Database & M&e Coordinator - Child Protectiion

PROGRAM SUMMARYMercy Corps exists to alleviate suffering, poverty, and oppression by helping people build secure, productive, and just communities. The agency pursues its mission through emergency relief services, sustainable community development, civil society and economic development initiatives. Mercy Corps has been present in the Middle East since the 1980s and currently has offices in Yemen, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Egypt and Libya. Working in Lebanon since 1993, Mercy Corps is running community development programs focused on promoting economic development and increased opportunity for disadvantaged communities, while responding to emergencies as they have emerged. Until recently Mercy Corps’ focus had been on programs aiming to bolster civil society and give voice to under-represented groups through the empowerment of young leaders. Recently, the program portfolio has expanded in response to the massive refugee influx from Syria. The emergency response component of the portfolio will be an increasing focus and driver of programming in Lebanon. The conflict in Syria has resulted in a steady increase in Syrian refugees to Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey. All refugees who have entered Lebanon are staying with host families or in rented accommodation. As numbers rapidly increase, humanitarian conditions are deteriorating. The burden on host communities and the financial and emotional stress on refugees and their hosts is tremendous. Mercy Corps is responding to these needs by addressing urgent basic needs, protection as well as the psychosocial impact of the conflict and displacement. A growing programmatic focus is on mitigating the emerging tensions between hosts and refugees, particularly over economic resources, by addressing both livelihood opportunities and conflict mitigation capacity. GENERAL POSITION SUMMARY Working under the direction of the Program specialist, the Database & M&E Coordinator will contribute to the quality assurance of program implementation and ensure that the YFT (Youth for Tomorrow) Program is meeting its deliverables, as well as developing tools and reports to demonstrate the impact and results of program implementation. The Database & M&E Coordinator will work alongside the Program team to monitor and evaluate indicators, develop the capacity of the M&E departments from local partner CBOS, train and support M&E focal person (coaches), as well as assess and evaluate data collection. The Database & M&E Coordinator will be responsible for developing and managing the YFT National database and ensuring tools, means of verification, and indicators are being tracked and documented through a minimal standard process across the YFT program. S/he will contribute to the monitoring and evaluation functions related to tracking program progress and quality, collecting useful, timely and actionable information for managers and decision-makers, and contribute to the frequent review, reflection and key learning process to improve performance. The Database & M&E Coordinator will work closely Program Specialist and Program Manager, to develop and document the M&E plan implementation for the YFT program, as well as develop and maintain the data management systems. He/She will assist in developing review and learning processes (eg. complaints mechanisms, feedback loops, lessons learned documentation and sharing, etc.) ensure that systems and people are in place to ensure proper management of these functions and responsibilities. S/he will work closely with all Sectors of the program, such as the Education Sector, PSS Sector, Field Team, etc., to ensure there are adequate monitoring and evaluation tools for all sectors and methods of assessing information. In addition, he/she will work with all sectors involved in program implementation in order to ensure a coherent and comprehensive program is implemented, lessons are learned and experiences shared across the partners and program team. ESSENTIAL JOB FUNCTIONS Monitoring and Evaluation• Develop and manage program databases to facilitate timely information updates, data quality assurance, sharing of information and learning, etc.; • Coordinate with members of the Program Team in the Office to develop and promote the use of standard indicators, tools and forms (as appropriate) and M&E practices across all programs and coordinate the collection of information required for country-level management;• Conduct regular monitoring visits to assess the quality of the Adolescent Friendly Spaces (AFS) and ensure national minimal standards are being met;• Support in developing indicators and logframe for proposal development and expanding program indicators;• Gather feedback and complaints from the center feedback boxes and feed them into the MC larger complaints mechanism to ensure beneficiary and community feedback is feeding into larger CARM system;• Work with Program teams to integrate M&E into ongoing program planning and implementation systems and ensure adherence to Mercy Corps M&E minimum standards;• Ensure the development of appropriate monitoring, tracking and reporting systems, tools and templates that enhance monitoring of program outputs and quality, generate quality evidence on program impact and promote and ensure use of data for decision-making processes;• Implement new and innovative technological reporting mechanisms into the YFT program mode;• Train Lebanon staff on the YFT database use and updates;• Contribute to understanding of and support for mobile data collection hardware and software;• Train the program team on tools and indicator plan, as well as means of verification to ensure data is collected to verify program activities and indicators. • Gather success stories from partner reports and follow up on strong stories to share for outreach and with donors. Analysis of data and Reporting• Draft weekly and monthly reports for the program to gather information and assess based on indicators;• Improve the M&E templates and tools for program reporting;• Train the M&E Focal Persons and Partner Staff in order to build their capacity on tools;• Develop training material and implement training plan based on the assessment needs and gaps of partners and M&E focal persons;• Develop strategies for the implementation of tools, such as the SDQ, to improve data collection and information gathered;• Support program teams in data collection and data analysis; • Liaise with other program teams as required to ensure that the program databases complement and align with each other. This will ensure that data on project outputs and project impacts are aligned and reported together; • Coordinate with program teams to review indicator updates on a monthly basis. Generate data reports (tables/graphs/reports) from the program databases at regular intervals, ensuring reports/information are available for program implementation staff as required. Facilitate data analysis with program implementation team as requestedUpdate the program reporting schedule and share among program teams;• Review or edit data in reports as requested and required;• Produce analytical summaries: graphs, charts, tables, narratives and appealing visuals, as requested, to fulfill internal and external reporting requirements;• Other tasks as required. Capacity Building• Conduct a needs assessment for the partners and determine a M&E training plan and tools to support staff;• Conduct a needs assessment for coaches and implement an induction on M&E and a training plan to inform coaches about the importance of M&E and how information feeds into the program;• Build the capacity of all relevant team members to develop and maintain a robust M&E system;• Review partner reports and provide feedback and comments to improve reporting quality;• Adapt existing protocols and plans to mentor and coach colleagues to build their capacity to enable them to develop high quality reports. Accountability• Coordinate with the team in the office to build systems that promote beneficiary accountability by ensuring that communities participate in initial assessments and program design;• Coordinate with program teams to ensure that communities are informed about our programs and what we do, are aware of their entitlements, are comfortable to give feedback and that feedback is used to improve the quality of our programs;• Conduct himself/herself both professionally and personally in such a manner as to bring credit to Mercy Corps and to not jeopardize its humanitarian mission. Organizational LearningAs part of our commitment to organizational learning and in support of our understanding that learning organizations are more effective, efficient and relevant to the communities they serve - we expect all team members to commit 5% of their time to learning activities that benefit Mercy Corps as well as themselves. SUPERVISORY RESPONSIBILITY:M&E officer ACCOUNTABILITYREPORTS DIRECTLY TO: Program Specialist WORKS DIRECTLY WITH: Program and operation teams, partners, M&E focal points KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCE• At least 4 years of experience in program development, M&E and reporting;• Training skills and experience building national staff capacity;• Experience working with a variety of donors;• Advanced computer skills and experience developing data management systems;• Experience with qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis methodologies required;• Team player who takes initiative, is a problem-solver and able to multi-task;• Effective verbal and written communication skills;• Written and oral communication skills in Arabic and English. • Detail-oriented and highly organized.• Trained on the Profound Stress and Attunement Model• Previous experience with youth and child protection programming SUCCESS FACTORS• Conscientious, with excellent judgment;• Multi-tasking, prioritizing and simultaneous attention to detail are essential;• S/he must have the confidence, and humility, to work effectively with a large variety of people who will be diverse culturally, economically and in social status; • S/he must be sensitive to political and cultural nuance and able to consistently apply excellent judgment to a variety of demanding and fast-changing situations;• Ability to foster solid working relationships with government counterparts, teammates, local partners and others.• Strong organizational skills and ability to work independently;• S/he will have the ability to comfortably adapt to a quickly changing environment with a sense of urgency, humor, and curiosity;• Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills;• Excellent writing skills – ability to write in a variety of styles for multiple audiences;• Able to work remotely with a geographically dispersed team;• Able to manage several projects simultaneously and under pressure of deadlines. The most successful Mercy Corps staff members have a strong commitment to teamwork and accountability; thrive in evolving and changing environments; make effective written and verbal communication a priority in all situations.