Job Description

                                      VACANCY ANNOUNCEMEnt:

Position title: Senior MEAL Officer - Somalia Emergency Resilience and Response Initiative (SERRI) program.

Duty Station: Mogadishu

Position Category:  Full-time

Number of positions: One

About Mercy Corps

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.

Mercy Corps has been present in Somalia since 2005, responding to emergency needs from conflict and displacement while building more resilient, peaceful, and productive communities in Puntland, Somaliland, Galmudug, Hirshabelle, Banadir Regional Administration, South-West, and Jubaland States. Our goal is to expand programs that strengthen and diversify livelihoods and ensure food security and resilience throughout the country. To support this mission, Mercy Corps seeks to hire a Senior Program Officer for its Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA)-funded multi-sectoral program-Somalia Early Recovery and Rural Resilience Initiative (SERRI). SERRI aims to enhance economic productivity and wellbeing in rural and peri-urban areas, improve capacity to respond to hazards, and reduce future humanitarian needs.

The Program / Department / Team (Program / Department Summary) Mercy Corps has been in Somalia since 2005, implementing projects that target hundreds of thousands of vulnerable households. Their work focuses on improving access to basic services and overcoming vulnerabilities caused by civil conflict and natural disasters. They achieve this through interventions in four key sectors: water security, peace and governance, economic and food security. Their programs are designed in an integrated manner, incorporating new methodologies like Emergency, DRR (Disaster Risk Reduction), and Resilience frameworks. Mercy Corps' operations in Somalia are firmly rooted in a robust framework of socio-political analysis and risk management systems, ensuring compliance with Somali Federal Government (FGS) laws, internal accountability standards, and donor requirements. Mercy Corps Somalia has over 100 field staff based field operations in Mogadishu, Hargeisa, Kismayo, and Baidoa with programs funded by multitude of donors including USAID, FCDO, SIDA, SDC, AFD and the UN GENERAL POSITION SUMMARY:

The Senior Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEL) Officer will work with the Mercy Corps SERRI program team to oversee and ensure the collection of quality M&E data throughout the duration of the program.  The Senior MEAL Officer will be responsible for supporting the Program Manager to oversee the monitoring and data collection of the project, lead regular and annual field-based household and group interviews, analyze data to provide insight to the activities and program outcomes, and contribute to report writing. S/He will ensure that performance monitoring and results reporting tools and processes across the entire program are in place, effectively implemented and well synchronized between the Activity sites. The Senior MEAL Officer will be an integral member of the project team learning and reflection processes, leading discussion on participant feedback among others.

Essential Job Responsibilities

Monitoring and Evaluation

●     Work with program teams, partners, and M&E focal points to integrate M&E into ongoing project/program planning and implementation systems and ensure adherence to Mercy Corps M&E minimum standards.

●     Lead the development of appropriate monitoring, tracking, and reporting systems, tools and templates that enhance monitoring of project outputs and quality, generate quality evidence on project impact and promote and ensure use of data for decision-making processes.

●     Support the program in developing and promoting the use of standard indicators, tools, and forms (as appropriate) and M&E practices across the project/program and coordinate the collection of information required for country-level management.

●     Coordinate assessments and evaluations across the SERRI target locations.

●     Ensure that monitoring plans are developed for the program and ensure that regular monitoring visits are conducted by MEL Officers to the different project locations, ensure that minimum standards are being met, and that reports are shared with the program teams.

●     Work with partners and program team to gather success stories and anecdotal evidence of program impact to share for outreach and with donors.

Data Analysis and Reporting:

• Work as part of a broader team to design, facilitate and support data collection and analysis systems including baseline, annual, and end line surveys, regular monitoring, data collection and analysis, feedback, and reporting.
• Generate data reports (tables/graphs/reports) from the database at regular intervals, ensuring reports/information are available for program implementation staff as required.
• Facilitate data analysis with program implementation team as required.
• Conduct regular field visits to ensure all elements of the data system are being utilized effectively, assessing, and identifying breakdowns and areas that require clarifications and improvements.
• Coordinate with field team and partners to implement system corrections and adjustments, solving operational issues and documenting actions taken and next steps.
• Work with program teams to ensure data analysis and reports are integrated into programmatic decision making to improve impact of the program.
• Contribute to monthly reports and other ad hoc reports to meet donor and internal requirements.
• Report program achievements on TOLA, Activity Info, and other relevant reporting mechanisms.

Capacity building:

• Conduct needs assessment for the partners, MEL team and partners and determine a M&E training plan and tools to support staff.
• Conduct needs assessment to implement an induction on M&E and a training plan to inform the importance of M&E and how information feeds into the program.
• Develop training material and implement a training plan based on the assessment needs and gaps of partners' M&E focal persons.
• Build the capacity of all relevant team members to develop and maintain a robust M&E system.
• Review partner reports and provide feedback and comments to improve reporting quality.
• Adapt existing protocols and plans to mentor and coach colleagues to build their capacity to enable them to develop high-quality reports (Weekly, Quarterly, semi-annual, and Annual).

Database Management:

• Develop and manage a program database that improves SERRI’s ability to inform program implementation, analyze data, and represent impact to key stakeholders.
• Contribute to the understanding of and support for mobile data collection hardware and software, including tools such as Commcare, and PowerBI etc.
• Ensure all relevant program staff can utilize the database to analyze program information and results.
• Design, adapt and maintain the database in conjunction with the MEL team to match strategic program or implementation changes.
• Review data being collected to locate and fix problems with data entry or integrity.
• Document database contents, protocols, and update manuals for smooth functioning of the data management system.
• Manage regular synchronizations of data.
• Troubleshoot front and back-end issues with the database, including any synchronization issues with field-level data entry.

Accountability:

• Coordinate with the team to build systems that promote participant accountability by ensuring that communities participate in initial assessments and program design.
• Coordinate with program teams to ensure that communities are informed about our programs and what we do, are aware of their entitlements, are comfortable to give feedback and that feedback is used to improve the quality of our programs.
• Working with the Country CARM Officers, ensure that Mercy Corps’ Community Feedback and Accountability Mechanism is communicated to project beneficiaries and that the hotline numbers are visible to end beneficiaries throughout the program.
• Ensure all activities are gender sensitive and follow Mercy Corps’ Gender Equality Policy.
• Apply Do No Harm standards to ensure activities do not have detrimental effects on vulnerable communities.
• Conduct himself/herself both professionally and personally in such a manner as to bring credit to Mercy Corps and not jeopardize its humanitarian mission.
• Other assigned tasks, as necessary.

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.

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.

Accountability to Beneficiaries

●       Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts toward 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.

●       Team members are expected to conduct themselves in a professional manner and respect local laws, customs and MC's policies, procedures, and values at all times and in all in-country venues.

Accountability

Supervisory Responsibilities: MEL Officers

Reports Directly To: The MEL/PaQ Manager

Works Directly With: Program Manager, Sector Specialists, MEL Officers, Engineers, Finance and operation field teams.

Experiences and Qualifications

Knowledge and Experience

●       Advanced Degree/Bachelor’s degree in Agriculture, Computer science, Economics, Statistics, Development Studies, Energy, Environmental Science, or Business computing.

●       At least 4 years’ direct experience in monitoring and evaluation of humanitarian or development programs in Somalia. Work experience with NGOs with focus on resilience, livelihoods, market facilitation or private sector-led approaches or interventions preferred.

●       Post-graduate qualification in Monitoring & Evaluation preferred.

●       Possession of MEAL or project Dpro certification is an added advantage

●       Good hands-on experience/skills in data management required-This will be tested.

●       Experience authoring forms for remote mobile data collection through Commcare/Ona required and this will be tested.

●       Experience managing different aspects of assessments eg PDMs as a lead, right from tools design, data collection, processing, analysis, and report writing.

●       Strong computer literacy with a full knowledge of MS Office applications and G Suite.

●       Proficiency in at least one statistical software (Stata, SPSS or R and PowerBi) in handling large data sets required-This will be tested

●       Demonstrated attention to detail, ability to follow procedures, meet deadlines and work independently and cooperatively with team members.

●       Demonstrated flexibility, creativity, and enthusiasm as well as a willingness to learn and to be continually adaptive within a dynamic and often self-directed working environment.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

Achieving our mission begins with how we build our team and work together. Through our commitment to enriching our organization with people of different origins, beliefs, backgrounds, and ways of thinking, we are better able to leverage the collective power of our teams and solve the world’s most complex challenges. We strive for a culture of trust and respect, where everyone contributes their perspectives and authentic selves, reaches their potential as individuals and teams, and collaborates to do the best work of their lives. We recognize that diversity and inclusion is a journey, and we are committed to learning, listening and evolving to become more diverse, equitable and inclusive than we are today.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Mercy Corps is an equal opportunity employer that does not tolerate discrimination on any basis. We actively seek out diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and skills so that we can be collectively stronger and have sustained global impact.

We are committed to providing an environment of respect and psychological safety where equal employment opportunities are available to all. We do not engage in or tolerate discrimination on the basis of race, color, gender identity, gender expression, religion, age, sexual orientation, national or ethnic origin, disability (including HIV/AIDS status), marital status, military veteran status or any other protected group in the locations where we work.

Success Factors

The successful candidate will combine exceptional management skills and experience in maintaining donor and partner relationships. S/he will have previous experience in working in large-scale early recovery or resilience programs in an insecure context. S/he will also have proven experience in working with diverse cross-cultural teams, commitment to local capacity building and the ability to engage local stakeholders in project design and implementation and strong mentoring skills. The successful candidate will be able to provide oversight to large multi-sectoral programs and has the ability to work simultaneously on multiple tasks and keep to deadlines.  S/he will be focused on capacity building of program staff, have strong program support skills, good information management skills and maintain a sense of humour.

ability to work simultaneously on multiple tasks and keep to deadlines.

Skills Required

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