MEAL Officer

Lebanon continues to face a prolonged economic and social crisis, further aggravated by the 2024 hostilities, which severely damaged agricultural land, MSMEs, local infrastructure, and basic services, particularly in South Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley. In response, the Economic Recovery Project, funded by the Agence Française de Développement (AFD), aims to support an inclusive, sustainable, and climate-resilient recovery in conflict-affected areas. Implemented by a consortium led by WeWorld, together with LRI, FJPII, IECD, and The Nawaya Network. John Paul II Foundation will focus on the pillar of Rehabilitating agricultural land, water infrastructure, and ecosystems, and promoting climate-smart, market-oriented agriculture.

John Paul II foundation is looking to hire one MEAL officer for the cooperative empowerment program in south of Lebanon:

The Cooperative Empowerment Program aims to develop agricultural and food processing cooperatives in the project target areas, to improve the ability of farmers and food processors to cooperate to achieve common goals, in compliance with democratic decision-making processes, good governance, transparency and accountability, favoring common initiatives that enhance the concept "unity is strength", and the value of developing complementarities and synergies to enhance individual skills, visions and resources, placed at the service of a community of people. The program adopts a highly inclusive and participatory approach. The activities to be done during the program are supported by JPII community mobilizer and a pool of experts, enabling a qualitative design from both the technical and the managerial aspect. The support for the finalization of cooperative Business Plan, Investment Plan, Action Plan and Inclusion Plan are essential parts of the task of the community mobilizer.

MAIN RESPONSIBILITIES

1. System Design& Promoting MEAL

• Lead on the development and manage the implementation of an organisational MEAL system, ensuring accountability to donors and beneficiaries.

• Promote all aspects of MEAL to support the creation of an organisational culture which prioritises quality programming.
• Develop or adapt projects specific MEAL tools including monitoring, evaluation& capitalization of lessons learned.
• Design mechanism to ensure quality of the data to be analysed; considering any data cleaning/wrangling needed before the process of analysis.
• Build strong relationships with colleagues and provide technical assistance to ensure MEAL system is understood and supported by the teams at field level.
• Support Programme/Project Managers in the proposal development process in terms of MEAL input (log frames, budgeting for MEAL activities, MEAL narrative plan, etc.).
• Provide technical assistance during the implementation of the MEAL planned activities at local levels; in particular, in the collection of quantitative and qualitative information.

2. Data Analysis& Reporting

• Perform data analysis and update programme documents such as the indicator performance tracking tool, logframe & project reports.
• Participate in the different workshop and meetings related to the types of analysis that can be produced from the different components of projects.

• Execute regular field monitoring visits and circulate to the country office team reports, ensuring that action plans are included and followed up.
• Ensure external accountability to donors through the implementation of timely and quality MEAL activities leading to timely and accurate reporting.
• Ensuring structured reporting through digital monitoring platforms and reporting tools (such as ActivityInfo or similar results-based management dashboards used by institutions like the Ministry of Agriculture)
• Ensure that high quality analysis reports are produced and communicated at appropriate events.

3. Team Management

• Organize and conduct training, workshop and capacity building on related topics when needed
• Ensure capacity building and participation of  FGPII in the relevant MEAL activities.
• Oversee the administrative/logistics duties of the MEAL activities under her/his responsibilities.
• Any other subject that might require his/her support in the mission as per request of his/her line manager.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

The following may be acquired through a combination of formal or self‐education, prior experience or on‐the‐job training:

• University degree in social sciences, international cooperation, politics and international affairs, statistics, or related disciplines.

Essential Requirements

• Minimum 2-3 years of experience within (I)NGOs in the programs/MEAL department and has concrete and proven experience with Monitoring and Evaluation activities, specifically in the development and humanitarian context.
• High proficiency in mobile data collection tools such as KoboToolBox, ODK, Survey123 is mandatory.
• High proficiency in Microsoft Office 365 (especially Excel, Word and Outlook) is mandatory.
• Proven technical skills in monitoring and evaluation and experience with both qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis is mandatory.
• Good analytical and writing skills and good capacity to produce high-quality reports in English is mandatory.
• High proficiency in English and Arabic is mandatory.

Skills and Abilities

• Proven communication, interpersonal, negotiation, and diplomacy skills
• Proven organizational skills and ability to effectively manage multiple tasks
• Ability to multi-task and cope with competing demands under tight deadlines
• Ability to think strategically and conceptually and to translate these into concrete results
• Capacity to work autonomously and in problem prevention/resolution
• Integrity in line with Humanitarian Principles and ethical standards
• Cultural, gender, religion, age, disability sensitivity and adaptability
• Strong commitment to FGPII mission and values

Desirable:

• Previous experience in working in agricultural development projects.
• Demonstrated experience in developing data collection tools and methodologies is preferred.
• Demonstrated experience in implementing Feedback & Complaint Response Mechanisms is preferred.

SELECTION CRITERIA

CVs will be pre-selected according to their coherence with the required below criteria:

1. Administrative compliance

• Documentation complete (CV, cover letter)
• Language of application as required
• Respect of deadlines

2. Technical criteria

• Degrees, and qualifications
• Years of experience related to the job
• Experience related to MEAL in agricultural development projects
• Experience in dealing with farmer and producers communities
• Working knowledge of English and Arabic