Save the Children

Child Safeguarding Statement for Adverts

Save the Children is committed to ensuring that all our personnel and programmes are absolutely safe for children.

We undertake rigorous procedures to ensure that only people suitable to work with children are allowed to join our organisation and all candidates will be therefore be subject to this scrutiny.

CS positioning statement:

We need to keep children safe so our selection process, which includes rigorous background checks, reflects our commitment to the protection of children from abuse.

Introduction: Do you have what it takes to make a difference in the lives of the most deprived and marginalised children? Are you interested in working innovatively to pilot and test solutions to problems which face these children, and collect and analyse evidence? Save the Children is looking for an energetic, proactive manager to lead its monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning team. A person interested in strengthening learning in organisations, with experience of monitoring and evaluation, or of research and statistics, and an understanding of setting up and managing systems to monitor projects and generate information and evidence on the progress and achievements of projects.

TEAM/PROGRAMME:  Programme Development and Quality

LOCATION: Beijing, China

Number of Positions: 1

Grade: 3

Type of Contract:  Fixed Term

CHILD SAFEGUARDING:

Level 3: the role holder will have contact with children and/or young people either frequently (e.g. once a week or more) or intensively (e.g. four days in one month or more or overnight) because they work in country programs; or are visiting country programs; or because they are responsible for implementing the police checking/vetting process for staff.

ROLE PURPOSE:

The primary objective of the post holder is to provide overall leadership for the effective implementation of Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL) within the organization leading to improvements in the quality of programs. The MEAL Manager will lead the MEAL team and provide high quality technical support for program design, strategic planning, capacity building of program staff in monitoring and evaluation, and setting up and managing program quality monitoring and accountability systems. The MEAL Manager will be responsible for coordinating the country office participation in national, regional and global initiatives on design. monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning; and bring new ideas and knowledge for continuous improvement of the MEAL system in China.

SCOPE OF ROLE:

Reports to: PDQ Director

Direct Reports:  TBD  Indirect Reports: MEAL staff at provincial and project levels

Financial Approval:

·         MEAL national budget

External Representation:

·         Regular contact of basic factual information with external stakeholders, and with SCI globally

·         Network with SCI and other SC country offices 

Travel: Frequent (over 10 days per month)

Key accountabilities

Strategic planning and program/project design

·         Provide technical support for developing, reviewing and updating country strategic plan, mainly on designing clear objectives, results and indicators.

·         Provide technical support in conducting situation analysis, mainly in designing study methodologies, tools and sampling strategies.

·         Review and ensure high quality of program/project log-frames, results frameworks.

MEAL Strategy and Systems for Organizational Direction

·         Lead on the development and oversee the roll-out of an organisational MEAL framework and approach to incorporate all SCI requirements and benchmarks,

·         Coordinate and establish operational processes for MEAL, thematic and Programme teams to interact in terms of carry out MEAL activities  and meeting MEAL essential standards and requirements

·         As a member of the PDQ Team, build strong relationships with colleagues and provide support as required to ensure the MEAL framework and reporting data flows are well understood and supported at country office level and across partners. 

MEAL Capacity Development for Effective Establishment and Functioning of MEAL

·         Work with project staff in the program operational team to ensure that updated MEAL Framework operates coherently and effectively with the support and resources required,.

·         At the organisational level, devise and manage a MEAL training programme with the goal of increasing capacity and awareness of MEAL for all staff, including workshops, new comers induction, hands on guidance - including

·         Situation analysis

·         Project/program design framework (log-frame).

·         M and E plan development

·         Baseline and operational researches

·         Total reach

·         Global indicators

·         Evaluation designs, methodologies and management.

·         Ensure accurate and reliable data is available for SCI Country Annual Reporting and other SCI requirements; provide support to PDQ and PI teams to set up the most efficient ways of internal and external reporting with sufficient information available for analysis and interpretation 

MEAL Implementation (monitoring, baseline, evaluations and reporting)

·         Support proposal development processes by providing inputs to proposals

·         During project implementation stage, support projects on MEAL planning (including in developing Monitoring and Evaluation Plans for projects), baselines and evaluations

·         Consolidate MEAL components across sub-themes by setting up national tools to use for the same components (eg, IDELA, SEL)

·         Support high quality evaluations, and promote cross office learning through in depth evaluations

·         Provide technical support on collecting data and managing reporting requirements on Total Reach, Global outcome indicators, evaluation overview etc.

·         Support humanitarian teams on MEAL components in the implementation stage

·         Provide technical support  in   ensuring quality of country annual plans and country annual reports  

Accountability and program quality

·         Ensure that MEAL staff and other program staff at Beijing level and provincial levels have clear understanding on program accountability to children and communities through training and coaching.

·          Ensure that an effective system for complaints handling and response mechanisms are established and functioning at the program implementation levels.

·          Provide technical support for developing minimum standards for major program interventions and ensure that the standards are disseminated to children and communities using effective tools and methodologies.

·          Ensure that complaints and feedback from the communities and beneficiaries are registered properly and communicated properly to different levels for response as per the standard protocols.

·          Follow up and support for the investigation of serious complaints and feedback as and when needed as per the established protocol.

·          Ensure that MEAL and/or project staff conduct monitoring visits in the program areas as per the agreed plan and monitor the quality of program interventions against the minimum standards; and produce and share high quality reports on regular basis to relevant people in line with the standard protocols.

·          Ensure that periodic MEAL reports are shared and debriefed at different levels, action plans for addressing the quality gaps are developed and followed up.

·          Share the China experiences on MEAL to SCI and other members as relevant and bring new experiences and innovative ideas for improving the accountability system in the China programme.

  Leadership  and Management

·         In consultation with PDQ director develop/revise the MEAL structure according to the need and ensure high quality recruitment of MEAL team.

·         Provide management and technical leadership to the MEAL staff

·         Capacity development and clear  understanding of roles, functions and responsibilities within the MEAL staff

·         Using the SCI performance management system, ensure that the performance appraisals are conducted timely for the MEALstaff and are supported in personal and team development.

·         Develop budget for MEAL function, ensure that MEAL budget provisions are adequately incorporated in project proposals.

·         Develop the MEAL DIP and follow up to ensure that MEAL activities are carried out timely as per the agreed plan and budget.

Coordination and representation

·         Liaise with M&E focal persons from SCI regional office and Centre, SC members for sharing learning and get updates on new developments on MEAL and related requirements.

·         Identify relevant technical assistance providers and pull technical assistance as needed for strengthening MEAL system in China.

·         Represent country office participation in national, regional and global MEAL initiatives as and when needed.

·         Maintain close coordination with Program Operation Department and other departments to ensure common understanding on MEAL and shared responsibilities for managing MEAL functions

Personal qualities:

Skills and Experience:

·         At least 3 years experience in related field

·         Preferably minimum 3 years experience in leading, developing and managing M&E systems for large scale, complex, multi development programmes.

Education and experience:

·         Masters degree in economics, development studies, statistics and related social sciences

Technical Skills

·         Ability to collect and process data, and to analyse information, evaluate options and to think and plan strategically.

·         Skilled in SPSS and other data analysis programmes

·         Knowledge and experience of databases

·         Technical skills, knowledge and experiences on strategic planning, program design using various logical modules including log-frames, result framework etc.

·         Have knowledge, experiences and conceptual understanding on accountability, especially to communities and beneficiaries. 

Management:

·         Previous experience in leading  and managing teams, and building team capacity (developing training tools, training, coaching and mentoring)

·         Relevant inter- person skills and proven ability to create an environment which encourages team-working and motivates a team across various geographical areas.

Communication:

·         Excellent interpersonal, communication and representation skills.

·         Demonstrated ability to work effectively in a multi cultural settings with a wide variety of stakeholders.

·         Excellent English communication skills, both written and verbal

·         Excellent personal organisational skills, including time management, and ability to meet deadlines and work under pressure

·         Willingness to travel to field offices and work in difficult environments according to travel requirements 

General:

·         Ability to work collaboratively with colleagues across the organisation developing effective working relationships to deliver outstanding results for children

·         Commitment to and understanding of Save the Children’s aims, values and principles

·         Willingness and capability to comply with all relevant Save the Children policies and procedures with respect to health and safety, security, equal opportunities and other relevant policies, including the Child Safeguarding Policy

·         Ability and willingness to travel domestically and internationally. 

SCI values are indicated below and we expect all candidates to align with such values. 

Accountability/Ambition/Collaboration/Creativity/Integrity

If you are interested in this position, please read the Child Safeguarding first, fill in the Application Form and send it back to beijingoffice.china@savethechildren.org before 25 July, 2018.