Senior MEAL Education Officer

Job Description

Background/IRC Summary:

The International Rescue Committee responds to the world’s worst humanitarian crises and helps people to survive and rebuild their lives. Founded in 1933 at the request of Albert Einstein, IRC offers life-saving care and life-changing assistance to refugees forced to flee from war or disaster. At work today in more than 40 countries and in 22 U.S. cities, IRC restores safety, dignity, and hope to millions who are uprooted by conflict or disaster. IRC leads the way from harm to home.

The Ukraine crisis could become the worst humanitarian crisis Europe has seen in decades. More than 5.3 million people have fled across borders to seek safety in the 1st month since the escalation of conflict in Ukraine on February 24, 2022, and over 6.5 million people are reported to be displaced. Reports indicate almost all arrivals in Poland are women and children, including those that are unaccompanied and separated, as well as older persons.

Between February 7-23, 2022, an IRC team undertook a scoping mission covering Poland and Ukraine to better understand the context, humanitarian and civil society landscape, and anticipated service gaps in the event of an escalation of conflict in Ukraine and consequent displacement into neighboring Poland. As of February 24th, the IRC has pivoted to emergency response, and has identified partner agencies in Ukraine and Poland to facilitate immediate assistance that can be used where it is most needed. Simultaneously, the IRC has established operations across Ukraine and Poland offering a robust humanitarian response to complement partner response services either in breadth or scale.

Key working relationships:

• Position Reports to: MEAL Coordinator, dotted line to Education coordinator

• Position directly supervises: NA

• Internal collaborations within IRC: Education Coordinator; Partnership Specialist, Education Manager; Partnerships Coordinator, MEAL Coordinator

• External collaborations to IRC: Education and information services actors, organizations, and agencies

Job Overview: The Senior EDU M&E Officer will support the EDU program team in developing, managing, and strengthening monitoring and evaluation efforts of the IRC program in Poland with the aim of ensuring high program quality in line with international humanitarian standards and responsiveness to beneficiary needs in a rapidly changing context. The Senior EDU M&E Officer will support the development and maintenance of a robust monitoring system that facilitates both accountability and learning and includes but not limited to data collection, analysis, learning reflection and timely action-taking. Specifically, the Senior EDU M&E Officer will be responsible for:

1) Monitoring, Data Collection and Analysis: Working with EDU team to monitor program activities in Poland, specifically:

- Support the implementation of Education and Early Childhood Development activities according to the program’s M&E plan and adherence to IRC’s monitoring standards

- Support the program teams in designing/updating M&E tools, as well as in guiding data collection and analysis as required

- Plan, manage, and conduct periodic visits to data collection in program sites

- Lead the preparation of data for M&E reports

- Carry out regular data quality audits (DQAs)

- Ensure data received from the field teams is correctly entered into the program trackers on a regular basis - gather, consolidate, clarify errors and clean the program data

- Ensure accurate and regular data entry and review, including robust analysis and identification of trends, following the EDU information management protocols and standards set out by IRC (full training will be given to the successful applicant)

- Maintain the EDU information management system and ensure safe and accurate documentation, filing, storing and usage of information

- Work closely with EDU Coordinator/Managers to develop electronic data collection for program tracker, rapid assessments, and EDU monitoring

- Share weekly the updated Program Data and Indicator tracker with EDU Team, alongside a brief trends analysis report to guide EDU activities and inform programming

- Ensure all hard copy of case management and activities files are securely stored (i.e. in strong lockable file cabinets where appropriate)

- Support with information management with regards to distributions and all other program activities, leading on ensuring that data is collected and used as appropriate

2) Assessments

- Coordinate with EDU Coordinator and Managers in consolidating of Terms of References for assessments, surveys, and evaluation by working together with sector TAs.

- Coordinate with EDU staff ( and partners when relevant) in developing and reviewing tools

3) Accountability: Working with MEAL Coordinator and Client Responsiveness and Senior Feedback Mechanism Officer will ensure a client responsiveness system is set up in EDU programs.

- Ensures that a proper complaints and feedback mechanism is in place and that all project stakeholders are sensitized on how to use the complaints mechanism

- Manage and follow up on project complaints from CRM database and work with Team to ensure all feedback are completed

- Ensure that participation and accountability activities are well documented, and learning is shared within IRC and implementing partners

4) Reporting: Based on emerging needs in Ukraine, work with potential partners/partners to design quality and responsive EDU interventions, specifically:

- Submit monthly program data and indicator tracking reports and analysis to the EDU and MEAL Coordinator and Managers, in-line with safety and ethical standards

- Compile, edit, and write monthly and quarterly EDU program reports using assigned template, including collating reports from field staff and producing final information products

- Other duties as requested by the EDU or MEAL Coordinator

5) Capacity strengthening and learning: Provide individual support to program staff in areas of data collection, specifically

- Orient and mentor partner M&E and program staff on EDU M&E system as per MEAL Plan.

- Support/Deliver M&E/data base/ data collection trainings

- Design jointly with program staff beneficiary/client feedback on services to improve program quality, managing data collectors, and

- Conduct learning sessions with clients and staff, presenting to them the results of beneficiary feedback.

- Prepare, participate in, and support follow-up of data review meetings that serve to discuss program progress and use data to inform decision-making for program adaptation

- Ensure that IRC meets its internal and external accountability commitments through the development and implementation of accountability mechanisms appropriate for the rapidly evolving context and including a beneficiary feedback and response mechanism to be utilized by program teams.

- Promote a learning environment that include regular discussions on lessons learned, best practices, and knowledge sharing between programs and within programs between different offices.

Requirements:

- Language: English required; desired, Ukrainian

- Bachelor’s degree in relevant field including Education, Psychology, Social work, social sciences, development economics, or related field)

- Minimum of 3 years’ experience in developing and implementing M&E plans data collection and analysis, and thorough knowledge of M&E and EDU principles, methods and approaches

- Thorough understanding of project cycle management processes

- Knowledge of quantitative and qualitative data collection tools

- Demonstrated understanding of and ability to maintain confidentiality and respect for clients/beneficiaries

- Experience within international organizations a distinct advantage

- Positive and professional attitude, including ability to lead and work well in a team setting

- High degree of flexibility and strong ability to organize work, meet deadlines, maintain composure, prioritize work under pressure, coordinate multiple tasks and maintain attention to detail

- Experience in data/information management and quantitative analysis, statistical software such as SPSS, or Stata is preferred, but not required.

- Professional MS Office skills, especially Excel

Professional Standards: IRC staff must adhere to the values and principles outlined in IRC Way – Global Standards for Professional Conduct. These are Integrity, Service, Accountability and Equality. In accordance with these values, IRC operates and carries out policies on Beneficiary Protection from Exploitation and Abuse, Child Safeguarding, Anti-Workplace Harassment, Respect at Work Fiscal Integrity, and Anti-Retaliation.

Accountability to Clients: IRC staff must adhere to the commitment of contributing to the sustainability and development of its (CR) Client Responsiveness Mechanisms, preserving the culture of prioritizing the needs of our clients and affected communities by systematically listening to their perspectives and using their feedback to make programmatic decisions and give them greater influence over program design and delivery.

Gender Equality: IRC is committed to narrowing the gender gap in leadership positions. We offer benefits that provide an enabling environment for women to participate in our workforce including parental leave, gender-sensitive security protocols and other supportive benefits and allowances.

Diversity and Inclusion: At IRC we are passionate about creating an inclusive workplace that promotes and values diversity. Organizations that are diverse in age, gender identity, race, sexual orientation, physical or mental ability, ethnicity, nationality, and perspective are validated to be better organizations. More importantly, creating a safe workspace environment where everyone, from any background, can do their best is the right thing to do. So, bring your whole self to work.

IRC is committed to creating a diverse, inclusive, respectful, and safe work environment where all persons are treated fairly, with dignity and respect. In keeping with our core values of Integrity, Service, Accountability and Equality, IRC strives to maintain a work environment built on mutual respect in which all individuals treat each other professionally, and free of bias, prejudice, and harassment. IRC expressly prohibits and will not tolerate discrimination, harassment, retaliation, or bullying of IRC Persons in any work setting. All IRC staff, wherever they are located, are accountable for creating an environment free of discrimination, harassment, bullying, and retaliation.

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Qualifications