Monitoring & Evaluation Coordinator - Youth For Tomorrow

PROGRAM SUMMARY Mercy 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, Turkey, and Iraq. Working in Lebanon since 1993, Mercy Corps has implemented community development programs focused on promoting economic development and increased opportunity for disadvantaged communities, while responding to emergencies as they emerged in the country.  In 2012, the program portfolio shifted in response to the massive refugee influx from Syria and Mercy Corps in Lebanon has solidified its emergency response programming while integrating longer-term development programming by focusing on key sectors: Protection, Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WaSH), Governance and Conflict, and Livelihoods.  The conflict that began more than five years ago in Syria has resulted in a steady increase in Syrian refugees to Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Turkey.  To date, more than one million refugees have fled to Lebanon, and the numbers continue to mount. 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, child protection as well as the psychosocial impact of the conflict and displacement.   With the support of the Government of Canada, Mercy Corps is launching the Youth for Tomorrow program, which will be implemented in Saida, Mt. Lebanon, and Tripoli.   This three-year program is part of a regional initiative by Mercy Corps, funded by the Government of Canada, in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria to build improved, evidence-based provision of psychosocial support and market-driven skills to vulnerable youth in the region.  The program will benefit from regional synergies to increase impact and will contribute to improving the evidence base for interventions of this type.   The program will engage Syrian, Palestinian and Lebanese adolescent boys and girls, between the ages of 12 – 18 who are not currently enrolled in school or are at high risk of dropping out. The program will also engage young adults between the ages of 19 – 35 from among refugee and host communities to act as mentors and facilitators within the project.  Youth for Tomorrow will provide adolescents on-going psychosocial support and market-driven skill-building opportunities while building an enabling environment for young people through community engagement and provision of enhanced adolescent and youth services.      GENERAL POSITION SUMMARY   The ‘Youth for Tomorrow’ M&E Coordinator will contribute to the quality assurance of program implementation and ensure that the Youth for Tomorrow program is meeting its deliverables, as well as developing tools and reports to demonstrate the impact and results of program implementation.  S/he will develop and maintain data management systems. The M&E Coordinator is responsible for supporting Mercy Corps staff to regularly collect, enter, verify, and analyze data and work with the MEL team to make timely adjustments to measure the impact of Mercy Corps’ programs and to ensure M&E data is accurately incorporated into all organizational reports and information products.  S/he will 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.  S/he will ensure the collection and analysis of useful, timely and actionable information for managers and decision-makers, and contribute to the frequent review, reflection and key learning processes to improve performance.         ESSENTIAL JOB FUNCTIONS   MONITORING AND EVALUATION Work with program teams, partners and M&E focal points (coaches) to integrate M&E into ongoing project planning and implementation systems and ensure adherence to Mercy Corps M&E minimum standards; Assist with the development of appropriate monitoring, tracking and reporting systems, tools and templates that enhance monitoring of project outputs and quality, generate quality evidence on project impact and promote and ensure use of data for decision-making processes; Assist the program team to develop and promote the use of standard indicators, tools and forms (as appropriate) and M&E practices across the project and coordinate the collection of information required for country-level management; Coordinate assessments and evaluations; Ensure that monitoring plans are developed for the program and ensure that regular monitoring visits are conducted by MEL staff to the different project locations, ensure that minimum standards are being met, and that reports are shared with the program teams; Work with partners and program team to gather success stories and anecdotal evidence of program impact to share for outreach and with donors.   DATA ANALYSIS, REPORTING, AND INTEGRATION OF DATA INTO DECISION MAKING Work as part of a broader team to design, facilitate and support data collection and analysis systems including baseline, annual, and end line surveys, regular monitoring, data collection and analysis, feedback and reporting; Generate data reports (tables/graphs/reports) from the database at regular intervals, ensuring reports/information are available for program implementation staff as required. Facilitate data analysis with program implementation team as requested; Conduct regular field visits to ensure all elements of the data system is being utilized effectively, assessing and identifying breakdowns and areas that require clarifications and improvements; Coordinate with field team and partners to implement system corrections and adjustments, solving operational issues and documenting actions taken and next steps Work with program teams to ensure data anlysis and reports are integrated into programmatic decision making to improve impact of the program Contribute to monthly reports and other ad hoc reports to meet donor and internal requirements;   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; Develop training material and implement training plan based on the assessment needs and gaps of partners and M&E focal persons; 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.   DATABASE MANAGEMENT AND INNOVATION Develop and manage a program database that improves Mercy Corps’ ability to inform program implementation, analyze data, and represent impact to key stakeholders; Contribute to understanding of and support for mobile data collection hardware and software; Ensure all relevant program staff are able to utilize the database to analyze program information and results; Design, adapt and maintain the database in conjunction with the MEL team to match strategic program or implementation changes; Review data being collected in order to locate and fix problems with data entry or integrity; Document database contents, protocols and update manuals for smooth functioning of the data management system; Manage regular synchronizations of data; Troubleshoot front and back end issues with the database, including any synchronization issues with field-level data entry;     ACCOUNTABILITY Coordinate with the team 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 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 the information manager to build partner capacity to manage community complaints mechanisms   OTHER Ensure all activities are gender sensitive and follow Mercy Corps’ Gender Equity Policy; Apply Do No Harm standards to ensure activities do not have detrimental effects on vulnerable communities; Participate in internal office coordination and planning meetings and workshops; Conduct himself/herself both professionally and personally in such a manner as to bring credit to Mercy Corps and not jeopardize its humanitarian mission; Other assigned tasks, as necessary.   Organizational Learning As 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: None   ACCOUNTABILITY REPORTS DIRECTLY TO: Program Manager 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 an advantage 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.