MEAL & Quality Manager in Iraq

ARBEITER-SAMARITER-BUND DEUTSCHLAND e.V.

The “Arbeiter-Samariter-Bund Deutschland (ASB)” is a German aid and welfare organization with more than 300 branches at national, regional, district and municipal level all over Germany. More than 1.4 million members provide a broad social basis for our organization and more than 40,000 employees as well as over 20,000 volunteers form part of the ASB ensuring a high level of quality in areas such as rescue services, civil protection and social services. Since its foundation in 1888, the ASB has acted as a politically and denominationally independent association ensuring a high level of continuity and reliability. ASB’s Foreign Aid Department provides both direct emergency relief to people hit by man-made or natural disasters and longer-term rehabilitation measures designed to promote recovery and to rapidly help restore the livelihood of refugees, internally displaced persons and other vulnerable people. ASB currently has a portfolio of more than 100 relief, rehabilitation, development and inclusive Disaster Risk Reduction and runs offices in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Greece, Haiti, Indonesia, Iraq, Kosovo, Nicaragua, Niger, Serbia and Ukraine.

Operational in Iraq since 2012, and with its own office structures since 2014, ASB has been committed to support refugees, IDPs and host communities in the sectors Health, WASH, Livelihoods, Education and Protection. ASB in Iraq is currently seeking expressions of interest from qualified and committed, dynamic and self-motivated individuals for the position as MEAL & Quality Manager in Iraq.

1. Purpose:

The MEAL & Quality Manager is responsible for providing guidance, technical support and capacity building, ensuring that program teams are supported to carry out their planning, monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning activities. The position contributes to overall program quality through the conceptualization, coordination, and implementation of enhanced monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning strategies, including developing high quality written products. The emphasis is on streamlining processes and tools for program reach, efficiency, effectiveness and sustainability throughout the project cycle across the various ASB sectors and departments. The MEAL & Quality Manager reports to the Country Representative, will technically supervise project staff and partner staff in the field and will closely coordinate with respective Programme Managers.

2. Roles and responsibilities:

Monitoring

• Ensuring that ASB monitoring standards are implemented for improved program quality and use of data within the organization: champion an organizational culture shift from a primary focus on indicator tracking to using data for programmatic course correction and decision making.
• Contributing to the rollout of ASB strategic initiatives related to measurement, including adapting in-country tools where needed to enable reporting against ASB HQ and donor standards and requirements.
• Developing projects specific monitoring and indicator tracking tools in consultation with program teams.
• Streamlining data flow processes, storage, management, cleaning, verification and timely reporting on program performance for all sectors.
• Leading the planning and implementation of periodic field monitoring exercises and data quality assessments including dissemination of findings and follow up of action points.

Assessment and Evaluation, Learning and Documentation

• Ensuring relevant, timely, and quality support to ASB-Iraq technical sectors on assessments, surveys and evaluations including developing data collection tools, recruitment and training of enumerators, setting up mobile devices and supervision of data collection, supporting data analysis, report writing and dissemination of findings.
• Providing technical guidance during periodic data review meetings with Program Managers as part of monitoring for action and learning.
• When appropriate/applicable, facilitating and participating in information sharing opportunities among ASB partners/donors, including requests for documentation and information from third party monitors.
• Maintaining a proper filing/archiving/storage system for all M&E resources including data collection tools, datasets, reports, SOPs, strategies among others.
• Updating and maintaining complaints and feedback mechanisms.
• Facilitate workshops and stakeholder consultations, including community consultation sessions to ensure accountability.

Supervision and Management

• Supervising and supporting a team of project officers including setting performance objectives, mentoring and coaching.
• Creating a cohesive team environment through fostering open communication and providing constructive feedback and support to all team members, identifying professional development opportunities for M&E Officers and Assistants focusing on knowledge and skills related to monitoring, evaluation and learning.
• Conducting visits to field sites to provide training, technical assistance, and support, as well as to ensure that M&E and learning tools are understood and being implemented effectively.

Communication and Reporting

• Lead regular sharing of M&E findings (verbal and/or written) with project staff.
• Contribute to Developing semi-annual and annual project progress reports.
• Facilitate collection/compiling of relevant project data for the annual reports, organisation’s websites and social media appearance, public relation products, donor reports, etc.

Other core responsibilities

• Develop comprehensive and effective collaborations with NGOs, UN Agencies, public and private sectors.
• Develop and implement various standard monitoring protocols for different programmes, research studies, and third party assignments.
• Develop proposals for conducting base line studies, process review, M+E studies and impact assessment studies for various donor/partner organizations.
• Manage field based data collection.
• Supervise data management and analysis in the required software.
• Provide consultation and input in synthesizing a process for utilizing baseline information in documentation.
• Ensure all project reports are produced on time with high quality.
• Ensure representation of ASB at all appropriate fora.

3. Qualifications – candidates shall have the following competencies and experiences:

• University degree in social science, information management, statistics, demography or other relevant fields with at least 3 years’ experience of relevant professional work experience in the field of M+E.
• Minimum of 4 years’ experience in an international NGO in similar role, with similar responsibilities.
• Demonstrated experience in direct monitoring and evaluation, specifically in the humanitarian and development sector (especially in health, nutrition, environmental health, economic recovery and development, education, women`s empowerment or related technical sectors).
• Demonstrated experience in developing tools and systems for, and capacity and skills building related to program tracking and documentation.
• Demonstrated experience in staff supervision.
• Proven knowledge of methodologies, including logical models, conceptual frameworks, and assessment/evaluation.
• Demonstrated experience of implementing beneficiary complaint and feedback mechanisms.
• High proficiency in Excel, SPSS or any other data analysis software.
• Experience with mobile data collection techniques is preferred.
• Effective, high-quality communication, writing, and interpersonal skills are essential.
• Fluent in written and spoken English.

4. Desired skills:

• Understanding of the social and political context within the Republic of Iraq including the Kurdistan Region of Iraq through previous experience working in the Republic of Iraq.
• Appreciation for socio-cultural differences in countries, preferably having lived and worked in one or more low resource settings.
• Awareness of, sensitivity to, and experience working in multiple socio-economic settings and with multi-cultural staff and groups.
• Team player, with willingness to coordinate and collaborate with all members of the ASB component, the overall project team, horizontally (between colleagues of the same level) as well as vertical (with Country Representative and Programme Manager).
• Willingness to contribute to a fast-paced team and being flexible to ever-changing contextual implementation context and the associated challenges.
• Being open to learn and to keep learning new skills, being able to innovate and conceptualize new project activities in a creative way.
• Ability to develop productive working relationships with counterparts in other agencies and organizations nationally.
• Fluent in or a working knowledge of Arabic, Kurdish and/or German is an asset.