MEAL Officer

1. Context and justification of the need

The 2021 Joint Communication on a “Renewed partnership with the Southern Neighborhood - A new Agenda for the Mediterranean” underlines the importance to give special attention to the promotion of the role of women in society and the economy as part of a renewed commitment to the rule of law, human and fundamental rights, equality, democracy and good governance. In line with EU external and internal policy areas set under the Gender Action Plan (GAP) III which scales up the EU contribution to reach SDG 52 in all EU internal and external policy areas and across the 2030 Agenda, the European Commission has adopted in 2022 the Action “Women Empowerment Hub in Lebanon (WE HUB)” financed under the Neighborhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument (NDICI-Global Europe).

The overall objective of the action, with a budget of EUR 6,000,000, is to promote the advancement and empowerment of women for effective realization of gender equality. The specific objectives of the project are:

SO1. Increase women’s leadership and participation in political and public sphere.

SO2. Foster an enabling environment for better engagement of women in the workforce.

SO3. Enhance key legislative reform and measures that protect women from all forms of violence.

The expected results of the action are as follows:

Under SO1:

• Women feel more empowered to engage in political life.
• Women are more visible in public space. They gain competencies, networks, confidence and legitimacy.
• Policy dialogue at national level is enhanced and the political and legislative framework is more compliant with gender equality.

Under SO2:

• Women and civil society are better equipped to address discriminatory social norms and gender stereotypes.
• Policies stemming from evidence-based information and recommendations to combat gender discrimination and inequalities are adopted by different stakeholders on a systemic level.
• More women can access employment and entrepreneurship opportunities, in non-traditional and unconventional sectors.

Under SO3:

• Actors in the line of protection offer better services to VGB-survivor and their coordination with NGOs is enhanced.
• The access to justice of GBV survivors is enhanced.
• The existing legal framework for protection of women from violence is more enforced.

WE-HUB Project will be implemented by Expertise France and GIZ, as follows:

Expertise France will be in charge of components 1 and 3 and responsible for the overall coordination of the project and donor reporting. GIZ will be in charge of component 2. 

Needs justification

Expertise France is implementing a project that deals with numerous stakeholders and beneficiaries, from both the public administration and civil society. The project involves a well-defined set of deliverables that must be attained throughout its 42 months period.

With such a project, the management of grants and funds is vital for succeeding, and therefore, the Grants Officer will be supporting the project team in all matters related to the project’s grants and the support it provides for beneficiaries right from the inception phase, adapting with the situation as things proceed and develop.

1. Objectives and desired results

1) General objective

The objective of the assignment is to create a MEAL system for the project. The system must be finalized, adapted, and fully implemented within all project components in order to ensure a systematic and effective means of collecting data, analysing it and use it for decision making. The system will take into consideration the needs of conducting analyses based on the collected information, and more importantly, the ability to build on the information as the project progresses.

2) Specific objectives

a. To review the intervention logic of the project.

b. Conduct a baseline of the project, including but not limited to, its objectives, its progression, its stakeholders, and its deliverables.

c. Understand and implement the standards of Expertise France and the European Union in regards to MEAL systems.

d. Have a deep understanding of the implementation challenges and the limitations of the expected work.

e. Training and support project team for stakeholders on MEAL system and its tools.

f. Ensure a reliable and timely project monitoring and analysis of data to inform decisions and accountability.

g. Reporting on important matters to promote knowledge sharing with the project team.

3) Anticipated results

The project should have a MEAL system that covers the entire needs of its components in regards to MEAL.

IV. Description of the assignment

1) Planned activities

The MEAL officer must support the project in performing the following activities:

Assignment preparation

• Attend a launch meeting to define a work plan with the Team Leader, Key Experts project officer and MEAL coordinator in headquarters.

Phase I: Preparation phase

• Collect and study all project documents to have a full view of the actions and expected outcomes.

• Conduct site visits to beneficiaries to better understand the project environment.

• Build a full understanding of Expertise France and the European Union’s standards vis-à-vis MEAL and communicating it to all the team members.

• Check MEAL systems from previous projects related to women empowerment and from other EF projects.

Phase II: Tool inception phase

1. Updating the logical framework and the theory of change if needed.

2. Draft a MEAL plan to ensure efficient management of the activities for and by all stakeholders. The MEAL plan will be based on verifiable indicators and will provide a solid basis to prepare progress reports and to communicate to the donor and the beneficiaries/partners. It will be based on the logical framework. The MEAL system will include:

• Human and financial resources for MEAL: roles and responsibilities and tasks and work plan for the project team, capacity building needs
• A policy (SOP) for handling complaints of allegations of corruption, fraud and improper behaviour as well as putting in place the process by which to handle them in coordination with EF headquarters.
• Monitoring of indicators: definitions, baseline, type, use destination, frequency, archive, data source / means of verification, data collection tools and methods, baseline/endline, collect OPSYS indicators, etc.
• Data management: data flow, data analysis tools and methods, data visualisation tools and methods, data protection, data quality assurance and control
• MEAL activities planning (Gantt diagramme) and frequency
• Evaluations and questions (mid-term and final)
• Learning and questions
• Compliance with Expertise France and European Union standards and contractual requirements.

3. Conduct a baseline study that will review the indicators and their target values in order to review and amend them accordingly and update this information in OPSYS (EU’s system).

Phase III: Implementation phase

4. Train the project team (including GIZ) on the MEAL tool and advise on the work needed for filling it.

5. Training the grantees on data collection, reporting and interpretation.

6. Assist in the data collection process from all needed sources, check data quality and compliance and formulating the terms of reference for short-term experts or consultants in charge of MEAL assignments (enumerators) and participating in the selection processes.

7. Quarterly refresh the MEAL tool created and ensure its continuous update: collecting data and produce indicators for annual and quarterly project reviews as well as for donor reports, steering committees and communication related activities.

8. Produce information that can be clearly communicated in progress reports.

9. Help with the organization of workshops that aim to learning and reviewing the work with stakeholders.

10. Fulfill the needs of the European Union regarding its standard MEAL requirements (OPSYS).

3) Coordination

The MEAL officer will closely coordinate with the project team leader, who will be quality checking the MEAL steps and achievement values as well as with the MEAL Coordinator at headquarters.

The MEAL officer will also coordinate (according to the MEAL plan) with the Key Experts and all the team members and will support on the data collection, consolidation of the data of each component in coordination with the beneficiaries and partners, analysing it, and develop tools to collect information (qualitative and quantitative).

4) Qualifications and skills

• University degree (Master’s degree) in International Relations, Statistics or any related field;
• At least 5 years experience in developing and implementing MEAL systems and collecting and analysing data;
• Previous experience in formulating and managing a feedback and complaints mechanism;
• Excellent command of Excel and data collection and analysis software (Kobo, Survey CTO, Eval&Go, STATA, SPSS, Power BI/Tableau);
• Good knowledge of EU’s requirements regarding MEAL;
• Good communication and training skills;
• Former experience in gender equality projects in the MENA region would be a great asset;
• Former experience in facilitating learning workshops;
• Excellent command of English and Arabic. Knowledge of French is an asset.

Application process

Applications (detailed resume and cover letter) are to be sent to the following email address: [email protected], under the title: MEAL Officer – Lebanon.  

Please draft your cover letter and your CV in English.

The deadline for application is March 4th, 2024.