Summary of position

The Regional Strategy, Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, and Learning Advisor plays a key role in Action Against Hunger Horn and East Africa Region by supporting strategy development processes and ensuring consistent design, application and engagement with MEAL systems and initiatives. S/he will lead strategy development and execution and harmonize the MEAL approaches across 8 country offices to ensure efficiency across mission and ensure compliance with Action Against Hunger MEAL minimum standards, guidelines, and procedures. S/he will also ensure data quality by designing MEAL systems, procedures, policies, and MEAL Guidelines to harmonize data across different missions.

Purpose:

• Provide technical oversight to strategy development, execution and performance management across the region – ensuring that investment and programming priorities are aligned with strategy
• Provide technical oversight in the planning, development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of Action Against Hunger HEARO MEAL activities.
• Ensure that MEAL supports
• Provide technical support to the programs and build capacity in the country Mission through harmonizing learning and knowledge sharing.

Engagement

• Engage with technical and operations teams, country program teams, and counterparts in the Action Against Hunger network to strengthen a culture of M&E in the organization and to create a conducive environment for its roll out
• Represent Action Against Hunger USA in relevant internal and external fora and working groups, including the Action Against Hunger MEAL Working Group.

Delivery:

• Standardize strategy development and performance management approaches and tools – ensuring consistency of strategy execution and measurement of progress across ACF USA field operations
• Strengthen country program MEAL systems by rolling out Action Against Hunger’s Multi-Sectorial M&E Guidelines and Minimum Standards; identifying strategic opportunities to generate and use data from MEAL, and improving and maintaining systems to foster the quality of Action Against Hunger HEARO interventions through improved monitoring and evaluation
• Lead roll-out and implementation of Action Against Hunger Multi-Sectorial M&E Guidelines and Minimum Standards at HQ and country level
• Support and oversee application and implementation of MEAL systems in country programs in accordance with the Guidelines, Minimum Standards, and Action Against Hunger global reporting framework.
• Promote active learning and development from Action Against Hunger internal and external MEAL exercises.
• Develop/strengthen a MEAL community of practice (CoP) and use the CoP as platform to promote innovation, share best practices and build staff core competencies in strategy development and MEAL
• Support technical specialists to develop and roll-out sectoral quality assurance tools – ensuring to assure technical quality and consistency of application of ACF core programming approaches
• Promote innovations in MEAL – including technology which enhances MEAL efficiency (achieving the highest possible standards in impact measurement communications.
• Support and oversee all evaluative efforts in the region (including baselines, midterm reviews, endline evaluations) and conducting meta-analysis to inform policy, practice and programming decisions.
• Strength context analysis in country offices – ensuring that ACF gains technical and thought leadership in detection and anticipatory action which significantly contributes towards prevention and mitigation of hunger and malnutrition
• Design and roll-out a comprehensive MEAL and project management training for all ACF field staff
• Lead the implementation of the Core Humanitarian Standards in the Horn and East Africa

Supervisory responsibilities:

• Directly supervises a regional monitoring systems specialist
• Technical supervisory line to MEAL focal in country (via matrix mechanism)

Gender Equality commitments

• Foster an environment that supports values of women and men, and equal access to information.
• Provide a work environment where women and men must be evaluated and promoted based on their skills and performance
• Respect beneficiaries’ women, men, boys and girls regardless of gender, sex orientation, disability, religion, race, color, ancestry, national origin, age or marital status,
• Value and respect all cultures.

Physical demands

• While performing the duties of this job, the employee is required to sit for long periods and to concentrate on work, including typing, and turn out heavy volumes of work accurately, within short time frames under stressful situations in the context of a moderately noisy office with many interruptions. Must be able to proofread own work accurately so that only minor corrections are needed on an infrequent basis.

To travel to the field, the employee must attest to a level of physical fitness capable of enduring physically difficult, highly stressful situations which may include the necessity to walk long distances, to eat a limited diet and/or to reside in potentially uncomfortable housing or tents. The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

Working Conditions, Travel and Environment

• The duties of the job require regular job attendance at least five days per week. Must be available to work outside normal office hours or on the weekends as required.
• Must be able to travel as required for standard domestic and international business purposes. While performing the duties of this job in the field, the employee may be exposed to precarious settings under high security risks and/or very basic living conditions and outside weather conditions, as well as infectious diseases

Requirements

Required Qualifications

• Graduate degree (Master’s Degree or higher preferred) in M&E, program quality, accountability, project management, socio-economics, statistics, or related field
• A minimum of 10 years’ previous work in strategy and MEAL with a leading international humanitarian organization/development organization (5 of which should be at senior management level at country office and regional office).

Required Skills & Experience

• Significant experience (at least 10 years) in leading strategy development, execution and performance management processes (including landscape analysis, strategy operationalization thru tech approaches/program models, strategy baselining, monitoring and midterm review/end of cycle evaluations)
• Demonstrated experience and/or personal commitment to promoting gender equality within the humanitarian and/or development work
• Experience working in humanitarian contexts, emergency and post-crisis, in all the steps of the Project Cycle Management;
• Experience in a M&E position with an international humanitarian organization (country, region or headquarters);
• Experience with humanitarian coordination mechanisms;
• Excellent knowledge of technical fields related to Monitoring & Evaluation, PQA, project management, data management, knowledge management systems, learning and development;
• Good working knowledge of HAP, Sphere, PIA, information management software, etc.
• Applied research or technical development experience, involvement in the development of guidance and support tools and methodologies;
• Strong experience with mobile data collection technologies, such as ODK, Kobo Toolbox, Commcare.
• Experience with Geographic Information Systems and mapping platforms;
• Experience with Health Information Systems and DHIS preferred;
• Knowledge of the main humanitarian donors and of their reporting requirements; short term and developmental donors and foundations a plus;
• Capacity to write and review complex technical and donor reports;
• Good working knowledge of computer software, MS Office and nutrition related software (EPiInfo, ENA, SPSS, etc.).
• Motivation to work within the humanitarian sector and to link it to other initiatives (research, external communication, outreach, etc.);
• Ability to manage and prioritize own workload;
• Ability to present clear ideas and arguments, providing distance support, training and influence;
• Flexible, adaptable, dynamic and enthusiastic; interest to work with other sectors of the humanitarian scope;
• Proactive