Planning, Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting (PMER) Senior Officer - Lebanon

Organizational Context

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) is the world’s largest humanitarian organization, with a network of 192-member National Societies. The overall aim of the IFRC is “to inspire, encourage, facilitate, and promote at all times all forms of humanitarian activities by National Societies with a view to preventing and alleviating human suffering and thereby contributing to the maintenance and promotion of human dignity and peace in the world.” The IFRC works to meet the needs and improve the lives of vulnerable people before, during and after disasters, health emergencies and other crises. The IFRC is part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement (Movement), together with its member National Societies and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The work of the IFRC is guided by the following fundamental principles: humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity, and universality. The IFRC is led by its Secretary General, and has its Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. The Headquarters are organized into three main Divisions: (i) National Society Development and Operations Coordination; (ii) Global Relations, Humanitarian Diplomacy and Digitalization; and (iii) Management Policy, Strategy and Corporate Services. The IFRC has five regional offices in Africa, Asia Pacific, Middle East and North Africa, Europe, and the Americas. The IFRC also has country cluster delegation and country delegations throughout the world. Together, the Geneva Headquarters and the field structure (regional, cluster and country) comprise the IFRC Secretariat. The Lebanon country office based in Beirut; supports the Lebanese Red Cross and the Palestinian Red Crescent -Lebanon branch. IFRC country office support is provided at strategic and operational levels. The position holder will be located at the IFRC country office in Beirut, Lebanon. While the person will work closely and be considered as part of the workforce led by LRC, S/he will report to the Head of country office and be responsible for reporting outputs of the country office. The position will have a technical line to the regional PMER manager.

Job Purpose

As a member of the Lebanon Country office, the overall purpose of this position is to support the operational planning, monitoring, evaluation and reporting for the Lebanon operations. This includes all actions to ensure quality and timely delivery of emergency appeal planning, and reporting documents (revisions, operation updates, pledge-based reports, among others), as well as monitoring and evaluation. There is also ample scope to support and assist the National Society planning team and the future development of that team.

Job Duties and Responsibilities

Capacity Building – Primary purpose of job profile!

• Support, advise and guide on strengthening PMER capacities of LRC through systems development, coaching and mentoring and other capacity strengthening initiatives.
• Promote the awareness and understanding of the shared responsibility of M& E function among all LRC managers through communication, training, learning and development activities LRC-wide.

And as such work closely with LRC on:

• Develop training materials and provide appropriate training for LRC staff to fulfil their PMER responsibilities
• Facilitate in PMER related training for relevant LRC staff and volunteers and
• Guide on PMER capacity assessment at all levels of the operation.

Planning

• Together with the Head of Country Office, lead the revision of the emergency appeal/emergency plans of action, including compilation, quality control and final editing of the package, adhering standard planning guidelines shared by the MENA Region.
• Promote and facilitate evidence-based programme design (including technical inputs on the change pathway and logical framework for plans, concept notes and proposals) in close collaboration with IFRC and LRC programme and finance staff.
• Actively support the building and maintenance of technical working groups, their cohesive ToR’s, meeting minutes, support their growth and provide oversight to keep them on track to strategic outputs of the host NS. Through the WG’s, harmonize standard approaches to reporting and to the development of indicators, country wide and across all sectors.
• Champion the WG’s as a space for setting standards in technical excellence and achieving the strategic goals of the NS.
• Contribute towards programme development, developing theory of change, LFA, result chain and indicator development.
• Contribute to the development of proposals for the country office ensuring cohesion in targets across all programs.

Monitoring & evaluation

• Work with MENA regional PMER team to support application of appropriate, useful and relevant monitoring and evaluation framework by LRC.
• Develop and implement effective, traceable, accountable, and evidence-based monitoring and evaluation tools for LRC operations.
• Led a monthly coordination meeting for Lebanon with the MENA colleagues to ensure all projects are adequately tracked and remain on schedule against the reporting schedules.
• Guide and maintain quality and accountability standards for the LRC/IFRC operations.
• Ensure that evaluations of LRC programmes are designed and implemented to IFRC quality standards, and the results are disseminated in a timely fashion to stakeholders, to improve programme performance, contribute to wider learning, and develop / strengthen credibility towards partners.
• Advise the Head of Country Office and Head of Operations in the identification of potential implementation problems and bottlenecks and recommend appropriate actions to address them.
• Identify and formulate lessons learned and document best practices from review meetings, field visits, evaluations and studies to be integrated into project reports.
• Facilitate the effective use of relevant learning and knowledge for evidence-based programme

Reporting

• Work with LRC for delivering timely, reliable and quality and information on the achievement of planned targets and results under the Lebanon operational plans, and subsequent pledge based reports.
• Develop and maintain a tracker of operational due and overdue reports, in liaison with finance, PRD and PMER teams in the regional office.
• Provide hands-on technical assistance to LRC PMER specifically with regards to data collection, reporting and analysis
• Ensure Documents’ coherence (plans and reports) with the financial documents (budgets and reports).
• Support the Planning unit in LRC in developing accurate, quality, and timely standard and pledge-based narrative reports for donors, working closely with PRCS and IFRC finance staff to ensure coherence between narrative and financial reports and ensure that PRCS applies results-based systems for planning, performance measurement, tracking, learning and accountability.
• Support the development of systematic documentation processes for best practices and lessons learnt based on programme approaches relevant to the implementation of supported interventions or PRCS.
• Support LRC in setting up and maintaining a common electronic and hard copy system for access to key documents such as M&E tools, tracking and reporting forms, monitoring reports, proposals, donor requirements and reports, evaluations and other program information.

Other

• Support the country office with other PMER related duties in other emergencies, as needed, to ensure business continuity

Duties applicable to all staff

1. Actively work towards the achievement of the Federation Secretariat’s goals
2. Abide by and work in accordance with the Red Cross and Red Crescent principles
3. Perform any other work related duties and responsibilities that may be assigned by the line manager

Education

Bachelor’s degree in social sciences, international development, or related field - required 

Further training in PMER or related area - required 

Experience

• Minimum of 5 years relevant experience in PMER for an international organisation - required 
• Strong interest in humanitarian and development work - required 
• Knowledge of IFRC and National Society operating environment - preferred

Knowledge, skills and languages

• Strong background in report-writing and product delivery to tight deadlines - required
• Ability to write, edit and analyse complex reports in both English and Arabic - required
• Sound background of social research methodologies, including a highly developed analytical and communication skills and ability to assimilate and process information for wide-ranging audiences - required
• Excellent computer skills. (e.g. Microsoft Outlook, Word, Excel, Adobe Acrobat) - required
• Ability to perform page-layout, incorporating text, photos and other graphic elements for a printed page - required
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills in English - required
• Sound understanding of basic project finance (e.g. ability to explain variance between budgeted and actual expenditure) - required
• Knowledge and commitment to Red Cross Red Crescent Fundamental Principles, and ability to model those Principles in relationships with colleagues and partners and translate them to development practice - required
• Basic understanding of legal framework of humanitarian operations, as well as gender, protection, social or human vulnerability issues - required
• Excellent inter-personal skills and cultural sensitivity - required
• Ability to work well under pressure and a willingness to work on weekends and during holidays if required - required

Languages

• Fluency in English and Arabic - required
• French language skills - preferred

Competencies and values

• Drive for results
• Orientation to attention to details
• Strong time management and organisational skills
• Self-motivated, with good judgment and initiative
• Able to work with others under stress sometimes with limited access to basic facilities
• Strong interpersonal skills and ability to motivate colleagues to meet deadlines
• Able to prioritize and achieve results through collaboration
• Must be flexible and adaptive to change
• Strong capacity to handle complex tasks independently and as part of a team