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

  1. 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

    2. 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

      3. 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