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.

TITLE: Head of Monitoring Evaluation Accountability and Learning (MEAL)

TEAM/PROGRAMME:  Programme Development Quality and Advocacy

LOCATION:  Beijing preferred, with regular travel to the field

GRADE: 2

CONTRACT LENGTH: 2 years

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 staff.

ROLE PURPOSE:

Save the Children believes every child deserves a future. In China and around the world, we work every day to give children a healthy start in life, the opportunity to learn and protection from harm. When crisis strikes, and children are most vulnerable, we are always among the first to respond and the last to leave. We ensure children’s unique needs are met and their voices are heard. We deliver lasting results for millions of children, including those hardest to reach.

Save the Children is looking for an outstanding, energetic and proactive individuals with a passion for strengthening learning in organization, with experience of monitoring and evaluation, or of research and statistics, to head its Monitoring, Evidence, Accountability and Learning (MEAL) Unit .

The primary objective of the post holders is to lead and provide overall direction to the organization on establishing a MEAL strategy as well as a MEAL framework (including systems, processes, and capacities), with a view of enabling evidence based learning to strengthen the quality of programme implementation and development

In the event of a major humanitarian emergency, the role holder will be expected to work outside the normal role profile and be able to vary working hours accordingly

SCOPE OF ROLE:

Reports to: Director – Programme Quality, Development and Advocacy (PDQA)

Staff directly reporting to this post: Four area-based MEAL senior officers.

Budget Responsibilities: none directly

Role Dimensions: External representation, people management, frequent travels.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES:

Strategy and Systems Development

Lead on the development and oversee the roll-out of a MEAL framework, in line with Save the Children’s MEAL requirements and standards, which will ensure the generation of solid evidence and accountability to beneficiaries, donors, and partners.  The framework should include a review of current outsourcing practices of MEAL activities.

Establish and coordinate operational processes to underpin the implementation of the MEAL framework, enable MEAL services and meet all MEAL requirements, including a data management system as well as a data information flow.

Operationalize the MEAL framework with the definition of annual budget and work plan.

Maintain an up-to-date overview of all evaluations (baseline, midline, and endline) from all projects, including evaluation expenditure to inform future evaluation budgeting

Promote all aspects of MEAL to support the creation of an organisational culture which prioritizes quality programming and promotes meaningful participation and learning.

Technical support

Support the PDQA Director and Thematic Leads to analyse progress against organisational objectives and strategies.

Support Thematic Leads in establishing quality indicators for relevant themes and sub-themes.

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.

Establish and maintain a network of external MEAL service providers (international Save the Children Technical Assistants, independent consultants, university research centres, etc). Manage consultants and Member Technical Assistants to perform evaluations, holding them accountable for high-quality, ethical, rigorous work maximizing child participation where possible; and ease of understanding in reports/summaries produced

Programme Development

Support proposal development processes by providing relevant inputs in the narrative, annexes and budget, ensuring the includion of appropriate (SMART) indicators, of global, donor and CO MEAL requirements and of costing for MEAL personnel and activities

Capacity Development

Build the capacity of program teams to better understand data and evidence from evaluations, and participate in relevant forums to help explain evaluation findings, stimulate interest in learning, and facilitate discussion of programmatic/advocacy implications

Support the capacity building of partner organisations in MEAL, in line with needs identified during partner assessment.

Leadership and management

Be a champion and advocate for evidence, learning, and data for decision-making in the Country Office and with donors and partners

Manage the MEAL team, overseeing recruitments when need be, and remotely enabling the formation of a team spirit, mutual help and support and information exchange. Define expectations, provide leadership and technical support as needed so that MEAL staff are able to perform their roles as required.

Manage the performance of direct reports in the MEAL unit through performance management, coaching, mentoring, training and development.

Ensure the MEAL team’s identity is defined within the organisation and cohesion between MEAL positions exists across the organisation

Learning and accountability

Coordinate country quarterly KPI report on MEAL to SCI

Ensure accurate and reliable data is available for SCI Country Annual Planning and Reporting and other SCI requirements

Ensure that effective summaries of evaluations (baselines, midlines, and endlines) in powerpoint or other reader-friendly format

Lead the planning, establishment, and maintainance of user-friendly repository for storing evaluations, studies, and other key project documents

Communicate on a quarterly basis top level learning / analysis reports and monitoring data to ensure that management is able to make informed decisions on a timely basis to scale up and face operational challenges;

Creatively plan and execute opportunities for sharing, discussing, and stimulating interest in learning from evaluations and studies from thematic/project teams

SKILLS AND BEHAVIOURS (our Values in Practice)

Accountability:

Holds self-accountable for making decisions, managing resources efficiently, achieving results together with children and role modelling Save the Children values

Holds the team and partners accountable to deliver on their responsibilities – giving them the freedom to deliver in the best way they see fit, providing the necessary development to improve performance and applying appropriate consequences when results are not achieved

Creates a managerial environment in-country to lead, enable and maintain our culture of child safeguarding

Ambition:

Sets ambitious and challenging goals for self and team, takes responsibility for own personal development and encourages team to do the same

Widely shares personal vision for Save the Children, engages and motivates others

Future oriented, thinks strategically and on a global scale

Collaboration:

Builds and maintains effective relationships, with own team, colleagues, members, donors and partners

Values diversity, sees it as a source of competitive strength

Approachable, good listener, easy to talk to

Creativity:

Develops and encourages new and innovative solutions

Willing to take disciplined risks

Integrity:

Honest, encourages openness and transparency

Always acts in the best interests of children

QUALIFICATIONS 

Master's Degree in Research, Evaluation; or in Social Sciences, Development, Public Health, Education or related field with significant academic or practical experience in evaluation

3-5 years of relevant working experiences with at least 2 in a management role.

EXPERIENCE AND SKILLS

Essential

At least 3 years of experience of managing people

Solid technical understanding of social research methods and impact evaluation

Strong quantitative and qualitative analysis skills

Strong quantitative software skills (excel, SPSS, or Stata)

Good command of Microsoft Office (especially Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint)

Ability to positively influence cross departmental and cross sector working

Ability to think critically and conceptually

Passion for engaging people and strong interpersonal and communication skills

Strong facilitation and presentation skills

Training, capacity building, coaching, and mentoring skills

Attention to detail

Ability and willingness to travel to all parts of the country

Ability and willingness to dramatically change work practices and hours, and work with incoming teams, in emergencies

Commitment to and understanding of Save the Children’s aims, values and principles including rights-based approaches

Fluency in written and spoken English and Mandarin Chinese

Desirable

Experience of, and commitment to working through systems of community participation and accountability

Experience of managing people remotely

Direct work experience in one of Save the Children’s thematic areas of work (child health, education, child protection, child poverty, child rights governance).

Experience in electronic data collection skills

Additional job responsibilities

The duties and responsibilities as set out above are not exhaustive and the role holder may be required to carry out additional duties within reasonableness of their level of skills and experience.

Equal Opportunities

The role holder is required to carry out the duties in accordance with the SCI Equal Opportunities and Diversity policies and procedures.

Child Safeguarding:

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.

Health and Safety

The role holder is required to carry out the duties in accordance with SCI Health and Safety policies and procedures.

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 31 October 2019.