Senior Officer, Monitoring and Evaluation

Job Purpose

Reporting to the Regional Head of PMER and Quality Assurance, the overall purpose of this position is to support IFRC and National Societies performance and accountability in effective planning, monitoring and evaluation by developing, innovating, supervising and supporting technically the introduction and implementation of monitoring and evaluation systems, methods and processes across the Europe region, ensuring professional capacity on all levels of the organization and aggregating monitoring and evaluation results to a higher level. This entails collaborating closely with the IFRC Regional Units and Delegation offices and with National Societies, providing technical assistance and guidance on PMER-related matters.

Responsibilities include ensuring reliable monitoring and evaluation for both development and emergency programming, donor reporting, and bolstering NS programmes and operations through capacity-building efforts. The position aims to elevate project quality, performance, and impact through specialised technical assistance and direction in PMER practices.

A strong focus will be on the IFRC’s Ukraine and impacted countries crisis Emergency Appeal, which started in February 2022 and is due to close at the end of 2025. This involves following up on the M&E Health check Report for the Ukraine and impacted countries crisis, including proposing solutions and actions to improve monitoring and evaluation, in close coordination with the Federation-wide analysis and rest of PMER team, lead reviews and evaluations, design, support and conduct lessons learnt exercises at both operations country level and at programmatic regional level.

Job duties and responsibilities

Monitoring

• Develop, and uphold the IFRC project/programme M&E guidelines and processes, ensuring industry best practices and minimum standards are monitored and followed.
• Provide technical assistance, in coordination with broader PMER team, in the design and implementation of reliable and timely monitoring systems, to facilitate results-based management, strengthen accountability, and produce evidence-based results. This includes beneficiary monitoring, communication, complaints, and feedback mechanism, in coordination with Community Engagement and Accountability (CEA), protection, gender, and social inclusion (PGI) focal points on developing and disseminating of CEA and PGI monitoring tools, as well as with other programmatic frameworks monitoring tools.
• Advise on the design of programmes and projects to ensure results are relevant and measurable for monitoring and evaluation.
• Coordinate with Regional units and Delegation offices in ensuring IFRC and National Societies are aware of and use tools such as the Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, and Learning (MEAL) plans, Gantt charts, indicator tracking tables (ITTs), baseline–endline studies, matrixes to monitor objectives, indicators, and activities and other monitoring and evaluation tools, as per IFRC guidelines; and provide the necessary technical assistance and training in addition of this objective.
• Support Federation-wide analysts in the establishment, implementation and improvement of Federation-wide Monitoring and Evaluation data systems and processes.
• Advise on the development of strategy, policy, standards, and procedures that are aligned with and measurable for IFRC objectives (aligned with the IFRC Plan and Budget, Unified Plans, Emergency Appeals, and Disaster Response Emergency Fund [DREF] operations).
• Promote the adoption of new and relevant technologies for M&E, including the use of mobile data collection; web-based programme management systems; data collection and analysis software; and learning platforms for M&E.

Evaluation & Learning

• Uphold the IFRC Framework for Evaluations, ensuring evaluations and related exercises are timely, useful, and ethical, upholding industry criteria, standards, and best practices.
• Lead or conduct evaluation and related exercises (including surveys, research, and studies) upon demand for IFRC units and delegation offices.
• Manage quality and accountable evaluations and related exercises for IFRC units and delegation offices, including commissioning, recruitment, and management of external consultancies.
• Participate in the design and implementation of programme surveys, mid-term, real-time and final evaluations, special studies, and other components of evaluation and lessons learned activities, including identifying opportunities for learning and proposed innovative methodologies for exercises.
• Contribute to a culture of learning, performance, and accountability by identifying and sharing best practices with the IFRC Secretariat and National Societies. Facilitate learning events, such as lessons learned workshops.
• Support the use of the IFRC evaluation register and databank.
• Advise on and advance the understanding and use of a range of new approaches and methods for impact, contribution, and attribution analysis, e.g. realist evaluation and outcome harvesting.

Planning & Reporting

• Review and provide feedback during the design of Emergency Appeals, DREFs, Unified Plans, project proposals and logical frameworks to ensure logical coherence, SMART indicators, and the inclusion of means of verifications, targets, and baselines.
• Initiate streamlining project proposals and logical frameworks to promote coherence across projects.
• Support planning and reporting processes and products, in a flexible approach according to needs, targets and deadlines of PMER and Quality Assurance as required.

Capacity building and general support:

• Develop and deliver in-person training, online e-learning and related Training of Trainers (ToT) guidance on areas of MEL.
• In coordination with the Regional Units and Delegation offices, contribute to strengthening the development of PMER technical capacity of National Societies and IFRC staff through training, workshops and/or capacity-building initiatives.
• Actively participate in regional cross-cutting efforts to enhance data collection, analysis and reporting across different capacities, particularly Information Management, Community Engagement and Accountability and National Society Development, identifying opportunities to maximize synergies and efficiencies and proposing solutions.
• Maintain the National Society PMER capacity assessment tool and its uptake and use in the IFRC Network.
• Provide mentorship for key PMER capacity areas, including M&E planning, managing an evaluation, project design, and household/baseline surveys.
• Promote the use of networks to support a culture of PMER, including active participation in working groups, community/ies of practice, etc.
• Deputize for the Regional Head of PMERQA and/or PMER Coordinator during their missions and leaves of absence.

Required:

• Graduate degree in a relevant humanitarian or social sciences, ideally studies relating to social research, data management, statistics etc.
• 3 years of experience working in PMER and/or IM.
• Background in data collection, management, analysis and presentation methods and tools, and ability to set up systems and procedures for reliable data collection and management.
• Skills in supporting organizational learning, accountability and performance.
• Strong analytical and written skills, including reports and presentation skills.
• Strong skills in designing and using PMER concepts, tools, and best practices.
• Strong understanding of Results-based Management (RBM) principles, which focus on achieving outcomes and measuring performance through a structured process of planning, monitoring, and evaluating projects to ensure they achieve their intended results and contribute to the organization’s goals.
• Knowledge and skills around results-based planning (logframe) and setting up robust planning systems for complex programmes.
• Knowledge of assessment, survey and monitoring methodologies and experience implementing them.
• Knowledge of evaluation and review for disaster response or recovery work.
• Experience in capacity building through on-the-job or other training methods.
• Fluently spoken and written English.