MEAL Coordinator

Action Against Hunger (ACF) is a leading humanitarian and development agency working to combat the causes of hunger and malnutrition in over 46 countries worldwide. Eleven years into the Syrian conflict, more than 1.3 million Syrians have sought refuge in Jordan; 676,164 are registered refugees and approximately 80% live in non-camp settings. This influx of refugees has strained Jordan's economy and resources, with Syrians often accepting worse working conditions and lower compensation than Jordanians and taking on low-skill, informal jobs in sectors such as in manufacturing, construction and agriculture. In 2022, Jordan had a 23% unemployment rate. For Syrian refugees, unemployment rates are significantly worse with 80% of Syrian refugees unemployed in 2021, up from 50% and 65% in 2019 and 2020.

With field offices in Irbid and Azraq and a head office in Amman, ACF has been operational in Jordan since 2014, delivering livelihoods, social protection WASH and MHPSS programming in Irbid, Zarqa, Mafraq, and Madaba governorates. Through its livelihoods and social protection program, ACF aims to improve the livelihoods status of Syrian refugees and vulnerable Jordanians through decent and sustainable employment opportunities; strengthening sustainable livelihoods and value chains and enhancing the capacity of local actors to promote economic opportunities and improve working conditions. So far, ACF has reached over 4,000 beneficiaries through its social protection and livelihood activities in 2022.

ACF is an active member of the Livelihoods, Basic Needs, Food Security and Durable Solutions Working Groups; Graduation Approach and Vocational Training Taskforces; and Common Cash Facility Steering Committee. ACF is also the co-lead of the WASH Working Group, an active participant in the Mental Health and Protection Working Groups and on the steering committee of the Jordan INGO Forum. ACF is looking for its program in Jordan for MEAL (Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, and Learning) Coordinator

Work place:  Amman with 30% travel to field bases OR Irbid, Jordan with 50% travel to other field locations and Amman

Main Objectives:

The MEAL Coordinator is responsible for designing and implementing the Country Office's MEAL (Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, and Learning) strategy to maximize Action Against Hunger's impact. This includes ensuring the quality, relevance, and scalability of MEAL interventions in alignment with ACF standards and internationally recognized best practices

Objective 1: Lead the country office’s MEAL Strategy and Assessment Systems

• Lead the implementation of the country office MEAL strategy
• Work closely with the DCDP and Regional MEAL Advisor, to develop the overall framework for the Country Office Meal Programme in line with organizational standards and donor requirements
• Identify trends in data sets by program, implementation location, source, and other parameters that facilitate improvements in program quality
• Act as the Country Office focal point for activity progress reporting (APRs), and Program KPIs and monthly indicator tracking working closely with the field MEAL team and Program Managers
• Represent the MEAL team in the mission’s Coordination, leadership team

Objective 2 : Contribute to effective program development and design

• Provide inputs to the design and formulation of proposals, particularly in context/needs analysis, logframe development, beneficiary counting and the consideration of cross-cutting priorities
• Working with the Field Coordinator and Technical Heads of Department, support any rapid needs assessments and information gathering exercises to input into project designs
• Where necessary, support the Grants and Partnerships Team and Technical Heads of Department in ensuring the adequacy and coherence of partners inputs to proposal processes

Objective 3: Team Management : Supervision and Capacity Building

• Supervision and management of all direct reports
• Technical supervision, evaluation and support of direct reports
• Capacity building of direct reports and of technical reports through leading training sessions
• In collaboration with HR, manage employees life cycle of the team members from pre-recruitment to exit, including performance management processes, training and development and employee relations (such as disciplinary matters for example)
• Ensure team members have access to staff development opportunities, identify and address capacity gaps and provides ongoing counselling and support for the development of team members
• Promote the commitment to ACF Charter, values and prevention of frauds and power abuses

Objective 4: Contribute to the design of methodologies, tools and systems for the wider MEAL Department, including Information and Knowledge management

• Design and monitor the implementation of project M&E Plans.
• Support the MEAL Manager to design methodology for assessments monitoring and accountability activities.
• Lead and design methodology for evaluations
• Help ensure external data, sources and reports are shared and understood by relevant staff
• Provide M&E technical assistance to program teams and inputs into particularly the set-up, implementation and close-out stages of program management, i.e. measurement methodologies, plans and tools, and data collection, quality assurance, management and analysis;
• Work with the Information Management team to develop and apply technology solutions to M&E efforts.

Objective 5: Monitoring, Reporting and Analysis

• Conduct qualitative, quantitative and statistical analysis of the gathered monitoring data.
• Conduct spot checks on both activities and on the monitoring tools (quality assurance).
• Contribute to writing final donor reports including reporting on indicators and ensure that M&E components are addressed.
• Support as requested in the synthesis of information received through the mission’s Feedback and Complaints Mechanisms
• Organise regular data quality audits and analysis and MEAL action planning meetings to allow for timely identification and resolution of issues affecting data quality; direct corrective action as required

Objective 6: Improving Quality through Lessons Learnt, Knowledge Management and Evaluations

• Working closely with Technical Heads of Department, Program Managers and the field MEAL team, lead, facilitate, and document lessons learned workshops and reports
• Ensuring recommendations made through evaluation, learning and monitoring process integrated within program development and implementation
• Lead the evaluation process and contribute to the development of assessment and evaluation TORs, and consultancies in collaboration with Technical Heads of Department including the required administrative management
• Support Technical Heads of Department and DCDP in identifying areas/needs for technical research and development

Objective 7 Contribute to the application of principles of gender, diversity and inclusion across the Programs Department

• Work with Gender officer and respective Project Managers for the application of gender minimum standards across the programs department
• Ensure the completion of a gender analysis desk review for key technical sectors
• Review project proposals, logframes and MEAL plans to ensure gender and social inclusion are adequately considered
• Apply gender markers across the project lifecycle
• Commit and comply with the organization gender, age and diversity principles & policies (working with people, communication)