MEAL Officer

Job Location:
Nationality: Afghan
Category: Monitoring and Evaluation
Employment Type: Full Time
Salary: According to Acted’s Salary Scale
Vacancy Number: KBL_046
No. Of Jobs: 1
City: Herat
Organization: Acted
Years of Experience: Minimum of 2 years’ experience in relevant field
Contract Duration: 6 Months (Extendable)
Gender: Male
Education: Bachelor’s degree in social science preferred
Close date: 2024-08-10
About Acted:
Created in 1993, Acted is an international non-governmental organization pursuing a dual mandate of emergency response and development interventions in 40 of some of the world’s most vulnerable countries affected by conflicts, disasters, or socio-economic hardship. With a team of 7,000 national staff and 400 international staff, Acted implements 500 projects a year to support more than 20 million beneficiaries, notably in hard-to-reach areas.
Acted goes to the last mile through programs and approaches that look beyond the immediate emergency towards opportunities for longer-term livelihood reconstruction and sustainable development. Guided by the motto “Think Local, Act Global” and its 3Zero -Zero Exclusion, Zero Carbon, and Zero Poverty – strategy, Acted puts local territories at the center and provides tailored support to local needs.
Acted Afghanistan:
Acted is working in 20 provinces in Afghanistan around the country. These provinces are affected by natural and man-made disasters. Acted provides relief and emergency assistance to vulnerable populations affected by displacements, conflicts, or natural disasters, in the fields of agriculture, shelter, wash, and food security.
Job Description:
Job purpose:
The MEAL Officer is responsible for the development and implementation of appropriate and viable monitoring, evaluation, accountability, and Learning systems that are in line with the Acted’s global MEAL procedures, and contributing to ensuring that Acted’s projects and programs perform as planned.
Duties & Responsibilities:
Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning Systems:
Technical and Systems Development:

Contribute to the development and updating of the country MEAL strategy, the consolidated MEAL work plan and MEAL frameworks for all ongoing projects.

Ensure that MEAL findings are reflected, and their recommendations are incorporated in future concept notes, proposals and implementation plans.

Implement the MEAL policies and procedures as described in the Acted MEAL standard guidelines and make sure that the tools are followed as applicable.

Contribute to an effective roll-out of M&E collection and reporting systems to all staff and partners through training, site visits, manuals, and other technical support as needed.

MEAL Implementation and Management:

Develop the ToRs and mission plans and carry out assessments, monitoring, and evaluations (baselines, mid-terms, endlines) as reflected in the ToR and mission plan.

Develop and oversee the implementation of appropriate data collection and analysis instruments, methodologies (e.g. survey questionnaires, focus group discussions, key-informant interviews) and data/information dissemination/utilization plans.

Closely supervise data collection activities and ensure that data collection teams are organized and resourced as needed, and that they deliver as per field mission plans and according to data quality standards.

Maintain electronic and/or paper-based MIS systems for tracking and reporting all quantitative data and information including reporting on Acted’s 16 global strategic program indicators.

Analyze MEAL data and produce reports, factsheets with useful statistical analysis and presentation (charts, tables, histograms, box plots) as necessary in a timely manner.

Measure and report on qualitative and quantitative input, process, output, outcome, impact, objective, and goal-level performance indicators for all projects.

Provide data to the Project Development Team for use in preparation of reports to donors and other stakeholders, as required.

Contribute to donor proposals and fundraising efforts (particularly logical-framework designs, formulation of SMART indicators and MEAL budgets) and reports.

Provide MEAL related capacity building and awareness to implementing partners and other institutions supported by Acted as appropriate.

Represent Acted in different forums on MEAL related issues when required.

Learning:

Contribute to proactive dissemination and use of knowledge gained through MEAL activities among Project Managers, Technical Coordinators and Project Development Manager/Officers.

Contribute to organizing and facilitating learning events to capture best practices and lessons learnt when a project closes or as required.

Document and share the lessons learnt and best practices on time and ensure that the knowledge gained contributes to the improvement of projects and influences the strategic development of future projects and activities.

Support project implementation and improvement by providing timely information around project successes to be scaled up as well as challenges to allow ‘course correction’ throughout life of the program.

Acted Feedback Mechanism:
Contribution to the Beneficiary AFM:

Support the Accountability unit with the Acted Feedback Mechanism (AFM) for the country mission in line with Acted standard AFM procedures.

Support the effective functioning of the AFM and that beneficiary complaints/feedback is adequately captured, analyzed, addressed, and responded to in a timely manner and utilized by the program and coordination teams.

Build capacity and understanding among Acted staff, partners and contractors on beneficiary accountability and AFM.

MEAL Team Management (if applicable):

Ensure that staff under direct responsibility understand and can perform their roles and responsibilities.

Manage MEAL Assistants, Monitors and Enumerators delineating their responsibilities and follow-up the work plans and day-to-day activities.

Ensure a positive working environment and good team dynamics.

Manage interpersonal conflicts among team members.

Undertake regular appraisals of relevant staff.

Identify the MEAL training needs of team members and discuss plans with the MEAL Manager for both internal and external training.

Coach, train, and mentor MEAL Assistants, Monitors and Enumerators with the aim of strengthening their technical capacity, exchanging knowledge within the AME team.

Other:

Provide regular and timely updates on progress and challenges to supervisors and other team members.

Participate in MEAL-related conferences and workshops when possible and stay up to date of best practices and new knowledge created in the field of MEAL.

Perform any other related activities as assigned by immediate supervisor.

Job Requirements:

Afghan nationality, preferably from local province

High School degree, bachelor’s degree in social science preferred.

Minimum of 2 years’ experience in relevant field

Experience in data entry, data cleaning and conducting interviews.

Experience using Microsoft Office package, especially Microsoft Excel. Experience with additional database and data analysis software preferred.

Experience writing reports in English.

Excellent communications skills. Fluency in English and Dari, additional languages preferred.

Competence in using smart phones, experience with mobile data collection preferred.

Commitment to the mission and objectives of the projects and Acted.

Willingness to travel to the field, including to remote and insecure locations, and visit all project sites, potentially including new areas where Acted may plan assessments and projects.

Ability to work under pressure with tight deadlines.

Good knowledge of Monitoring and Evaluation aspects

Acted