MERL Manager at Plan International

Plan International is a leading girls and children’s rights organization.

Plan strives for a just world that advances children’s rights and equality for girls. We motivate our people and partners to:

• empower children, young people and communities to make vital changes that tackle the root causes of discrimination against girls, exclusion and vulnerability
• drive change in practice and policy at local, national and global levels through our reach, experience and knowledge of the realities children face
• work with children and communities to prepare for and respond to crises, and to overcome adversity
• support the safe and successful progression of children from birth to adulthood

 

Plan operates in 77 countries around the world. It brings its support to millions of children, their families and communities, mainly in Africa, Asia, Middle East, and South America. It implements projects in the Health, Water and Sanitation, Education, Child Protection, Sustainable Livelihood, and cross-cultural communication. Child sponsorship forms the basis of our work with children. Worth to mention, Plan International global ambition is to support 100 million girls learn, lead, decide and thrive!

 

As part of its commitment to support Plan International Federation reach 100 million girls so to Learn, Lead, Decide and Thrive, Plan International Liberia has developed a new country strategy which will for the next five years (2019 to 2024) focus on reaching 600,000 marginalized girls and children all over the country, with a strong commitment to work with partners at various levels to put an end to violence against girls and young women including Child Early Forced Marriage and Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and other norms and practices that hinder their development and empowerment.

 

Plan International Liberia is committed to ensuring that Child Protection and Youth Safeguarding, Gender Transformative programming and Influencing are key and an integral part of all its work in the country.

 

Dimensions of Role

• Supports quality implementation of the Country Strategy, programme and project designing, annual planning, and accompanies the entire project cycles.
• Lead the designing of in-country MERL capacity building plan and contributes to the regional Hub MERL network;
• Manage MERL related relations and partnerships with other agencies and government institutions
• Accountable for quality planning, monitoring, evaluation, research, and learning for Plan in the country;
• Facilitate and support Country Strategy design, implementation, and reviews
• Manage the Planning and Monitoring Specialist, the Evaluation and Research Specialist, the programme unit (PU) based MER Officers and the M&E Project Officers.
• Responsible for meeting all Global and regional MERL minimum standards to enable programme quality: ensure all M&E plans for grant funded projects are in line with the M&E minimum requirements for projects.
• Responsible for programmatic management of SAP in terms of CS, CP, Annual Plans and Projects.

Typical Responsibilities – Key End Results of Position

Plan International Liberia can provide evidence on the results and effectiveness of their Country Strategy

• Lead the development of the MERL framework for Country Strategy and model MERL framework for Annual Planning
• Lead programme and project Evaluations and consistently incorporate or translate Evaluation recommendations into ongoing PIL programmes
• Provide technical support in the design, planning and implementation of projects
• Lead baseline studies, needs assessments and evaluations
• Lead the dissemination of research information and documents at national level
• Lead the development of the Terms of Reference for all Evaluations, Baselines, Needs Assessments and Researches
• Coordinate the identification and selection of consultants for PIL MERL activities.
• Document lessons learnt and best practice for wider dissemination and sharing within and outside the Organization.
• Ensures proper archiving of PIL MERL documents for effective Knowledge management
• Ensure all strategic documents and projects are in SAP and sections including PO Log and PCR and properly filled and on time.
• Lead the translation of AOGDs in PIL CS, Country Programmes and Projects

 

High quality and evidence based programmes and projects through excellent planning, monitoring, evaluation and research practices and knowledge management

• Dissemination of approved Country Strategy, Country Programs, Annual Plans and Projects
• Ensure that all projects have M and E framework and MERL documents and meet Plan International’s MERL standards, policy and procedures
• Develop and manage programme data base for information storage and sharing
• Identify research opportunities
• Ensure that all research and evaluation initiatives comply with Plan global standards (including publications)
• Prepare management responses for evaluations
• Conduct annual quality analysis of all evaluation reports against criteria defined in the evaluation standards and identify trends in findings for review and follow up by Senior Management
• Set up and implement knowledge management plan for the MERL unit
• Put in place a mechanism to collect good practices and lessons learnt from programme implementation
• Share annually at least one good practice or lesson learnt with the regional MERL network and contribute regularly to discussions and announcements on the WACA MERL workspace
• Ensure collaboration with other agencies and manage partnerships for MERL related purposes
• Develop MERL tools and templates to support programme implementation

 

Plan programme staff and partners have increased MERL capacity

• Support staff capacity building in M and E practices for effective and quality reporting
• Set clear objectives and develop strategy for MER unit including budget
• Conduct MER capacity assessment with relevant positions at PU, CO and partner level to identify gaps/ training needs
• Develop and organize the implementation of a MER capacity building plan for the country
• Facilitate the integration of program and sponsorship and provide support in the implementation of primarily sponsorship programme commitments 1-5 (6-10).
• Organize periodic M and E review meetings or sessions with M and E staff and Project Teams

 

Dealing with Problems

Complexity of problems handled & the degree of investigation, analysis, & creative thinking required to solve them

Monitoring, Evaluation, Research, and Learning (MERL) are crucial components for ensuring high quality outcomes and impact in rights based programming. Barriers that the MERL manager will have to deal with include:

• The increasing demand for high quality MERL by donors.
• The low manpower capacity in the MERL Unit at CO and PIIA level, hence, the quality of M&E in sponsorship and certain grants projects is low.
• There misconceptions and lack of clarity on role of the MERL unit among program staff.

 

The MER manager needs to be able to:

• Orientate staff on MERL standards, practices and activities to convince other staff of the benefits of implementing high quality MERL;
• Be capable of driving organizational change regarding MERL practices; and
• Communicate concisely on what needs to be done in terms of MERL.

 

Communications and Working Relationships

High level contact:  Internal:  Country Office and PIIA/PU level programme team, in particular the other members of the MERL unit;  External: Partners and consultants

Medium level contact: Country Office operations team, the Regional Hub MERL Network, children and young people.

Low level contact:    Plan’s fundraising National Offices, Global Hub staff.

 

Knowledge, Skills, and Behaviours Required to Achieve Role’s Objectives:

Knowledge

• Understanding of integrated development issues and critical analysis of child poverty
• Knowledge of theories of child-rights programming and child protection (programmatic and safe-guarding)
• Knowledge of development issues, trends, challenges and opportunities and implications to community development
• Demonstrated experience as a development professional in planning, implementing, monitoring and evaluating programs/ projects
• Knowledgeable on participatory M&E tools and systems
• Knowledgeable on tool design for qualitative and quantitative research
• Knowledge of strategic planning processes
• Demonstrated experience in team management

 

Qualifications

• Master degree in statistics, demography, measurement, planning, monitoring & evaluation, development studies, social sciences or other relevant fields;
• At least 6 years of progressively responsible experience in design, planning, monitoring, evaluation and research in international development, preferably in education, health, child protection, household economic security, DRM, gender and inclusion.

 

Skills

• Strong planning and organizational skills
• Skills in managing decentralized teams
• Skills in managing qualitative and quantitative data collections
• Working experience in community participation in development/programming
• Skills for data base management (design, entry, analysis)
• Strong analytical skills
• Ability to deliver to tight deadlines
• Demonstrated facilitation and active listening skills

• Strong facilitation and coaching skills
• Solid writing skills (report writing, concept paper writing etc.)

• Skills in using Microsoft Office and other software applications relevant to MER (e.g. MAXQDA, STATA, SPSS, epi-info, CS Pro or similar)

 

Behaviours

• Coaches and builds capacity of staff
• Promotes innovation and learning
• Communicates clearly and effectively
• Strong team building and motivational skills
• Demonstrates clear respect to all and especially children and women without discrimination
• Involves others in setting and achieving goals
• Demonstrates honesty and transparency in holding self and others to account to deliver on agreed goals and Plan’s standards of behaviour
• Balances future vision with practical delivery
• Acts as a team player, willing to get the best outcome overall, adjusting own priorities if necessary
• Promotes a strong learning culture in the organisation
• Remains calm and positive under pressure and in difficult situations

 

Physical Environment and Demands

Typical office environment with 30% travel to program units. There will be occasional travel to other Plan International Country Offices for peer assist purposes.

 

Level of Contact with Children

The position will be based at the Country Office and level of contact with children is medium.

 

Behaviours (Plan International’s values in practice)

 

We are open and accountable

• Promotes a culture of openness and transparency, including with sponsors and donors.
• Holds self and others accountable to achieve the highest standards of integrity.
• Consistent and fair in the treatment of people.
• Open about mistakes and keen to learn from them.
• Accountable for ensuring we are a safe organisation for all children, girls & young people.

 

We strive for lasting impact

• Articulates a clear purpose for staff and sets high expectations.
• Creates a climate of continuous improvement, open to challenge and new ideas.
• Focuses resources to drive change and maximise long-term impact, responsive to changed priorities or crises.
• Evidence-based and evaluates effectiveness.

 

We work well together

• Seeks constructive outcomes, listens to others, willing to compromise when appropriate.
• Builds constructive relationships across Plan International to support our shared goals.
• Develops trusting and ‘win-win’ relationships with funders, partners and communities.
• Engages and works well with others outside the organization to build a better world for girls and all children.

 

We are inclusive and empowering

• Seeks constructive outcomes, listens to others, willing to compromise when appropriate.
• Builds constructive relationships across Plan International to support our shared goals.
• Develops trusting and ‘win-win’ relationships with funders, partners and communities.
• Engages and works well with others outside the organization to build a better world for girls and all children.

 

Location:                 Country Office, Monrovia

Grade:                      D2

Department:            Program Department

Reports to:              Deputy Country Director for Programmes

Closing Date:          May 13, 2022

 

Early application is encouraged as we will review applications throughout the advertising period and reserve the right to close the advert early. A range of pre-employment checks will be undertaken in conformity with Plan International’s Safeguarding Children and Young People policy. Plan follows an equal opportunity policy and actively encourages diversity welcoming applications from all especially women and people living with disability. As an international child centred community development organisation, Plan International is fully committed to promoting the realisation of children’s rights including their right to protection from violence and abuse. That means we have particular responsibilities to children that we come into contact with.

 

Plan International believes that in a world where children face so many threats of harm, it is our duty to ensure that we, as an organisation, do everything we can to keep children safe. We must not contribute in any way to harming or placing children at risk. Equality, diversity and inclusion is at the very heart of everything that Plan International stands for. Our organisation is based on a culture of inclusivity and we strive to create a workplace environment that ensures every team, in every office, in every country, is rich in diverse people, thoughts, and ideas. We will provide equality of opportunity and will not tolerate discrimination on any grounds. We foster an organisational culture that embraces and exemplifies our commitment to gender equality, girls’ rights and inclusion while supporting staff to adopt good practice, positive attitudes and principles of gender equality and inclusion.