REGIONAL MEAL ADVISOR, ASIA

JOB SUMMARY

CARE works around the globe to save lives, defeat poverty and achieve social justice. We seek a world of hope, inclusion and social justice, where poverty has been overcome and all people live with dignity and security, with a specific focus on the empowerment of women and girls. CARE’s Vision 2030 strategy includes six broad impact areas, with specific impact targets and metrics aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals. CARE anticipates that its impact will increasingly be achieved at the systems-level as part of its quest for sustainable impact at scale, achieved through local leadership, in partnership with governments, the private sector and civil society actors.

As of October 2023, CARE is on-track in achieving its Vision 2030 goal of impacting the lives of 200 million people. After Year 2 of Vision 2030, CARE has a total impact of almost 45 million, following extensive investments in its impact reporting systems and processes. To achieve sustainable progress moving forward, CARE is investing in enhancing capacities for better program design, implementation, and impact measurement, as well as better measurement of impact at scale. Enhancing regional MEAL capacity is a critical part of this investment.

The Regional Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL) Advisor is expected to provide timely MEAL technical assistance and capacity-strengthening, from design to impact reporting and use, to country offices in the region with a focus on these primary responsibilities.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

Ensure timely and accurate collection, validation and sensemaking of PIIRS data for country offices in the region

• Strengthen capacity of country office staff to complete all phases of Project and Program Information and Impact Reporting System (PIIRS) processes.
• Ensure data validation for accurate, timely data.
• Organize sensemaking of PIIRS data to understand strengths, weaknesses and trends, and develop action plans to address them.

Enhance impact measurement, especially the measurement of systems-level impact

• Advise country offices on how to measure their impact, support evaluation scopes of work, and consultant selection to ensure quality.
• Advise integration and measurement of systems level impact.
• Ensure evaluation management response and action plans are developed, disseminated and implemented, with all key stakeholders, including partners.
• Ensure that impact is accurately captured in PIIRS and used in a timely manner.

Serve as focal point to improve performance on the Accountability and Adapting & Learning drivers of program quality for country offices in the region

• Improve performance on meeting minimum standards for Accountability and Adapting & Learning drivers in design and implementation.
• Strengthen data management capacity at project, program and country office levels to enable timely use of data for accountability, adapting and learning.
• In collaboration with DRD-PQ, increase awareness of CARE’s program quality standards, guidance and tools and strengthen capacity to apply them in practice.

Ensure the inclusion of strong MEAL plans in proposals, including PIIRS impact indicators and measurement of systems-level impact

• Ensure that proposals developed by country offices include a MEAL plan with adequate resources and staffing for all MEAL activities.
• Strengthen capacity of country office staff to develop strong MEAL plans in proposals, including development of theories of change and indicator performance tracking tools.
• Ensure that proposals include the minimum number of CARE impact indicators or donor required indicators that are mapped to CARE indicators.

Assist COs and work collaboratively to improve specific PQ area(s) for a specific time period

• Based on the PIIRS data and assessment, collaborate with selected COs to identify 1-2 specific PQ drivers (e.g., adapting and learning or system-level impact or accountability to improve further in next 6-12 months.
• Assist COs in developing detailed action plan (e.g., if the PQ driver is adapting and learning, then focus on objective reflection and strong MEAL and documentation, processing and use of learning: use of learning in the new program design and reflection during the project implementation), if the PQ driver is system-level impact, then include measure of social norms and structure change in the review, reflection and / or evaluation.
• Work with COs on drawing recommendations from the sensemaking sessions and follow up the recommendations on PQ improvement.

QUALIFICATIONS:

• Masters degree – in Social Science, Impact measurement, Project management or any other relevant field.
• Excellent written, verbal English and presentation/communication skills.
• The ability to coordinate effective team work and to work effectively within a team
• Diplomacy, tact and negotiating skills
• Skills in using relevant data analysis software like Nvivo, Power BI, SPSS and/or STATA
• Knowledge of and demonstrated personal commitment to relevant organizational codes of conduct for emergencies, including anti-fraud and anti-corruption, safeguarding etc.
• At least 8 years experience in senior management positions in monitoring and evaluation and program quality in development programs
• Relevant experience with reputable organisations in humanitarian and/or development fields
• Demonstrable experience with the development and implementation of MEAL systems and plans
• Demonstrable experience with the development and implementation of Feedback and Accountability Mechanisms
• Demonstrable experience with the management and implementation of evaluations and research.
• Demonstrated experience in developing MEAL strategy, frameworks, SOPs, tools and resources and documenting learnings including drafting case studies, learning briefs, etc.