environment.
• Demonstrated experience in program design monitoring and evaluation or management, having served at such a position before for at least one year.
• Must be conversant with both qualitative and quantitative data collection methods and analysis.
• Previous experience with major donor proposal M&E requirements.
• Capacity building experience in project monitoring, reporting, and evaluation.
• Experience in implementing Information and Communication Technology for Development and Emergency activities.
• Computer knowledge including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint (additional experience with Access or SPSS is preferred).
• Strong skills in written and spoken English; Knowledge of the local language is preferred.
• Required Travel: Willingness to travel 50% of the time to remote areas of the country.

Gender: Male\ Female

Start Date: 01-04-2024