MEAL Coordinator (Program Manager I)

Catholic Relief Services a Development Organization is seeking qualified, experienced, and highly motivated MEAL Coordinator (Program Manager I) who will provide leadership within the Cameroon and Chad country programs (CP) to strengthen organizational and staff capacity to design and implement effective monitoring, evaluation, learning, and accountability systems that advance Catholic Relief Services’ (CRS) work in serving the poor and vulnerable. The MEAL Coordinator will provide technical assistance to staff and partners to ensure that CRS MEAL Policies and Procedures are followed, projects/programs are monitored as needed, scopes of work for evaluations reflect key learning questions, high quality external or internal evaluators undertake evaluations, recommendations are adopted, and lessons learned are disseminated through the country programs and the CRS MEAL community of practice.

With funding from American, German, UN donors, and Caritas donors (including CRS private funding), the CRS portfolios in Cameroon and Chad are focused on emergency response, health, livelihoods, social cohesion, and protection programming. CRS/Cameroon currently has around 50 staff operating out of 4 offices in Yaounde, Bamenda, Maroua, and Mokolo. CRS Chad has around 30 staff operating in offices in N’Djamena, Bol, and Abéché.

The position is based in Yaoundé / Cameroon

Primary Responsibilities:

• Manage and implement all MEAL activities throughout relevant project cycles – project design, start-up, implementation and close-out – to ensure efficient and effective implementation in line with CRS program quality principles and standards and MEAL policies, procedures and practices, donor MEAL requirements, and industry good practices. Ensure project team and partner staff use the appropriate MEAL systems and tools.
• Champion learning with project staff and partner teams. Analyze and evaluate project performance data following MEAL policy and industry good practices, including use of differential and inferential statistics (quantitative data), and content and trends analysis (qualitative data). Proactively identify issues and concerns and use participatory processes to overcome implementation obstacles, encouraging reflection on key issues, assumptions, and themes to identify and address gaps in learning. Promote the application of learning to improve program quality and to strengthen agency influence among external stakeholders.
• Act as a key resource person for MEAL in project design and proposal development, gap-filling and taking on growth responsibilities, as needed. Support the design of project-level theories of change, results frameworks, Proframes (logical frameworks), and MEAL narratives, including the identification of key indicators of change and appropriate methods for data collection and use.
• Lead or support the development and roll-out of project-level MEAL systems, including Performance Monitoring Plans or Performance Indicator Reference Sheets, Indicator Performance Tracking Tables, data collection instruments, Feedback and Response Mechanisms, and Detailed Implementation Plans which are appropriate to the scope and context of the projects.
• Coordinate the implementation of monitoring and accountability activities and processes (including ICT4MEAL and FCRM) according to the Detailed Implementation Plan and MEAL system. Ensure the quality of monitoring data through annual data quality assessments. Support active seeking and responding to feedback from all members of targeted communities and other stakeholders.
• Contribute to evaluation events in through the development of terms of reference that include a balance of qualitative and quantitative methods, and the necessary level of technical rigor. Assure the quality of evaluation data through good data management. As required, support the identification, recruitment, and management of external evaluators to ensure high quality evaluation and learning.
• Represent the organization with donors, INGO working groups, UN, relevant local partners and relevant local government and community actors, as requested. Help identify, assess, and strengthen partnerships relevant to MEAL, appropriately applying of partnership concepts, tools, and approaches.
• Coordinate the identification of MEAL-related staff capacity and technical assistance needs of partner organizations and capacity strengthening and required interventions to support quality project implementation. Optimize partner participation and capacity development in the implementation of MEAL systems.
• Coordinate and monitor financial and material resources relevant to project MEAL needs. Through planning and oversight ensure efficient use of project resources for MEAL.

Qualifications and Experience:

• Master’s degree in international development, International Relations, Statistics, or in the field of MEAL required. Additional experience may substitute for some education.
• Minimum of 5 years of relevant field-based experience in coordinating or managing light to moderately complex projects required, preferably with an international NGO. Minimum of 3 years MEAL-related experience required.
• Experience in data collection, including survey design and training enumerators.
• Understanding and experience with data management, including database design.
• Strong experience analyzing data, including both qualitative and quantitative methods, and experience with appropriate software.
• Experience contributing to the development of technical proposals and evaluation reports.
• Extensive experience using MS Windows and MS Office packages (Excel, Word, PowerPoint), Web Conferencing Applications, information management systems.
• Understanding of donor expectations and trends for MEAL, especially by key donors, particularly US government donors.
• Experience engaging with partner organizations.
• Experience working with stakeholders at various levels and strengthening community partnerships.
• Experience with CommCare preferred.

Required Languages

• Fluency in oral and written communication French and English.

Personal Skills

• Strong critical thinking and creative problem-solving skills with ability to make sound judgment.
• Strong relationship management skills and the ability to work effectively with culturally diverse groups.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills with ability to write reports.
• Proactive, results-oriented, and service-oriented
• Attention to details, accuracy and timeliness in executing assigned responsibilities.

Required Travel: The position will be based in Yaounde, Cameroon. The position will require travel (30%) in Cameroon and Chad.

Disclaimer: This job description is not an exhaustive list of the skill, effort, duties, and responsibilities associated with the position.