Job Title: MEAL Specialist – URRI
Organisation: Save the Children
Duty Station: Kampala, Uganda
About Organisation:
Save the Children International is an international relief organization that was established in the United Kingdom in 1919 to improve the lives of children through better education, health care, and economic opportunities, as well as providing emergency aid in natural disasters, war, and other conflicts.
Job Summary: The MEAL Specialist will be responsible for the overall MEAL deliverables of the URRI project. The URRI project objective is to contribute to enhanced climate resilience of women, men and youth in refugee and host communities and promote inclusive, cohesive, and environmentally sustainable development in refugee-affected areas in line with local priorities. The project has 3 outcome areas:(i) Enhanced climate adaptation and resilience for women, men and youth in refugee and host communities through inclusive climate-smart agriculture, (ii) Sustainable management of the environment in refugee-affected areas through inclusive interventions leading to enhanced conservation of natural resources, biodiversity, ecosystem services, and productivity, and (iii) Enhanced gender equality and women’s empowerment and rights among refugees and host communities in relation to agriculture, climate change adaptation and sustainable management of the environment.
Sounds interesting? Read more below
Key Duties and Responsibilities:
Program Design:
- Contribute to project design by assessing the needs and capacities of the target communities,
- Actively involved in participatory community’s problem analyses for program design.
- Document critical lessons-learned and challenges to be used for program design.
Set up a strong MEAL system and operationalize MEAL in the URRI
- Ensure that MEAL planning and discussions are held with all URRI staff, partners, and key stakeholders before and after the refinement year meetings by liaising effectively and regularly with partner MEAL teams.
- Support the development and review of the URRI key documents (Theory of Change (ToC), Log frame, M&E plan, Indicator Performance Tracking Table (IPTT) and Performance Indicator Reference Sheets (PIRS)) in close collaboration with the partner team.
- Develop routine monitoring data gathering forms and reporting formats for tracking and maintaining metrics vis a vis targets in the DIP and (IPTT) to flag/address required performance improvements on a monthly basis.
- Conduct, analyze and disseminate periodic outcome monitoring, evaluations, project studies and research to be used for assessing URRI Performance and progress on the ToC.
- Analyze MEAL data from the project staff and produce strategic analyses for the URRI technical and management team to use for assessing URRI performance and progress.
- Implement quarterly data quality assurance activities according to the M&E plan by performing data verifications and spot-checks.
- Conduct monthly Quality Benchmark (QB) monitoring (at least 80% of activities implemented) and ensure that improvement actions are developed & logged into the action tracker for follow up.
Design and operationalize Accountability mechanism
- Facilitate project & partner staff to set up relevant contextualized feedback and complaints infrastructures, mechanisms, and approaches to receive and respond to feedback and complaints from beneficiaries including children.
- Collect and manages complaints and feedback in close coordination with project and partner staff. Tracks timeliness of response to complaints and maintains an updated URRI complaints tracker.
- Ensure a regular ‘Accountability to Beneficiaries’ analysis report is generated and disseminated for use and uptake among URRI project management and partners.
- Provide consortium partners’ capacity strengthening and review support to establish and use strong accountability mechanisms Adopt Child Safeguarding and Safe projects into accountability mechanisms for the consortium.
- Ensure that all research with human subjects is submitted, per Save the Children’s Ethics Policy, to the Ethics Review Committee to minimize any harm and ensures informed consent.
Integrate ICT in the project MEAL system
- Enhance use of digital data collection on URRI, through use of Kobo, ODK, or other applications.
- Ensure safeguards and integrity of data management on MIS and/or other online platforms.
Build culture of Learning and Knowledge Management that ensures utilization of data for decision making
- Participate/coordinate in the design of quantitative and qualitative participatory URRI evaluations (baseline, annual and final evaluations), assessments, reviews, and other special studies in conjunction with Consortium partners.
- Support the project team in the development of information sharing materials/briefs, posters and brochures, and dissemination of project information materials to relevant stakeholders, partners, and beneficiaries.
- Support conceptualization, planning and implementation of learning events/activities in collaboration with consortium partners to enhance cross-learning.
- Facilitate documentation of the URRI results, impact, best practices, and significant changes.
- Document learnings and best practices; disseminates learnings, reports, publications and participates in learning sessions to all stakeholders, and ensure that the lessons learnt are utilized to inform project advocacy.
Planning, Budgeting and Reporting:
- Coordinate with Technical and operations teams for appropriate allocation of MEAL resources and budget in annual Pipeline &work plans.
- Provide technical support on all projects planning and reporting. Specifically, provides day to day direct support to the Project team in preparation and reviewing of annual and quarterly Activity plans and reports, ensures that project reports meet donor and Save the Children International (SCI) reporting standards.
- Oversee the MEAL budget utilization and ensure timely implementation MEAL activities.
- Support the URRI Team Leader and thematic leads in the analysis of Activity Tracking Tool (ATT) and the presentation on regular staff meetings.
Communication and Networking
- Create and sustain positive working relationships internally with other technical staff; externally with the Consortium partners, district local governments and other stakeholders, and maintains an up-to-date understanding of key development trends in the project area.
- Ensure coordination with the government activities and structures in the implementation of URRI Project
Qualifications, Skills and Experience:
To be a strong supporter and advocate for children in this role you will need to have:
- Minimum of a relevant bachelor’s degree in Statistics, Quantitative Economics, or other relevant discipline with Post Graduate training in M&E or Project planning and Management.
- Minimum of a relevant bachelor’s degree in Statistics, Quantitative Economics, or other relevant discipline with Post Graduate training in M&E or Project planning and Management.
- Master’s degree in Monitoring and Evaluation will be an added advantage.
- Minimum of five years working experience in monitoring and evaluation system development and its coordination/implementation (preferably in agriculture, environmental and/or natural resource sector with an International NGO or Private sector).
- High level of competence on multiple statistical analysis packages (ideally SPSS, STATA, R, ArcGIS, NVivo, and/or ATLAS. ti).
- Experience of digital data collection and accountability systems and the use of mobile data collection platforms (like Kobo Collect, CommCare, Epi Info, Form builder, etc).
- Demonstrable track-record in data management, with the ability to manage large databases.
- Experience interviewing community members and leaders and/or facilitating focus group discussions (especially with youth & Women).
- Understanding of the basic standards to ensure data quality.
- Experience with monitoring and evaluation techniques to assess the quality and effectiveness of project strategies for project learning, adaption, and innovation where necessary, with a clear way forward and ensuring buy in.
- Ability to present complex information in a succinct and compelling manner to a range of stakeholder audiences.
- Previous experience with WASH, adolescent, and/or behaviour change projects preferred.
- Excellent communication and report writing skill.
- Computer literacy, particularly in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
- Strong communication and interpersonal skills in English, with experience working in multicultural, multi -location, values driven teams.
- Commitment to Save the Children values.
Desired
- Strong analytical skills and strategic planning abilities.
- Ability to establish and maintain conducive collegial relations and perform effectively as a member of a team.
- Highly developed cultural awareness and ability to work well in multi-cultured environment with people from diverse beliefs and cultural backgrounds.
- Ability to speak some of the local languages in the project operational areas.
- Experience of M&E and beneficiary accountability systems.
How to Apply:
All candidates who wish to join Save the Children should apply online at the link below.
Deadline: 6th November 2025
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Level of Education: Bachelor Degree
Work Hours: 8
Experience in Months: 60