ZOA works with committed and motivated staff in serving millions of people affected by poverty, disaster, injustice and conflicts. Through the efforts of our dedicated staff, we are able to bring Signs of Hope and to support people who suffer due to armed conflict or natural disasters by helping them to rebuild their livelihoods.

We value our employees and offer a wide range of benefits to meet the specific needs of our staff and their families.

Purpose

The Senior MEAL officer is responsible for the monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning activities of ZOA Gambella programme office. This position reports to the Programme Manager and is responsible for ensuring the effective design and implementation of ZOAs MEAL Strategy that is in line with ZOAs policies and practices. The Senior MEAL officer will focus on setting appropriate monitoring and evaluation requirements for ZOAs projects and programmes and assumes overall responsibility for M&E related data collection, collation, analysis and reporting (internal and external). The position holder ensures that objective evaluations are managed to assess the ZOAs programme and project relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact and sustainability of results and that evaluations are carried out in a credible and systematic manner with lessons and recommendations used for programme/project design together with country office MEAL coordinator.

He/she plans, organizes, coordinates and monitors the projects in the program office and coordinates this with the other related program officers/coordinators in the camps and hosting communities; facilitates and follows up the monitoring, learning and evaluation practices based on ZOA's rules and regulations; supports in the preparation of activity plans and budgets; facilitates and coordinate provision of all necessary inputs for the whole program area; conducts base line, end line assessment and situational analyses of all programs; prepares and submits periodic project reports to ZOA line manager, ARRA, UNHCR and other government stalk holders to bring quality project implementation and project sustainability.

Typical Responsibilities - Key end Results of the Position:

• Together with the Area manager and support from the MEAL coordinator and develop implement MEAL systems, including MEAL plans; data management tools for each of ZOA’s programmes and individual projects.
• Provide technical expertise, support, mentoring and training on MEAL and any other topic to ZOA project staff members as required.
• Collect good quality monitoring data in a timely manner and organize data, receive  for reporting to the country office and  Programme office.
• Closely work with the program operation manager in the Programme office on the design and roll-out of standardized monitoring tools and methodologies.
• Highly contribute to the formulation and writing of proposals and all types of program reports;
• Develop capacity of local communities, partners and staff on the program/project framework, data management, and data analysis and results‐oriented and adaptive programming, monitoring and evaluation methods and principles and report writing techniques and requirements for ZOA and relevant donors to ensure compliance.
• Compile and disseminate periodic reports including monthly action plan tracker and CRM, and quarterly MEAL report for decision makers
• Ensure that regular reports are generated from monitoring data and that findings are communicated effectively to appropriate persons and sectors.
• Ensure the utilization of appropriate reporting templates that facilitate the acquisition and aggregation of information in programs or develop and maintain effective information database
• Conducted qualitative M&E (against international standards through participatory methodologies.
• Participate in all other aspects of MEAL, for example surveys, baselines, evaluations, joint projects monitoring and reviews / lessons learning workshops/events.
• Together with the Country Office MEAL Coordinator undertake accountability activities and develop tools to track adherence to Core Humanitarian Standards, including the development and use of information materials and the establishment of a pilot complaints response mechanism. This may include management of an Accountability Assistant, ensuring that complaints are logged and addressed in a professional and timely manner and that serious complaints relating to abuse, exploitation and corruption and referred appropriately.
• Serve as focal person for the implementation of Knowledge Management and Learning (KML)
• Organize and coordinate lessons learnt workshops/review of program work plans with partners and other stakeholders.
• Promote learning in the project, particularly on issues of programme quality and contribute to quality assurance of projects. Regularly produced and report on best practices and case studies; ensure new analysis and information is available, including for the forthcoming communications strategy.
• Ensure that beneficiaries and other vulnerable community members including stakeholders are included and participated in all MEAL activities.

Dealing with Problems.

The senior MEAL officer will support in strengthening the relation ships with all INGOs, and government stalk holders with developing the accountability frameworks for smooth project implementation.

Communications and Working Relationships:

• Should be able to have a medium level of interaction with government officials, beneficiaries and ZOA to facilitate project works in the region.