Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEAL)Expert -Individual Consultancy

الوصف

Title of Consultancy: Local Consultant: Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEAL) Expert

Background

Creative Associates International is a dynamic, fast-growing global development firm that specializes in education, economic growth, governance, and post-crisis stabilization. Based in Washington, D.C., Creative has a field presence in more than 25 countries with a strong client portfolio that includes the U.S. Agency for International Development and the State Department, among others. Since its founding in 1977, Creative has earned a solid reputation among its clients and is well-regarded by competitors and partners alike.

The Community Policing Program (CPP) is a vital initiative aimed at fostering mutual trust, cooperation, and transparency between law enforcement bodies and local communities throughout the West Bank. The CPP encourages a shift in policing culture—from enforcement-led to community-oriented practices—emphasizing dialogue, accountability, and shared responsibility for safety and well-being.

A well-established MEAL system is key to effectively inform CPP project as well as ensure transparency and accountability.

III. Scope of work

Under the supervision and guidance of the Project Manager, and in close consultation with the Project Specialist, and MEAL Assistant , the MEAL expert will support the development and refinement of monitoring and evaluation systems and tools, ensuring that monitoring and evaluation arrangements comply with donor agreements and project requirements (M&E framework design and planning, data collection and management, accountability, evaluation, learning). S/he will also contribute to building a constructive learning environment at all project levels, promoting good practices and key recommendations for ensuring sustainability, lessons learned, and ideas for future interventions.

More specifically, the Expert will work with the project team to develop and promote the use of the MEAL system to ensure that:

Data on project activities is collected in a systematic way, consolidated, analysed and shared to support project management and adaptive programming decisions.
Mechanisms for upstream (donor) and downstream (beneficiaries) accountability are in place and consistently applied.
Evidence-based data is available to measure the results and impact of the project’s phases.
Learning from project is captured and is applied to improve ongoing & future activities and projects.
Expected outputs

The MEAL expert is expected to contribute to the design and deployment of a comprehensive MEAL framework/system in collaboration with the MEAL Assistant ensuring project quality and donor reporting, as well as promoting and fostering a culture of shared learning and accountability within the project team (including project’s partners).

The MEAL expert will be responsible of the following tasks (not exhaustive list):

Contribute to the design of the project M&E system
Update and validate the Theory of Change of the project, in line with the updated logical framework;
Evaluate the needs of the project in terms of monitoring systems, data collection and reporting; provide recommendations for improvements;
Harmonize Creative’s and donor’s MEAL requirements/indicators/targets.
Contribute to the development of a robust M&E plan, including adequate disaggregation, data collection tools and methodology, data flow maps for all project indicators;
Establish a baseline informing the initial value of project indicators that are lacking, refine indicators listed in the original logical framework, and define or update and validate targets for all indicators as needed.
Support MEAL Assistant to establish a data collection system, and possibly data visualization, or statistical software to easily consolidate, disaggregate and manage M&E data;
Build the capacity of the project team on the tools and processes put in place, including Monitoring and Evaluation Database for Adaptive Learning (MEDAL), and DevResults, and any statistical software
Collaborate with the Creative MEAL Assistant to ensure that target indicators are in line with the CPP Results Oriented Annual Reporting
Provide quality assurance for implementation of M&E plan and framework
Monitor project M&E plan with continuous updates of project indicators to systematically document performance and identify areas for improvement;
Support project team in planning and implementing project reviews to analyse progress made against original targets, as well as relevance of activities according to the evolution of the context;
Provide as-needed training to build the capacity of the project staff to ensure that M&E tools and processes are understood, properly implemented and correctly used in the progress reports. Anticipated topics to include: designing MEL systems; MEL planning; data analysis and interpretation, reporting and utilization; learning and adaptation; MEL challenges and solutions; and continued learning, as well as topics identified by the project MEAL and Technical teams.
Contribute to a constructive learning environment, promote good practices and produce analysis
Support the development of relevant accountability initiatives through the project as well as strengthen the effort to document and disseminate the impact of CPP project activities.
Build the capacity of the project team, particularly the M&E staff in sharing lessons learned from M&E data, communicating recommendations and regularly following up the implementation of these recommendations.
Support the development of case studies, including descriptions of what changed, how the change came about, the contribution of the CPP project intervention, wider contributions and lessons learned.

. Qualifications

Education & Experience:

BA degree in law, political or social science, international development, monitoring and evaluation
Minimum of 7 years of experience in performance measurement, evaluation and research, learning, and knowledge sharing: including indicator selection, target setting, reporting, database management, Data Quality Assessment (DQA), MEL capacity building, facilitating learning events, report writing, Collaborating, Learning and Adapting (CLA), and developing Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Plans (MELP).
Demonstrated past success in supporting the design, implementation, and efficiently operating an activity’s MEL systems from activity initiation to closeout stages at the field level.
Experience in designing a data capture and reporting system that includes alerts when the activity is not achieving its targets or when participants/subs are not achieving their goals.
Experience collecting and analyzing qualitative and quantitative data using methods that are suitable for changing and complex environments.
Experience in coordinating MEL for INL programs.