Monitoring Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL) Officer at Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA)

The Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, and Learning (MEAL) Officer manages information and reporting processes and products to ensure professional, high-quality communication about ADRA Kenya’s STRONGER programmatic activities and results. The MEAL Officer will also play an essential role in improving information management and data quality and strengthening knowledge sharing and learning at the community level and across the organization and with the international health and development communities. The MEAL Officer will assume responsibility for full-cycle monitoring and evaluation of the STRONGER project, developing appropriate methodologies and tools to design evaluations.

Specific Tasks

General M&E Tasks:

• Develop, implement, and continuously assess monitoring frameworks to track the progress and effectiveness of the STRONGER project.
• Develop the overall framework for project M&E systems in collaboration with the project manager and other senior project staff (from Country office and ADRA Canada), including M&E requirements, data collection, reporting, baseline, annual surveys and evaluations.
• Develop and monitor project management plan to systematically document performance across all project activities.
• Ensure the alignment of M&E activities with program goals
• Ensure adherence to specific monitoring and reporting requirements for GAC funded projects, including requirements related to Results-Based Monitoring and Evaluation framework, Global Affairs Canada’s (GAC) Feminist International Assistance Policy (FIAP) as well as other requirements under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
• Contribute to the development of the Program Implementation Plan (PIP), annual work plans (AWPs) and detailed implementation plans (DIPs) to identify project targets and ensure inclusion of M&E activities
• Develop and maintain user-friendly indicator tracking tools; as well as databases and other tracking tools as needed to demonstrate the effectiveness of project interventions ensuring timely data uploading by activity holders.
• Ensure that all data collection tools and instruments (surveys, interviews, focus groups) are designed to capture gender-age, and disability disaggregated data
• Develop and track gender-sensitive indicators to measure progress towards gender equality goals within the project.
• Analyse data for accuracy, flag validation or quality issues, and contribute to system fixes, management decision-making and reporting
• Ensure timely development and submission of reports including progress reports as well as monthly and quarterly indicator performance reports for tracking progress against key indicators as needed
• Conduct field visits for data validation and to monitor the quality and completeness of data sets; coordinate data collection at project sites to monitor program development and ensure timely compilation and reporting of data; capture and document lessons learned, and champion the scaling up best practices.
• Review and refine content and presentation of all reports and deliverables before submission to ensure superior quality, accuracy and professionalism.
• Analyse the impact of programs on different community groups (women, men, disabled,) and assess the effectiveness of interventions in addressing gender disparities.
• Promote the sharing of lessons learned related to gender equality, particularly regarding effective strategies for empowering women and other marginalized genders.
• Ensure timely submission of relevant MEAL documents as required by the donor

Other Tasks:

• Support in reviewing and refining the organizational level monitoring evaluation accountability and learning framework, including training project staff on M&E and community-led monitoring evaluation and learning approaches.
• Support the development, design, and writing of proposals and concept notes for related programming information management and reporting
• Perform other duties as deemed relevant to the assignment and advancement of the project objective by the supervisor

Desired Competencies and Minimum Qualifications

• Education University degree in Monitoring and Evaluation, Statistics, Demographics, Public Health, or International Development with additional training in Monitoring and Evaluation is preferred.
• Experience At least three (3) years’ experience in project implementation/management, with proven success in designing, implementing, and operating M&E systems from project initiation to close out.
• Extensive experience in strategic planning and performance management, including indicator selection, target setting, reporting, database management, and developing M&E and performance monitoring plans.
• Experience in planning and managing surveys, developing and refining data collection tools, and with data quality assessments and oversight.
• Demonstrated experience in participatory processes and in facilitating dialogue among and between communities, development partners, the private sector, civil society, and government on sensitive matters.
• Demonstrated ability to synthesize complex information and communicate it effectively to diverse audiences; experience in designing and implementing efficient workflows and procedures.
• A good understanding of the social-economic and environmental dynamics of the ASAL counties, of Kenya particularly, Turkana County