Senior Monitoring, Evaluation, Learning Manager, Amal consortium

Job Overview/Summary

The Senior Monitoring, Evaluation, Learning (MEAL) Manager is responsible for managing key components of a USAID's Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA)-funded program that includes health and nutrition; water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH); and shelter activities to support conflict-affected populations.Entitled Amal (“hope” in Arabic), the consortium will include international and Syrian partners with humanitarian response capacity.Pending donor approval of an award modification, the Senior MEAL Manager will collaborate with the Chief of Party (CoP) to lead the start-up and implementation of programming.

Major Responsibilities

Monitoring Design and Management

• Support CoP to design and manage consortium-wide monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEAL) systems based USAID OFDA requirements for Amal
• Lead implementation of the Amal MEAL plan submitted to OFDA by engaging with IRC and partner staff to complete necessary deliverables
• Collaborate with CoP and IRC MEAL Coordinator to design and implement baseline assessment within first 90 days of award, ensuring data collection is adjusted to meet partner constraints
• Collaborate with IRC MEAL Coordinator and partners to design, test, adjust, and use program monitoring tools that collect necessary data required for OFDA reporting and IRC’s remote management standards
• Support IRC’s Grants Team to contribute to grant management deliverables, including narrative reports; ensure that all internal and external reporting requirements are met, and that reports are of a high quality and submitted on time
• Coordinate with IRC MEAL Coordinator to ensure monitoring aligns with IRC’s global requirements
• Participate in Amal’s Consortium Management Unit, including remotely leading MEAL technical working group to facilitate programmatic minimum standards across partners
• Collaborate with partners to strengthen beneficiary feedback mechanisms, informed IRC Syria best practice and partner contextual constraints
• Work with Regional Monitoring Advisor to establish and manage remote Third Party Monitoring mechanism to validate partner activities
• As needed, engage with OFDA’s Third Party Monitoring contractor to provide necessary information and complete required monitoring activities and reports
• Design and support final program evaluation with key staff, as required by OFDA

Partnership Coordination and Capacity building

• Champion robust partner relationship management characterized by the core partnership principles from IRC’s Partnership Excellence for Equality and Results System (PEERS) of responsibility, results-oriented approach, equality, transparency and complementarity
• Ensure appropriate proactive and reactive communications and engagement with IRC partners to implement sub-grant agreements and complete program deliverables through regularly scheduled partnership management meetings
• Drive adherence to PEERS by working with Amal team and partners to complete quarterly monitoring visits and lesson learned reflections
• Facilitate systematic partner feedback on IRC's management of and performance in partnerships, as well as taking appropriate action in response to the feedback to ensure the smooth operation of the consortium
• Collaborate with Senior MEAL Partnership Manager to implement necessary capacity strengthening outlined in each Partner Support Plan
• Design, lead, and/or participate in relevant workshops and meetings to support coordination and collaboration, including quarterly partner monitoring visits and training events

Technical Quality

• Establish monitoring and evaluation standards and work to achieve high-level information collection and analysis across to drive quality implementation via partners
• Collaborate with WASH, shelter, health and protection technical advisors who will support partners on technical components of programming and monitoring
• Ensure gender is mainstreamed within monitoring and evaluation functions, including leading the review of desegregated data on a quarterly basis to inform program adaptations
• Network with international and Syria humanitarian actors working in Syria to understand context and programming modalities to inform monitoring and evaluation approaches
• Other tasks as needed

People Management

• Maintain open and professional relations with team members across the Syria country program, promoting a strong team spirit and providing oversight and guidance to enable staff to successfully perform in their positions
• Take responsibility for discussing job expectations, performance, and objectives on an informal, quarterly basis with Amal staff
• Ensures team members have clearly delineated function, work tasks and responsibilities to enforce accountability and clarity in role
• Overall responsibility for staff timesheets, work plans and vacation schedules
• With team members, identify individual training needs and ensure access to training and professional development resources appropriate to their skill gaps/needs
• Lead with commitment, integrity and accountability on the “IRC Way” –Global Standards for Professional Conduct

Key Working Relationships

Position Reports to:Amal Chief of Party

Indirect/Technical Reporting: N/A

Position directly Supervises: Information Management Officer

Key Internal Contacts:

Country Program: Deputy Chief of Party, MEAL Coordinator, Partnership Coordinator, Health Coordinator, Protection in Partnership Advisor, WASH/Shelter in Partnership Advisor,

Region/Global: Regional Measurement for Action Advisor

Key External Contacts:Amal partner organizations

Standards of Professional Conduct: The IRC and IRC workers must adhere to the values and principles outlined in the IRC Way – Code of Conduct.These are Integrity, Service, and Accountability.In accordance with these values, the IRC operates and enforces policies on Beneficiary Protection from Exploitation and Abuse, Child Safeguarding, Harassment-Free Workplace, Fiscal Integrity, Anti-Retaliation, Combating Trafficking in Persons and several others.

Gender Equality: IRC is committed to narrowing the gender gap in leadership positions. We offer benefits that provide an enabling environment for women to participate in our workforce including parental leave, gender-sensitive security protocols and other supportive benefits and allowances.

Working Environment: The overall security situation in Jordan is relatively calm, especially in Amman. The Jordanian government is stable, and civil unrest is largely peaceful. However, Jordan’s generosity in hosting refugees from Palestine, Iraq and now Syria have created huge strains on the country’s economy and infrastructure. The IRC office is in a modern professional building.

IRC is an Equal Opportunity Employer. IRC considers all applicants on the basis of merit without regard to race, sex, color, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.