MEAL Officer

MAG’s Vision is a safe future for women, men and children affected by violence, conflict and insecurity. People will live in communities where their rights are upheld, with dignity and choice and free from fear from mines, explosive remnants of war (ERW) and the impact of small arms and light weapons and ammunition.

MAG’s Mission is to save lives and build safer futures. We will use our core skills and distinctive competence to save lives through the removal of mines and ERW, and reduce the impact of small arms, light weapons and ammunition on people and communities. How we do this is as important as what we do – we work primarily with and for communities, for us ‘it’s all about people’.

MAG’s Values. Our values come to life through our actions, every day. How we act has an impact on others. As someone who works at MAG, you can help to create a positive culture by demonstrating our values through your own behaviour and actions. Everyone has a role to play in shaping our culture. Everyone should understand our values and is encouraged to think how they are relevant to their individual role. 

Job Purpose: 

The Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL) Officer will play a key role in MAG’s Ukraine programme. Under the leadership of the M&E Team Leader the Officer will work closely with programme, Community Liaison (CL) and technical teams to collect and analyse data, and provide insights to improve project, and impact of mine action interventions. The M&E Officer collaborates closely with field teams, partners, and stakeholders to continuously assess progress and identify challenges.

The MEAL Officer will report to the Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL) Team Leader and together the MEAL team will work closely with MAG’s Head of Programme Performance and Learning, Programme Performance and Learning Coordinator and Ukraine Senior Management Team (Country Director, Technical Operations Manager etc.) and the programme, community liaison and technical teams, contributing to the monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning of the Ukraine programme, across donors. 

The MEAL team (MEAL Officer together with the MEAL Team Leader) will be tasked with conducting MEAL for the MAG Ukraine programme, gathering and analysing data to monitor and evaluate the impact of MAG’s projects and programmes in Ukraine, contributing to internal and external evaluation processes, and producing relevant, robust case studies and learning products to share inside and outside the organisation. 

The MEAL team (MEAL Officer together with the MEAL Team Leader) will work in collaboration with programmes and technical staff to adapt project and programme delivery to improve programme performance.

Monitoring and Evaluation:

• Support the roll out of MEAL frameworks, MEAL systems and the delivery of key organisational MEAL priorities within the Ukraine programme (across different donor-funded programmes)
• Conduct data collection and data analysis on programme activities, outputs and outcomes against established indicators and targets.
• Conduct data collection efforts during surveys, interviews, and focus group discussions.
• Ensure all data collected is sex, age and disability disaggregated, [SK1] and the inclusion of Washington Group Set questions in all assessments.
• Conduct pre- clearance impact assessment when a new clearance task starts, and post-clearance impact assessment after completion of a clearance task.
• Conduct REPP Knowledge Retention surveys [CL teams will conduct the initial REPP Knowledge surveys].
• Support the MEAL Team Leader in producing an interim evaluation report, and then a final evaluation report on the impact, effectiveness, and cross-cutting outcomes of the use of technical survey dogs in mine action in Ukraine, using qualitative and quantitative tools to gather primary data, as well as drawing insights from secondary data from existing research.
• Support any additional external monitoring and evaluation processes as needed.

Programme performance:

• Support the Ukraine programme to ensure that logframes and other contract management tools are completed and in line with donor requirements.
• Assess programme performance and develop findings and recommendations. 
• Together with the MEAL Team Leader, ensure ongoing monitoring and periodic evaluation of the effectiveness of the technical survey dogs (TSD) methodology being piloted in Ukraine, and of any other relevant examples of innovation in the Ukraine programme.

Training and line management:

• Working alongside other relevant staff in the Ukraine team and the global Programmes Quality Team (PQT), support the delivery of training to build capacity of staff in monitoring, evaluation, accountability, and learning.

Accountability and Learning:

• Support documenting lessons learned from research and MEAL activities.

All staff are expected to undertake the following general duties: 

• Work within the framework of MAG’s core values, promoting its ethos and mission statement.
• Work towards achieving programme and/or department business plan objectives.
• Ensure familiarity with and adhere to all MAG policies and procedures and keep informed of MAG activities.
• Undertake and apply learning from appropriate training and development programmes.  
• Undertake the role in a manner appropriate to the cultural context and within the local legal framework.
• Understand and uphold the standards outlined in MAG’s Safeguarding Framework, acting with due care and attention to safeguard the wellbeing of anyone that comes into contact with MAG’s work and reporting concerns if they do arise.        

Essential Experience

• Proven experience in, monitoring and evaluation of projects.
• Experience of monitoring and evaluating complex projects and programmes
• Experience of carrying out qualitative and/ or qualitative data analysis.
• Experience of working on projects with government, INGO and/ or local partners.
• Experience of representing an organisation to external stakeholders in public forums and events.

Essential Skills and Knowledge

• Knowledge of different project planning tools such as the logical framework approach, Theory of Change and/or results-based management.
• Ability to work in a collegiate and collaborative manner with partners.
• Ability to design and deliver external facing materials such as presentations, blogs, statements, case studies.

Essential Aptitude

• An ability to work across and between different teams in a constructive and collaborative manner in order to achieve different goals.
• An ability to balance the granular side of contract delivery with the bigger picture of achieving and measuring long-term change.

Desirable

• Knowledge of different MEAL approaches and methodologies.
• Experience of working on development/humanitarian projects.
• Knowledge of the mine action or disarmament sector.