MEAL Advisor

Save the Children UK has an exciting opportunity for a MEAL Adviser to join our Start Network to support the development of project level collection of evidence and learning from anticipation, early action and risk financing initiatives.

About Us

Start Network is an independent charity made up of more than 80 aid agency members across five continents, including international, national and local organisations. Our aim is to deliver more effective emergency aid, harnessing the power and knowledge of the network to make faster and better decisions to help people affected by crises. We advocate for radical change in the global aid system so that the world can deal better with the humanitarian challenges of today, and of the future. Our work focuses on three areas to change the system:

• Localisation – shifting power to those closest to the front line to enable more effective and appropriate responses.
• New forms of financing – providing fast, early, and dependable funding, to help communities to become more resilient to crises.
• Collective innovation – testing new ways of working and sharing learning and expertise to build a more effective humanitarian system.

The Start Platform maintains a strong relationship with Save the Children as the grant custodian of many of the Start Network’s programmes. The Crisis Anticipation and Risk Financing Team is the larger of Start Network programmes team, it is hosted by Save the Children UK as part of the Humanitarian Department and works closely with colleagues in the Start Platform. 

 We believe that advanced preparedness and early action is essential in responding to humanitarian situations today.  By anticipating these events and using forecast information it enables us to consider innovative financing approaches, to better prepare for and respond to these situations.  To do this we have been building and adapting systems and processes to enable our members to act before a crisis turns in to a disaster, for example through the anticipation alerts of the Start Funds, which has been successfully used by our member to implement early action since 2016.

About the role

You  will support the development of project level collection of evidence and learning from anticipation, early action and risk financing initiatives, with a larger focus on impact of Start Network’s newest finance mechanism, Start Ready.

You will provide advice and technical guidance for learning approaches to anticipation, early action and risk financing across the Start Network Members. You will work closely with the Learning and Research Advisor (within the Evidence and Learning Team) helping to ensure consistency of approach for learning from anticipation, early action and risk financing initiatives.

In this role, you will: 

Technical Advice

• Develop and implement systems to generate and use data on the value of anticipation, forecasting and risk financing including collating evidence from members from the Start Funds anticipation alerts and other mechanisms
• Responsible for developing or supporting the delivery of donor related M&E requirements, including logframe development and providing data to show progress towards results
• Responsible for annual reporting of progress of Start Ready and Disaster Risk Finance Systems in the different countries of operation, and  Anticipatory Action alerts / initiatives, as well as direct reporting on specific projects.
• Lead the design and implementation of data collection tools, surveys, and methodologies to gather relevant data for monitoring and evaluation purposes and work with Start Network members to ensure the application of the approach
• Drive the design of appropriate MEAL frameworks and methodologies to produce impact evaluations on Start Network’s newest finance mechanism, Start Ready, to determine the effectiveness of the system to mitigate the impact of climate-related events on affected populations.
• Support quality assurance of analytical methods in anticipation, early action and risk financing initiatives and provide advice in the development of initiatives across the Start Network
• Responsible for developing data that can be used by the Start Ready Governance Committee to inform Start Ready decision-making
• Complete the framework for quality assurance of Disaster Risk Finance
• Contribute to the design and implementation of specific anticipation, early action and risk financing initiatives
• Provide strategic support where necessary for the development of learning approaches for anticipation windows for national Start Funds
• Supervise and support the annual post-season learning reviews of the various Disaster Risk Financing systems

 Communications

• Create compelling communications products showcasing learning you have generated, through a variety of media
• Work with the Start Communications and Digital Team and the Start Programmes Communications Manager to ensure visibility, awareness, and learning, on the role and use of forecast-based information for anticipatory responses.
• Support the communications team in disseminating learning around anticipation, early action and risk financing

Network Development

• Contribute to the community of practice for anticipation (FOREWARN), particularly through feeding learning from Start Fund alerts
• Oversee the development of partnerships with research organisations to develop robust evidence on the value of anticipation, early action and risk financing work.

About you

 To be successful, it is important that you have:

• Strong experience in Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning in national and/or international contexts.
• Strong experience in preparing for, responding to and delivering programmes in developing countries and/or humanitarian emergencies.
• Passionate about the potential of early action to mitigate impacts from forecasted crises, with an ability to foster a culture of innovation in learning approaches, combined with taking associated calculated risks.
• Successful experience creating and implementing a MEAL framework and related data collection and analysis processes, as well as engaging a variety of stakeholders to deliver against this strategy.
• Experience in partnership development and/or networks, with a track record of brokering and/or cultivating successful relationships.
• Strong analytical and creative problem-solving skills to tackle complex problems, including quantitative data analysis using Microsoft Excel
• Strong presentation and writing skills, including project documentation and public communication.
• Excellent interpersonal skills, able to communicate with colleagues on all levels in a disbursed and multicultural professional environment.
• Commitment to Save the Children’s vision, mission and values.

What we offer you:

Working for a charity provides one of the best benefits there is – a sense of purpose and reward for helping others. However, we understand the importance of giving back to our employees to ensure a happy and healthy working environment and work/life balance.

• We focus on flexibility, inclusion, collaboration, health and wellbeing both in and outside of work.
• We provide a wide range of benefits which will reward your hard work, motivate you, and inspire you to work to improve the lives of children every day. 

Please note: To avoid disappointment, you are advised to submit your application as soon as possible as we reserve the right to close the vacancy early if a high volume of applications are received. This is to ensure that we can manage application levels whilst maintaining a positive candidate experience. Unfortunately once a vacancy has closed, we are unable to consider further applications.

Ways of Working:

The majority of our roles can be performed remotely in the UK, but there are likely to be times when you will be required to come to your contracted office (up to 2-4 days per month or 6-8 days per quarter).  This will be agreed with your Line Manager and team and is intended to be time spent on collaborating with colleagues and relationship building. 

Please note: travel costs to your contracted office will be at your own expense. 

Flexible Working – We are happy to discuss flexible working options at interview.

Commitment to Diversity & Inclusion: 

Save the Children UK believes in a world that is fair, inclusive and equitable where all children have the opportunity to change their world. We apply this to our workforce and we are committed to developing and supporting a diverse, equitable, and inclusive organisation where all employees have a sense of belonging and feel that they can be “Free to Be Me”. We are not looking for just one type of person – we want to recruit people who can add fresh perspectives, innovative ideas or challenge that disrupts the risk of group think. 

We are especially interested in people whose childhood experiences – of life on a low income, of migration, of being in a racialised community, of the care system, of being LGBT+ or in an LGBT+ family or living with (or with someone with) a disability – help us to see things we might otherwise miss. Whatever your story is we want to hear it because we know that different voices, ideas, perspectives and knowledge, working together will enable us to better the lives of children around the world. This is the reason why we are all here.