Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL) Technical Specialist NEW

Mercy Corps has been present in Ethiopia since 2004 working to drive bold and transformative ideas, working closely with government, the private sector and civil society actors to build a more resilient country, ensuring that programs are responsive to and influenced by participants and stakeholders. With the launch of Mercy Corps Global Strategy, Pathway to Possibility, the country office is poised to operationalize its three-year strategy with a vision to enhance the resilience of climate- and conflict-affected communities through market systems development for improved livelihoods, access to food, and safe and clean water to thrive in the face of crises. In Ethiopia, our strategy focuses in the four outcome areas: 1) Economically marginalized populations have improved and diversified livelihoods, income, and assets; 2) Pastoralists, farmers, and households have access to sustainably produced, safe, nutritious food; 3) Social cohesion and inclusive governance processes are built in crisis-affected communities; and 4) People have equitable, sustained access to clean water and sanitation for domestic and productive use. Currently, we operate in six regional states – Afar, Gambella, Oromia, Somali, Amhara and South Ethiopia. Working with a diverse base of donors that includes United States Agency for International Development (USAID), European Union, GAC, Hilton Foundation, United Nations (UN), JOA, Sweden, EKN, and other foundations, Mercy Corps Ethiopia empowers people to recover from crisis, build better lives and transform their communities for good.

Position Title: Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL) Technical Specialist

Duty Station: Addis Ababa (with frequent travels to Afar, Somali, Tigray, and other regions)

Open Position:  1

Safeguarding Risk Level: High

Program / Department Summary

The Ethiopia Seed Partnership Plus (ESP+) is a bilateral program between Ethiopia and the Netherlands in international trade and development cooperation. The goal of the proposed extended program ESP+ is to ensure the delivery of quality seed of new, improved, and adapted varieties to one million farming household across the country for food security, nutrition, and resilience to shocks and stresses. ESP+ will be implemented in Tigray, Oromia, Afar, Benishangul-Gumuz, Gambela, and Somali regions, which are more prone to shocks and stresses. Once conditions allow, activities will commence in Amhara as well. The program will have four components that are Private sector development, Innovation &empowerment, responding to seed insecurity, and Enabling seed sector transformation. Mercy Corps Ethiopia will be leading the third component of the program that mainly deals with Responding to seed insecurity. The ESP+ program will be implemented over four years period from 2024-2027.

General Position Summary

The MEAL technical specialist is responsible for the overall monitoring, evaluating, accountability and learning of the component-III, which is called seed insecurity response. S/he is responsible for Planning the MEAL system, developing MEAL tools/template, monitoring and evaluating all interventions of the program, ensuring complaint and feedback handling and ensuring accountability, and compiling reports, and success stories. S/he makes sure that the MEAL systems, particularly in seed insecurity response, should be able to regularly track changes in context, and vulnerability and need to be able to make rapid adjustments to plans. S/he reports to the Program Manager. The key roles and responsibilities of the position are summarized as follows.

Essential Job Responsibilities

1. Monitoring and reporting

• Develop monitoring tools, organize, and plan field-level monitoring events and compile reports for adaptive management.
• Prepare a database (e.g. drive) for the regional seed insecurity response coordinators implementing partners, and program beneficiaries for data tracking.
• Build the capacity of Program staff, implementing partners on M&E formats/templates/forms for data collection, including Output and Outcomes Trackers, as well as assessment tools.
• Ensure proper documentation is in place including filing project documents, and indicators data sets, including data collected from individual farmers, ToRs, field trips reports, assessment tools, formats, and reports.
• Support and monitor implementing partners other key humanitarian and development actors, and regional seed insecurity response coordinators while conducting context analysis and seed security systems assessments and monitoring the quality of collected data.
• Organizes participatory monitoring events along with the regional seed insecurity response coordinators, humanitarian and development partners, seed producers and communities.
• Conduct follow-up monitoring visits to ensure agreed actions are implemented as per the plan.
• Compiles regular field monitoring reports from regional seed insecurity response coordinators and implementing partners, drawing lessons, and providing feedback, which enables adaptive management practices.
• Maintain and update the overall progress of component-III (seed insecurity response) indicators for outputs and outcomes as per the commitment made with the donor.
• Design how to integrate context indicators into the MEAL system based on the result of regular context analysis to strengthen how the program interacts with the context and conflict dynamics.
• Regularly summarize monthly/quarterly/bi-annually/annual reports, lessons, challenges/constraints, and possible collective measures to cope with and/or mitigate the shocks/stress to achieve the intended goals of the program.
• Participate and support joint planning, and support to design ways of working across humanitarian and development partners.
• Develop conflict sensitivity monitoring tools, and regularly monitor through evidence-based conflict sensitive monitoring approach in the Program intervention areas.

1. Evaluation:

• Assist the program staff with all evaluation formatives, and events such as participatory variety selections, individual-based and gender-sensitive farmers’ preference variety selection, the performance of local seed producers, and community seed banks, etc.
• Support regional staff and/or the evaluation team in conducting periodic evaluations of the Program’s interventions at the field levels.
• Timely plan and initiate context and seed security systems assessments and analysis, pré and/or post-intervention assessments, etc.
• Coordinate and review all assessment reports prepared by partners to ensure quality and accurate reporting.
• Regularly evaluate risk assessment results and suggest mitigation strategies.
• Timely evaluate the progress of joint implementation as per the joint planning of humanitarian and/or development partners in seed insecurity responses.
• Evaluate the progress of innovative funds, and seed business co-funding supported to strengthen the seed systems.

1. Accountability:

• Establish an effective mechanism for handling and responding to complaints/feedback at the community level and make each of the involved key actor is accountable for intervention, and actions.
• Ensure that the Complaint Feedback Mechanism (CFM), which may be raised due to the Program’s intervention, is functional and accessible to beneficiaries.
• Share information on quality and accountability issues (monitoring reports, CFM databases, preliminary verification reports, case studies, etc.).
• Present MEAL findings at each progress review meeting.

1. Learning:

• Participate in and organize major evaluation events happening in the field.
• Ensure appropriate mechanisms that enhance learning between humanitarian and development partners.
• Initiate and facilitate quality program implementation through the integration of learning and evaluation events across sectors/programs.
• Develop a profile of the Program’s component, a summary of the progress report, and success story, and share key learning documents from the result of MEAL systems.

GEDSI (GENDER, EQUALITY, DIVERSITY AND SOCIAL INCLUSION)

• Increased commitment to Gender Equality Diversity and Social inclusion

Supervisory Responsibility

Technically support and supervisor the MEAL systems with regional seed insecurity response coordinators, implementing partners, local seed producers, other seed sector actors, including humanitarians

Accountability

Reports Directly To: Program Manager

Technical Line Report To: MEAL director

Works Directly With: Program manager, regional seed insecurity response coordinators implementing partners, local seed producers.