MONITORING, EVALUATION, ACCOUNTABILITY AND LEARNING (MEAL) MANAGER, WASH SYSTEMS STRENGTHENING

About Self Help Africa Self Help Africa (SHA) is an international development organisation headquartered in Dublin, Ireland and dedicated to the vision of ‘Sustainable livelihoods and healthy lives for all in a changing climate’. We have almost 50 years of experience working in Africa, including over 20 years in Nigeria (as United Purpose and Concern Universal).

In 2021, Self Help Africa merged with United Purpose (UP), doubling our size. The organisation now works in 17 programme countries. 15 of these are in sub Saharan Africa while subsidiary organisations, ‘Self Help Brazil’ and ‘Self Help Bangladesh’, have been created for our programmes in the two countries where we are working outside of Africa.

In early 2023, we launched a new five-year organisation strategy, which defines shared mission as the alleviation of hunger, poverty, social inequality and the impact of climate change through community-led, market-based and enterprise focused approaches, so that people can have access to nutritious food, clean water, decent employment and incomes, while sustaining natural resources.

Our wider organisation also includes social enterprise subsidiaries: Partner Africa, which provides ethical auditing and consultancy services, TruTrade, an innovative trading platform in East Africa, and CUMO, Malawi’s largest micro-finance provider.

Our three core values are:
▪ Impact: We are accountable, ambitious and committed to systemic change.
▪ Innovation: We are agile, creative and enterprising in an ever-changing world.
▪ Community: We are inclusive, honest and have integrity in our relationships.

To achieve our organisational mission, we work across numerous sectors, such as Agriculture, Climate & Environment, Enterprise, Energy, Nutrition, and WASH. Our global WASH portfolio currently spans 10 countries, 25 active projects, and has reached 5 million people with safe water, and 5 million for sanitation to date.

In Nigeria, we have a strong reputation in the WASH sector for our work on rural sanitation, having achieved the country’s first ODF LGA, and our systems strengthening approach to sustainable WASH service delivery.

Programme description

SHA is anticipating the award of a GBP£5m programme focused on WASH systems strengthening, covering Nigeria and Sierra Leone. We would lead the overall consortia, and the work in Nigeria, whilst another INGO would lead work in Sierra Leone, under our oversight and overall consortia leadership.

The aim of the programme is to strengthen the systems needed to establish and sustain reliable, resilient and inclusive WASH services. The programme is anticipated to start in Quarter 1 of 2024 and expected to be 4 years duration.

The precise intervention locations in Nigeria will be finalised during the inception phase, and may include (but not necessarily be limited to) northern states such as Kano, Jigawa and possibly Kaduna. This role is to be based in Abuja, with regular travel to project intervention sites in Nigeria.

The three broad focus areas of the programme are:

Priority 1: Strategic planning and budgeting for sustainable service delivery using defined Service Delivery Models and strengthening capacities and processes for accountable and inclusive planning and budgeting for WASH.

Priority 2: Support decentralised implementation of the Clean Nigeria Campaign in pursuit of the elimination of open defecation nationwide, demonstrating effective approaches to ODF, Market-Based Sanitation and ODF sustainability, in target LGAs, for scaling.

Priority 3: Facilitate systems leadership and support the mobilisation of a network of WASH champions by strengthening nationwide non-governmental sector organisations and networks, and their respective capacities and mentoring processes.

Job Purpose:

Self Help Africa (SHA)is looking for an expert Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL) Manager who will lead a WASH Systems Strengthening Programme MEAL function. S/he will lead in the development, implementation, monitoring, oversight, team/consortia training and follow-up of WASH Systems Strengthening Program MEAL activities. This will include providing effective and timely support including capacity building to programme staff and partner/consortia organisations to ensure quality and accountability of our work, bringing immediate and lasting changes in the lives of targeted population. S/he will help to define, refine and operationalise program MEAL and research expectations from the donor, developing the plans and capacities for the MEAL and research work in Nigeria, and working closely with MEAL counterparts in Sierra Leone partner organisations to ensure MEAL requirements are understood and applied as agreed.

The MEAL Manager will bring significant experience to lead MEAL system implementation, review and evaluations. S/he will ensure that SHA and consortium partners are supported to ensure quality, effectiveness and sustainability of their programme. It will be important for the post-holder to capture lessons learned and communicate this information in various capacities to improve on-going and future programming. S/he will guide SHA and partner teams to maintain an effective monitoring system, including the use of beneficiary feedback data, to assure the quality of interventions. The MEAL Manager will lead in building capacity of staff and partners on MEAL, particularly on accountability and participation, with a specific focus on impact.

Key Responsibilities:

MEAL Leadership and Data Management

– Lead the development of MEAL plan, performance indicators, data collection, reporting tools, data management systems and standard operating procedures (data quality management plan) integrated with technology in implementation of MEAL activities for improving quality and availability of data for programme decision making.

– Liaise with the donor-contracted service provider on MEAL and research expectations, adapting and operationalizing global tools to the Nigeria context.

– Adapting and evolving tools for baseline and recurrent monitoring of the program activities, including WASH systems analysis tools, and tracking progress in capacities of local governments, districts (using a “building block” type tool for monitoring accountability, progress on alignments with strategic planning, utilisation of funds, etc.).

– Collaborating with local and international partners for participatory research, documentation and dissemination of learning and monitoring quality of the programme, reporting of achievement, of consortium partners to ensure the project’s MEAL systems and outputs meet minimum quality standards.

– Define and manage research evaluations including securing ethical approvals from government, designing and executing internal baseline, midterm and endline assessments as appropriate, and support the implementation of learning activities, with programme’s team.

– Oversee data collection, collation, storage, analysis, and reporting, ensuring that data is of high quality and audit worthy.

– Lead programme data analysis, writing, and review of the results and learning sections of programme reports in collaboration with programme staff, before submission to donor.

– Ensure consortium partners’ compliance with internal data quality requirements and timely submissions for reporting. This may include training, remote and in-person mentoring, review of data/reports and feedback/troubleshooting as needed. This may include short trips to Sierra Leone, and regular travel within Nigeria.

– Ensure appropriate training, mentoring and supportive supervision of all partners in developing and operationalizing monitoring and evaluation procedures, and data quality management practices in alignment with the MEAL plan.

– Ensure consistency between MEAL budgetary and operational planning, aligning budgetary compliance with grant agreements and SHA financial policies and procedures.

Representation, Networking and Collaborative Learning & Adaptation

– The MEAL Manager will interface with various consortium organisations, the donor-contracted MEAL service provider, and other platforms for research and diffusion (both international or local) and disseminate key learning across programmes.

– Establish and maintain strategic stakeholders’ relationships to promote collaboration, coordination and information sharing within the national integrated WASH services delivery system.

– Integrate Collaborating, Learning and Adapting (CLA) into project workplan for evidence-based practice including leading the collection, analysis, documentation, dissemination and use of best practices and lessons learned.

– Participate in SHA’s global Community of Practice of M&E professionals to share lessons via periodic meetings.

– Establish and animate learning processes/forums and organising annual program reviews, ensuring MEAL activities have a strong feedback loop back to the program to enable and inform adaptive management.

– Support building relationships in-country and facilitating minimal non project MEAL requirements for country programme, including providing MEAL input into business development to aid development of new proposals and concept notes.

– Conduct regular and ad-hoc data analysis and work closely with the Programme Manager to develop reports (monthly, quarterly, annual) to demonstrate progress and facilitate continuous learning for donor and project management, and support other learning, communications and thought leadership materials and activities.

Data Quality Assurance and Safeguarding

– Conduct and manage Routine Data Quality Assessments (RDQA); ensuring implementation of corrective actions to improve data quality and accountability of staff and partners.

– Lead the project (indicator) performance reporting process including donor reporting, SHA’s Global Indicators and organisational KPI reporting in alignment with the 5-year strategic plan.

– Develop and manage all project performance monitoring activities and systems, including necessary data management and visualisation software and data collection instruments, to collect, store, manage, analyse and report M&E data on output, outcome, and impact indicators.

– Lead the overall data quality control; conducting data verification and other quality assurance activities, including field spot-checks, data quality assessments (DQAs), etc. to ensure accuracy of MEAL data and reporting documents.

– Demonstrate experience in and commitment to safeguarding, protection, gender mainstreaming and inclusion of vulnerable population including people with disabilities.

Key Relationships:

Internal: Programme Manager, Head of WASH Programmes, MEAL, Programme, Operations, Finance & Compliance and Security teams.

External: Ministry of Water Resources & Sanitation, Ministry of Budget & Planning, development partners and professional networks, sector learning forums, donor-contracted MEAL service provider.

Knowledge, Experience and Other Requirements

Education and other qualifications:

– Tertiary-level qualification, preferably a Master’s degree in MEAL and/or WASH-relevant discipline such as statistics, social science, public health or related field.

– ICT operation, and proficiency in MS Office.

Experience

– Strong proven skills and experience in qualitative and quantitative approaches to research and MEAL.

– At least 8 years’ working experience with INGO/NGO, including (but not necessarily limited to) in the WASH sector.

– Experience leading MEAL in complex programmes, ideally within the WASH sector.

– Familiarity with System strengthening approach, working with and strengthening governance, government capacity, social accountability, and market-based approaches.

– Ability to consolidate data and to present complex information in a succinct and compelling manner.

– Experienced in research work, strong capacity to review / analyse data.

– Experienced in using a Gender Equality and Social inclusion approach in MEAL.

– Ability to engage with research institutions, WASH forums and other stakeholders.

– Experience in Government engagement and policy coordination especially empowerment and capacity building of systems.

– Experience working with culturally diverse teams.

Skills:

– Project management and implementation

– Excellent leadership and coordination skills (and ability to coordinate several tasks at once and managing priorities)

– Effective communication, problem solving and decision-making skills

– Respect for cultural diversity and gender sensitivity

– Team leadership and mentoring

– Monitoring, evaluation and learning

– Communication, networking, facilitation and quality donor reporting

– Organisational development

– Reporting and documentation

– Highly developed cultural awareness and ability to work well in an international environment with people from diverse backgrounds and cultures.

Language Requirements:

– Excellent written and oral proficiency in English language is required and relevant local language is an added advantage.