Candidate Brief

Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning

Manager

August 2016

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Dear Candidate,

Thank you for the interest you have shown in the role of Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability

and Learning (MEAL) Manager.

This is an exciting time to be part of the CARE International (CI) confederation and in particular

CARE International UK (CIUK). CI is an organisation that fights poverty and injustice in the

world’s most vulnerable places and works to save lives in disasters and conflicts with

programmes that stand alongside women, girls and their communities to achieve lasting change

for a better future. The methods we will use to fulfil our mission are clearly articulated in CI’s

new Global Programme Strategy for 2015-2020.

The CI confederation has developed common programme indicators for Global Outcome Areas

and cross-cutting approaches as part of its MEAL commitment. This new role is a key part of

the CIUK MEAL scale-up consisting of two core function areas, a) advancing and representing

CIUK MEAL development across the CARE Confederation and, b) enhance our external

representation and influence with key donors, research institutions and peer organisations in

the MEAL sector and other sectors through provision of consistently high quality impact

evidence.

We are looking for someone who has a passion for effective evidenced based learning and is

motivated by improving organisational effectiveness. Similarly the post holder will have the

drive and tenacity to establish a centre of organisational excellence. You’ll need to be a

confident communicator with experience of representing and negotiating at senior levels both

internally and externally.

If you have the experience, skill, energy and drive we are looking for we look forward to

receiving your application.

Ed Watkiss

Head of Institutional Partnerships

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Background Information

CARE is one of the world’s leading humanitarian and development organisations. Founded

nearly 70 years ago with the CARE package, CARE now fights poverty and injustice worldwide

and has built up a strong reputation for innovation and impact.

CARE’s programmes focus on achieving lasting change by tackling the underlying causes of

poverty and injustice to strengthening the capacities of poor communities to help themselves.

In everything we do, CARE places special focus on gender issues and working alongside poor

women and girls because, equipped with the proper resources, women have the power to help

whole families and entire communities escape poverty. Women are a vital part of CARE’s

community-based efforts to improve food and nutrition security; protect life and resilience in

humanitarian crisis; increase access to quality healthcare and education and expand economic

opportunity for all.

CARE helps poor people have a greater say about the decisions and policies that affect their

lives, supporting them with information and skills so they can challenge decision-makers. CARE’s

advocacy efforts also bring evidence from our programmes of what works to change policy and

practice at both a local and global scale. CARE is a non-sectarian and non-partisan organisation.

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About the CARE Confederation

CARE International operates in 84 countries, but is held together by 13 national members. These

national agencies are separate legal entities but operate through one presence in each country

and work together under the CARE International Board and Secretariat, based in Geneva. They

are bound together by the CARE code.

Globally CARE employs 8,000 staff, with over 95% of them nationally sourced and has an annual

income of $800m.

CARE has a new global Programme Strategy which governs all of our work and which means that

by 2020, CARE and our partners will support 150 million people from the most vulnerable and

excluded communities to overcome poverty and social injustice.

About CARE International UK

CARE International UK is an important part of the global CARE International confederation and

one of the largest and most influential members. We employ 115 staff and generate around £45

million a year for CARE’s poverty-fighting work. As well as raising money for CARE’s

humanitarian and development work around the world, we provide programme expertise in

four key areas:

Humanitarian response

With a long-term presence in many of the world’s most vulnerable places, we take a

comprehensive approach to emergency response including preparedness, immediate assistance

and long-term recovery. We have a particular focus on women and girls, shelter in emergencies,

and building resilience through our climate change adaptation and food security work.

Women’s Economic Empowerment

We work with poor women to give them access to economic resources through programmes on

financial inclusion, supply chains and workers’ rights. The private sector has a critical role to

play in reducing poverty and supporting women’s economic empowerment. We take an

innovative approach to engage with the private sector at global, national and local levels to

improve the impact of their activities so that real opportunities are created for poor people.

CIUK has Lendwithcare – a new solution for financial inclusion which offers the chance for

people in the UK to make small loans to poor entrepreneurs.

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Preventing and responding to sexual violence in conflict

In an increasingly turbulent world, we provide expertise and support to our field operations in

countries experiencing conflict, by supporting programmes spanning peace-building,

reconciliation and rehabilitation. Protecting women from violence and increasing their

participation in peace-building is a major advocacy priority.

Governance

The capacity of poor people to influence the institutions that govern their lives is fundamental

to addressing the underlying causes of poverty. We work at a local level to help the most

vulnerable and marginalised hold public authorities and other power holders to account for how

they take decisions and allocate public funds.

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Background to the job/the team

Team Mission

The Institutional Partnerships Team works at a strategic and ‘up stream’ level to ensure that

CARE International UK is well placed to position itself as a partner of choice and grow its market

share from key public funders (DfID, EU, ECHO, DEC, Big Lottery Fund and Comic Relief etc). The

team has a core focus on public funding growth and delivering the key ingredients to deliver

that growth in line with our strategy. The team provides leadership, knowledge, skills and

connections to position CARE as an expert, innovative programme partner across our

programme strategy priorities. The team supplies the Programme Management Team with

opportunities, information and tools necessary to win more of the right bids and develop new

relationships with new funders/stakeholders. The team acts as a strategic knowledge and

learning hub and will work closely with other key teams within CIUK and the wider CARE to

support their multiplying impact objectives through strategic donor cultivation and engagement

strategies. The team is helping move both CIUK and CARE into a priming role for major

contracts and will design the programmatic and MEAL practices, systems and processes

necessary for success. The team supports major bidding efforts where necessary and helps to

negotiate resources and solutions. Above all, the team is moving CARE into a consistent active

position with the key public donors and programme partners so that our opportunities for

funding and influence grow significantly over the next ten years.

Key Team Responsibilities

Lead the strategic development of key UK donor strategy and engagement across CIUK

and CARE.

Grow our public income and provide the necessary internal approach and landscape that

will allow CIUK to win more bids and deliver programmes that will bring long term

impact and good rates of overhead recovery.

Position CARE with Contracts and Finances and partners as a ‘go to’ partner for our

Programme Strategy priorities – ensure we are showcasing the right content with the

right people so that we are positioned favourably for winning the business we want to

win.

With our new Global Programme Strategy in place, there are clear opportunities to strengthen

our institutional relationships and help CARE International reach its ambitious multiplying

impact objectives. An essential part of strengthening these relationships is that CARE

International UK is seen as a leader in developing evidence based learning and can show

evidence of impact at scale. Success in these areas is seen as the foundation for developing a

high level of trust in CARE UK and positioning us for taking on larger and new contracting

opportunities.

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Organogram

Head of Strategic Partnerships

Head of Institutional Partnerships

Institutional Partnerships

Manager - DFID

Institutional Partnerships

Manager -Key Donor

MEAL Manager Contracts and

Compliance Manager

Tendering and Consortia Advisor

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Job Description

1. Overview Post Title: Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL)

Manager

Directorate: Fundraising, Partnerships & Communications

Team: Strategic Partnerships Team

Responsible to: Head of Institutional Partnerships

Accountable to: Head of Strategic Partnerships

Base Location: London, with travel (up to 30%)

CARE International UK reserves the right in consultation with employees to change the base location according to organisational and departmental requirements. Line Management Responsibility: Consultants Budgetary Responsibility: MEAL-related budget for learning and dissemination External Contacts Internal Contacts

International donors including DFID and EC (relevant contacts in London , Brussels and delegations)

Actors leading the agenda on accountability including the CHSA/ALNAP in the humanitarian space

INGO Accountability Charter

MEAL Counterparts in other INGOs

Research partners in MEAL practice: ODI ; ITAD; SSD, Coffey, IDS, academic faculties

Third-sector level initiatives in London and internationally: DataKind, Africa Voices, BOND, sector-level working group, START Fund, Humanitarian Clusters (e.g. Shelter)

UN Global Pulse; international tracking mechanisms for SDGs across large initiatives

Potential programme Consortia, advocacy bid partners including INGOs, private sector actors and Fund Managers

CARE International Global Outcomes and Approach leads

CARE International member representatives involved in programme quality/MEAL work

Key Country Offices and Regional staff.

Corporate Partnerships team to share approaches. Lead in CIUK CARE Programme Information and Impact Reporting System group (PIIRS)

CI Humanitarian Accountability Advisor

MEAL specialist in Programme & Policy Department in CIUK

Programme Management team

Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE); Inclusive Governance; Gender in Emergencies/Shelter teams plus other key outcome/approach teams across the CARE Confederation.

Senior Management and leadership team – including regular contact with the CEO.

Communications Team

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The above list is provided for guidance only and is not an exhaustive list of all the contacts with whom the post holder may be required to liaise with.

2. Rationale for the role

With the common indicators for Global Outcome Areas (GOA)1 and multi-faceted cross-cutting approaches2, CARE International (CI) is scaling-up its commitment to MEAL practice at the organisational level. CARE International UK (CIUK) is expanding its MEAL capacity across key teams namely Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE), the Programme Management Team (PMT) and this new role in the Institutional Partnerships Team. This strategic move is to address the increasing complexity and spectrum of donor requirements to provide proof of impact and accountability to the communities/other relevant stakeholders in projects within the framework of CARE’s GOAs and importantly the Sustainable Development Goals. In doing this effectively we seek to position CARE International to be a leader in developing learning, adaptive approaches in development and humanitarian programmes and to become the implementation partner of choice among key stakeholders including DfID, Comic Relief, START and private sector players 3. Summary

The CARE International Programme Strategy is committed to generate and use clear unequivocal impact evidence from our humanitarian and long-term development programmes to influence programme practice, policy makers and leaders in other related fields in social change and sector standards. As the senior MEAL specialist in CIUK the MEAL Manager will be pivotal to achieving this goal. There are two broad responsibilities on this function of advancing and representing CIUK standards across the CARE Confederation and externally with partners, donors and policy makers. This will be done across working groups in the UK and externally through contacts with key donor, academic and commercial MEAL companies and through disseminating best practices derived from the CARE Confederation’s programme globally. This role will support the individual teams’ focus on quality of evidence to be above sector’s standards for GOA targets and to link these achievements to the SDGs and other global markers of impact. As such this position will involve a significant level of leadership, knowledge, creativity, soft/technical skills and networking abilities. Reporting to the Head of Institutional Partnerships, the MEAL Manager will work closely with WEE MEL Advisor, PMT MEAL Specialist and future MEAL roles and functions recruited across other teams within CIUK. The post holder will closely liaise with other MEAL Focal Points in CI exchanging practices on how to measure relevant indicators and communicate results. For CIUK, the starting point will be to enforce the required CI markers and core standards in the way

1 Food and Nutrition Security; Humanitarian Response; Sexual Reproductive and Maternal Health and Women’s Economic Empowerment

2 Inclusive governance, resilience, gender equity

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relevant projects are designed and impact-level evidence generated. The MEAL Manager will work with the rest of the teams to ensure quality of data at source. Given the expectations of development and humanitarian organisations to demonstrate the effectiveness and impact of their work to multiple stakeholders, both upwards and downwards, the post holder will ensure that the organisation’s MEAL work evolves by providing technical expertise and disseminating lessons on MEAL approaches. To this end, the MEAL Manager will provide support and guidance to the PMT and technical teams in CI on how to handle the evidence cycle of strategic projects, with the aim to identify and scale up best practices that can be profiled to CARE and larger audiences. For example, ODI-led “Gender and Adolescence Global Evidence (GAGE) programme” is expected to set evaluation benchmarks in this field from several INGOs and this role represents CIUK contribution in learning from this and similar programmes. For particularly strategic initiatives the MEAL Manager will at times be expected to provide direct, preferably cost-recovered, support during the implementation cycle of MEAL frameworks.

4. Specific Areas of Responsibility

a) As the reference focal point for CIUK, link with larger audiences (foundations, INGOs, EC, DfID, MEAL communities of practice, media, etc.) to influence and inform about CIUK-led programmatic approaches for key outcome areas/SDGs and gold standard in data technology and large-scale evidence generation demonstrating systemic change (40 %)

Become a focal point of reference for CI and priority COs by sharing CIUK lessons externally from the application of innovative methodologies to demonstrate linkages between CIUK-led approaches of programmatic impact with SDGs.

Develop and disseminate appropriate evidence analysis and expression particularly applicable to providing services to institutional donors and private sector, for communicating results based on large-scale change attributed to project intervention and validated by the MEAL team for programmatic rigour. The appropriate communication strategy is crucial to transfer technical learning within MEAL community of practices and key international development research partners.

Drive collaboration between CIUK, CI and COs for ex-post evaluation and impact assessment strategies for the programme portfolio by favouring mixed methods approaches. A range of functioning MEAL frameworks compiled across the portfolio will serve as evidence when engaging with donors for demonstrating impact and with COs when establishing common impact evaluation strategies.

b) Innovate, support and communicate lessons generated from evaluations and digital outcome monitoring by maintaining a direct relationship with CI MEAL leads (e.g. CARE US), sector leaders (e.g. UN Global Pulse, DataKind, etc.), donors (eg DFID, EU, Gates), academic institutions and private sector actors (30 %)

Support the design of strategically chosen CIUK-led large-scale bids that are likely to provide key lessons for future programming design in order influence MEAL sector-level standards in both humanitarian and development work. This will be supported by ensuring the integration of feedback systems and accountability mechanisms

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throughout the evidence cycle along with learning strategies to articulate policy/advocacy linkages and effectiveness of humanitarian responses.

Based on a comprehensive sector-level analysis, provide critical inputs to the continuous improvement of CI and CIUK Global Outcome Trackers and accountability mechanisms. The dissemination of quality approaches will then take place within technical teams, SPT and across a multiple range of international fora

c) Design a knowledge management system and a synthesis methodology for MEAL evidence along with a communication strategy to ensure maximum audience (internally and externally) through appropriate learning and communication strategies (30%)

Lead on knowledge systematisation and synthesis design of programmatic evidence linked with CO’s Programme Quality and MEAL strategies across CI. The analysis of evidence and its quality shall be performed by identifying meta-level lessons from evidence of Global Outcome and Approach indicators embedded in CIUK-led large-scale initiatives.

Lead on the synthesis of figures to feed the Programme Information Impact Reporting System (PIIRS), the central impact database of project across the CARE confederation. By capturing and synthesising relevant information, PIIRS potential in shaping standards for Global tracking systems can be fully expressed. With its use, the organisation can further demonstrate the effectiveness of its work to a range of internal and external stakeholders through a variety of learning/communication products.

Set the business case for CARE International to secure resources for a digital MEAL strategy in CIUK to digitise Outcome-level monitoring across CIUK portfolio. The successful implementation of digital real-time data provision within CARE will be profiled through appropriate publications, as the cornerstone for responsive humanitarian interventions and adaptive management in development intervention.

Lead the dissemination of MEAL practice across all technical teams from meta-level impact studies and synthesis analysis while keeping oversight over evaluative practice for Global Outcomes and CARE Approach in CIUK. The focus is set to remain on initiatives that can attract Private Sector strategic investments and the delivery of large-scale interventions in both humanitarian and development sectors.

5. Key Learning Objectives The MEAL Manager is expected to consolidate learning along these areas:

1) Strengthen Information Management Systems at the Confederation-level, such as PIIRS, by mainstreaming MEAL best practices in tracking Global Outcomes, CARE Approach and SDGs.

2) Set the benchmark in the sector for cost/effectiveness of quality evidence at scale as a foundation in profiling CIUK development and humanitarian best practices across external stakeholder: donors, the private sector and other institutional/multi-lateral donors.

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3) Drive learning extraction from established sets of outcome data and evidence of systemic change to improve programme design, support market-positioning, communication, advocacy and MEAL strategies in CIUK and CI.

Data Protection The post holder hereby agrees not to disclose any confidential or sensitive information to a third party or outside organisation except where required to do so by law. Health and Safety The post holder agrees to abide by CIUK’s Health and Safety principles and code of conduct and to take all reasonable steps to ensure both their own safety in the work place as well as that of their colleagues. Equal Opportunities The Post holder agrees to promote and uphold the principles of equal opportunities in accordance with CIUK’s Equal Opportunities Statement and all related policies.

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Person Specification

Essential Desirable

Education / Qualifications

Masters’ degree in international development studies or a relevant subject

At least 5 years leading MEAL development in the INGO context or in similar.

Additional qualification in project management/ M&E/ data science

Skills / Abilities

Ability to communicate complex ideas simply in writing and verbally for a wide range of audiences and technical knowledge

Excellent strategic thinker, able to create dialogue with multiple stakeholders to influence MEAL practice

Interested in communication, marketing and strategy development

Convert what’s generated from complex MEAL approaches into tailored and effective learning and communication products

Able to speak Spanish and/or French language to a working standard.

Knowledge / experience

Experience of influencing MEAL practice at the sector level and above

Team leader experience in a matrix management context

Experienced in managing multi-cultural and multi-linguistic communication to advance and influence MEAL standards

Developing accountability systems and communicating results appropriately to non-experts and at the community level

Experience of developing and implementing global procedures and guidance for NGOs

Recognition of partnership opportunities to expand MEAL practice and profile CIUK as a technical lead in the sector

A good grasp of contemporary issues and debates on monitoring, evaluation and learning in international development and/or humanitarian response.

Experience in and understanding of applied data science and coding languages to identify compelling evidence

Practical knowledge of MEAL evidence cycle at the project level working with communities

An understanding of the use and application of gender analysis for development/humanitarian

5 years experience programme experience in a developing country

Previous experience in working across different sectors, particularly the private one

of informing marketing markers with KPIs appropriate level of programme quality

Experience of working with DFID on emergency / humanitarian response.

A good understanding of the Core Humanitarian Standard.

Good understanding and experience of applying humanitarian

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response

Familiarity with humanitarian quality and accountability systems

Experience of writing funding proposals to institutional donors

Excellent spoken and written English.

accountability standards.

Other Able to undertake extensive travel (up to 30%

of work time)

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Application Process

To apply please send your completed application form via email to jobs@careinternational.org

quoting C815 in the subject line

or

post to Human Resources Department, CARE International UK, 9th floor, 89 Albert Embankment,

London SE1 7TP.

Closing date: Monday 5 September 2016

Interview date: week commencing 12 September 2016

For further information please visit

www.careinternational.org.uk

Twitter: @careintuk