Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Evaluation (MEAL) Officer

£29,900 – £36,520 pa

Full time (flexible working options available)

Fixed Term Contract – 14 months

Farringdon, London/Home-based

Closing Date: 12 June 2024

Ref 6727

We are looking for a Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Evaluation (MEAL) Officer to join the Start Network within our Humanitarian Department to support the ongoing MEAL activities of our anticipation, early action and risk financing initiatives, with a particular focus on MEAL requirements for the donor ECHO.

About Us

Save the Children UK believes every child deserves a future. In the UK and around the world, we work every day to give children a healthy start in life, the opportunity to learn and protection from harm. When crisis strikes, and children are most vulnerable, we are always among the first to respond and the last to leave. We ensure children’s unique needs are met and their voices are heard. We deliver lasting results for millions of children, including those hardest to reach.

About the Team

Start Network is an independent charity made up of more than 80 aid agency members across five continents, including international, national and local organisations.

Our aim is to deliver more effective emergency aid, harnessing the power and knowledge of the network to make faster and better decisions to help people affected by crises. We advocate for radical change in the global aid system so that the world can deal better with the humanitarian challenges of today, and of the future. Our work focuses on three areas to change the system:

• Localisation – shifting power to those closest to the front line to enable more effective and appropriate responses.
• New forms of financing – providing fast, early, and dependable funding, to help communities to become more resilient to crises.
• Collective innovation – testing new ways of working and sharing learning and expertise to build a more effective humanitarian system.

The Start Funds MEAL Officer will work with colleagues within both SCUK and Start Network. Previously (until May 2019) Start Network and Start Funds and Programmes were hosted by Save the Children UK (SCUK) since its creation in 2012. The position sits within Save the Children UK as a Grant Custodian on behalf of the Start Network supported by a Grant Custodian Agreement (GCA) which describes the roles and commitments of each entity.

About the role

The Start Network funds have a robust monitoring, evaluation, accountability, and learning (MEAL) portfolio to strengthen evidence-based learning, performance and overall accountability towards the people affected by or at-risk of crises, donors, members, and partners.

Reporting to the Crisis Financing MEAL Lead, the CARF MEAL Officer will play an important role to support the ongoing MEAL activities of anticipation, early action and risk financing initiatives, with a larger focus on the impact of Start Network’s newest finance mechanism, Start Ready.

This role will particularly focus on MEAL requirements and activities funded by European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operation (ECHO) and will support and work closely with CARF MEAL Advisor and the Learning and Research Advisor (within the Evidence and Learning Team).

In this role, you will:

Performance

• Support development, monitoring, and reporting of anticipation, early action and risk financing initiatives’ Key Performance Indicators used in donor reporting, governance committee meetings and in other external fora as required, with a specific focus on MEAL requirement and activities funded by European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operation (ECHO).
• Strengthen management information systems and processes for data quality, storage and visualisation.
• Contribute towards the identification and implementation of diverse and innovative approaches to MEAL.
• Support the annual post-season learning reviews of the various Disaster Risk Financing systems.

Accountability

• Deliver and enhance Start Funds’ quality, accountability and monitoring practices to members, partners and affected populations by organising and facilitating learning debriefs and pre/post season workshops and reviewing project report forms.

Knowledge

• Contribute towards continuous improvement of technical quality, processes and outputs of CARF MEAL including, but not limited to, the development of methodological guidelines, MEAL tools and approaches.
• Produce and support various thematic research, reviews, case studies and learning products according to the CARF MEAL work plan.

Teamwork

• Liaise with Senior Strategic Partnership Officer –ECHO and programme/operational staff to support all ECHO MEAL requirements.
• Work with the Start Communications and Digital Team and the Start Programmes Communications Manager to ensure visibility, awareness, and learning, on the role and use of forecast-based information for anticipatory responses.

About you

To be successful, it is important that you have:

• Previous experience delivering MEAL in national and/or international contexts for humanitarian or development programmes.
• Previous experience of reporting on donor or funders grants (ideally ECHO Grants) in an international organisation.
• Excellent data analysis skills.
• Proven experience of embracing new approaches, technology and ways of working.
• Experience of using qualitative and quantitative analysis software.
• Experience of using Salesforce or other customer relationship management (CRM) system.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills to present data and evidence in a user-friendly form and to stakeholders at different levels.
• Demonstrable experience of strong teamwork capabilities and collaboration.
• Undergraduate degree, ideally in social science, research methods, humanitarian response or related fields.
• Language skills in either French, Spanish or Arabic.

What we offer you:

Working for a charity provides one of the best benefits there is – a sense of purpose and reward for helping others. However, we understand the importance of giving back to our employees to ensure a happy and healthy working environment and work/life balance.

• We focus on flexibility, inclusion, collaboration, health and wellbeing both in and outside of work.
• We provide a wide range of benefits which will reward your hard work, motivate you, and inspire you to work to improve the lives of children every day.

Please note: To avoid disappointment, you are advised to submit your application as soon as possible as we reserve the right to close the vacancy early if a high volume of applications are received. This is to ensure that we can manage application levels whilst maintaining a positive candidate experience. Unfortunately, once a vacancy has closed, we are unable to consider further applications.

Ways of Working:

The majority of our roles can be performed remotely in the UK, but there are likely to be times when you will be required to come to your contracted office (up to 2-4 days per month or 6-8 days per quarter). This will be agreed with your Line Manager and team and is intended to be time spent on collaborating with colleagues and relationship building.

Please note: travel costs to your contracted office will be at your own expense.

Flexible Working – We are happy to discuss flexible working options at interview**.**

Commitment to Diversity & Inclusion:

Save the Children UK believes in a world that is fair, inclusive and equitable where all children have the opportunity to change their world. We apply this to our workforce and we are committed to developing and supporting a diverse, equitable, and inclusive organisation where all employees have a sense of belonging and feel that they can be “Free to Be Me”. We are not looking for just one type of person – we want to recruit people who can add fresh perspectives, innovative ideas or challenge that disrupts the risk of group think.

We are especially interested in people whose childhood experiences – of life on a low income, of migration, of being in a racialised community, of the care system, of being LGBT+ or in an LGBT+ family or living with (or with someone with) a disability – help us to see things we might otherwise miss. Whatever your story is we want to hear it because we know that different voices, ideas, perspectives and knowledge, working together will enable us to better the lives of children around the world. This is the reason why we are all here.