MEL Technical Officer

This position is open to candidates who have the legal right to work in Jordan. Please note that we are unable to provide work permits or visa sponsorships for this position.

Please Attach/ Write your cover letter with the application.

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) is a non-governmental, humanitarian organization with 60 years of experience in helping to create a safer and more dignified life for refugees and internally displaced people. NRC advocates for the rights of displaced populations and offers assistance within the shelter, education, emergency food security, legal assistance, and water, sanitation, and hygiene sectors. The Norwegian Refugee Council has approximately 9000 committed and competent employees involved in projects across four continents. In addition, NRC runs one of the world’s largest standby rosters -NORCAP, with 650 professionals, ready to be deployed on 72 hours notice when a crisis occurs.

The purpose of the MEL Technical Officer role is to support in strengthening monitoring, evaluation and learning components of the programme at the Area Office. They will support Core Competency Programs (CCs) in implementing the MEL system, including providing technical support and building programme staff capacity to promote evidence-based decision-making, promoting programme and project performance, and learning at the area level. They will lead in outcome and learning planning, tracking and reporting, ensuring that CCs are documenting project progress and change realized through routine monitoring and project implementation following established guidelines, as well as conducting data quality assessment, audits and verification of project data in the area office.

Generic responsibilities:

Ensure compliance with NRC policies, guidelines and standards

1. Ensure compliance with NRC global and country office MEL policies, tools, handbooks and guidelines;
2. Responsible for strengthening MEL systems, including MEL SOPs, guidance and tools in the area office.
3. Support programme or MEL staff in planning for and executing MEL, including data collection methodology and tools and data management, analysis, use and dissemination.
4. Ensure data is gathered in a timely and appropriate manner and to an acceptable quality.
5. Advise area-level management on MEL solutions/options on data collection, data use, data management,
6. Contribute to organizational learning through supporting specific analysis, lessons learned and reports.
7. Capacity building and training of programme & MEL staff on MEL technical and conceptual areas.
8. Promote quality programming, learning and evidence-based programming within the area office.
9. Prepare and develop status reports as required by management.

Specific responsibilities:

1. Responsible for recruiting qualified field MEL staff and building the capacity of data collectors.
2. Lead on the rollout of MEL Activities, Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), systems and procedures within the area office.
3. Provide technical guidance to strengthen information management of each CC to ensure complete and accurate project information is stored and reported in a timely manner.
4. Ensure the area office Outcome Monitoring planning is accurate and up to date, in coordination with the CC teams.
5. Oversee outcome-level data collection exercises in close collaboration with CC teams.
6. Support the CC IM teams in planning for and executing MEL activities, including developing data collection methodology and tools, training enumerators, managing data, analyzing and using it, and clearly maintaining means of verification and other documentation.
7. Providing technical oversight for needs assessments, baseline and end-line surveys, and programme evaluations, particularly field data collection using digital data collection methods.
8. Support the area teams to improve the quality of monitoring, evaluation, and accurate reporting, including training on MEL tools, validating the quality of training and supervision of enumerators, data entry and analysis, and reporting.
9. Support project managers on strengthening systems to ensure proper planning and tracking outcomes, monitoring data collection, analysis, and reporting.
10. Contribute to a culture of high-quality project performance, evidence-based programming, and learning.

Generic professional competencies for this position:

1. Experience: A minimum of 2 years of experience in Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) roles, in an emergency or post-conflict setting, is required.
2. Education: A bachelor’s degree in a relevant field such as Statistics, Information Systems Management, business administration, Social Sciences, Development Studies, or similar is required.
3. Understanding of data and information needs for program management and decision-making.
4. Experience with and knowledge of principles and current approaches to monitoring and evaluation in relief and development programs, using both quantitative and qualitative methods
5. Communication: Excellent communication skills are essential for this role.
6. Report Writing: strong report writing skills, with the ability to present data in a clear and concise manner.
7. Training and Capacity Building: experience in providing training and capacity building of staff in MEL technical and conceptual areas.
8. Data Analysis: Proficient in data analysis tools such as Excel, Access, Stata or similar.
9. Strong organizational and team working skills.
10. Written and verbal fluency in English and Arabic.

Context related skills, knowledge and experience (shall be adapted to the specific position):

1. Sector Knowledge: data protection principles, international standards, data tech and systems.
2. Language: Advanced English and Fluency in Arabic are required for this role.
3. Cultural Sensitivity: Understanding of the local culture and customs and being able to work effectively in a diverse environment.
4. Advantage: Experience in GIS mapping is an advantage.

Behavioral competencies:

1. Managing resources to optimize results;
2. Planning and delivering results;
3. Working with people;
4. Analyzing;
5. Communicating with impact and respect;
6. Coping with change.
7. Curious and committed to quality.

Performance Management:
The employee will be accountable for the responsibilities and the competencies, in accordance with the NRC Performance Management Manual. The following documents will be used for performance reviews:

• The Job Description.
• The Work and Development Plan.
• The Mid-term/End-of-trial Period Performance Review Template.
• The End-term Performance Review Template.
• The NRC Competency Framework.