CALL for MEAL consultant

About NAHNOO

NAHNOO is a registered Lebanese Non-Governmental & Non-Profit Organization. NAHNOO has been working since 2009 as a research, capacity-building and advocacy platform for participatory policymaking, towards an inclusive society in Lebanon. The NGO rallies volunteers across Lebanon and through multidisciplinary and participatory research, capacity-building workshops, and grassroots activities, we provide a platform for youth and professionals to lead the planning and implementation of advocacy campaigns and gain the skills needed to impact policy-making at the local and national levels.

Further info: www.nahnoo.org + Facebook NAHNOO

Objective/purpose of consultancy:

NAHNOO seeks the services of a MEAL expert to support NAHNOO in the monitoring and evaluation of its project and campaign about the importance of municipalities in Lebanon.

MEAL Expert will generally guide and follows up on the work of NAHNOO’s staff and advocacy team during the project.

Project Background

In Lebanon, local governance is regarded from the sole regional institutions which are municipalities. In the context of the socio-economic and humanitarian crises which have been affecting Lebanon, it was clear that municipalities were the first authorities managing and controlling these crises locally.

This showed the necessity to advocate for strengthening municipalities in order for them to use their resources and operate efficiently. This will lead to improved public service delivery. This means that Lebanon should ensure municipalities’ sustainability and good governance while taking geographical, economic, social, environmental, financial complexities into account.

Therefore, NAHNOO is working on several studies in this field and will be presenting solid recommendations laying out the roadmap for an updated and sustainable strategy for an improved municipal work in Lebanon. The NGO will promote these recommendations through the launch of an awareness campaign with a coalition of advocates.

Project General Objective: To contribute to an improved framework for an accountable and transparent local administrative governance system for Lebanon in a context of a socio-economic and humanitarian crisis.

Project Specific Objective: To reinforce the awareness & engagement of stakeholders as decision-makers (Municipalities & their Unions, Members of Parliament), local CSOs and citizens in Lebanon in order to bridge the existing gaps within the Lebanese local governance model.

Scope of work, format and key tasks:

Overall, the MEAL expert collaborates with NAHNOO’s team throughout the project to support the advocates in implementing and updating the campaign’s action plan as well as NAHNOO’s overall strategy, eventually gather the lessons learned of the campaign.

NAHNOO’s MEAL will be further strengthened throughout this project with the support of the MEAL expert.

Specifically, the expert will deliver the following main tasks:

1. Develops the MEAL plan of the project with MEAL Officer and relevant project team and provide guidance to its effective implementation and update. Follow up on set indicators showing the progress and achievement of the campaign and discuss corrective actions based on evaluation and lessons learned
2. Participates & guide in setting up the advocates’ steering committee and validates the MEAL process.

Purpose of committee: tracking and evaluating the accountability in the project while supporting the advocates in the action plan’s implementation, as well as its monitoring and evaluation at a later stage. This committee will validate the MEAL process with the expert who will have developed the plan with NAHNOO in parallel.

1. Attending relevant meetings when necessary to organize, implement and evaluate progress of the campaign
2. Review the relevant M&E related documents including reports and any available pre/post test, and evaluation forms
3. Gathering the campaign team lessons learnt and evaluate the project results to ensure beneficiaries’ participation, maximize accountability to them
4. Assist NAHNOO in having the recommendations and lessons learned integrated into NAHNOO’s future MEAL plan and strategy: the lessons learned will help develop NAHNOO’s general advocacy strategy and gender mainstreaming (gender policy to have clear and systematic ways of tracking gender considerations in projects’ MEAL plans) eventually contributing to NAHNOO’s overall strategic planning

It is to note an external evaluation will take place at the end of the project.

Specific deliverables:

1. Developed project MEAL plan
2. Reviewed narrative progress report
3. Updated MEAL policy and tools for NAHNOO
4. Developed Gender policy adapted to NAHNOO’s strategy
5. TOR for Project External Evaluator

Period and duration of consultancy

The period of the consultancy begins as soon as possible for about 6 months for an effort of less than 50 full days of work during this period to deliver the assignment mentioned in “Scope of work, format and key tasks” section above.

Specific deliverable will be agreed upon between NAHNOO and the Consultant according to identified project needs.

NB: 1 full day = 8 hours

Qualifications/level requirements

Academic background & Experience

• Advanced university degree (at least MA) in economics and social sciences, public health, social development, public policies, social sciences and similar
• At least 10 years of professional experience, international and national, working on development of technical policies, guidelines, SOPs and MEAL systems in the field of advocacy, good governance and development.
• Demonstrated experience in development of technical tools and high-quality reports and strong knowledge of Project Cycle Management
• Proficiency in delivering MEAL capacity building is an added value
• Past experience of working with non-profit organizations, international funders/donors and agencies.
• Familiarity with the Lebanese context with a good understanding of the role of civil society and advocacy

Technical & soft skills:

• Strong analytical and conceptual thinking skills; able to understand complex issues, present them in an easily understandable way and translate them into simple, workable actions and plans;
• Excellent prioritization and organization skills with close attention to details
• Interpersonal, diplomacy, cultural sensitivity, communication skills.
• Adaptability and flexibility in working within complex and dynamic environment.
• Ability to deliver high quality results in a timely manner.
• Fluency in Arabic & English (written and spoken) is a must
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office, including Excel, Word and PowerPoint.

Selection criteria:

The consultant will be selected based on competitiveness and quality of the technical (C.V & approach) and financial proposal. They will be paid upon successful completion of commissioned tasks, submission of deliverable and follow up support according to an agreed schedule and terms.