Ukraine – Grants/MEAL Manager in Kiev

Location : Ukraine in Kiev

Starting Date : ASAP

Duration of Mission : 12 month

Première Urgence Internationale (PUI) is a non-governmental, non-profit, non-political and non-religious international aid organization. Our teams are committed to supporting civilians’ victims of marginalization and exclusion, or hit by natural disasters, wars and economic collapses, by answering their fundamental needs. Our aim is to provide emergency relief to uprooted people in order to help them recover their dignity and regain self-sufficiency. The association leads in average 190 projects by year in the following sectors of intervention: food security, health, nutrition, construction and rehabilitation of infrastructures, water, sanitation, hygiene and economic recovery. PUI is providing assistance to around 5 million people in 20 countries – in Africa, Asia, Middle East, Eastern Europe and France.

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Context

Since April 2014, Eastern Ukraine has been experiencing significant armed conflict; the Ukrainian Army is being forced to ward off pro-Russian separatist groups. A significant part of the Donetsk and Lugansk Oblasts (regions) are now controlled by separatists, who have declared the independence of two new states, still unrecognized by the international community: « Donetsk People’s Republic » and « Lugansk People’s Republic. » Despite the signing of a ceasefire agreement between the Ukrainian authorities and the separatists, fighting has persisted, causing a considerable number of casualties.

Humanitarian access to certain areas remains very limited, particularly in zones where armed hostilities are taking place, and hampering the delivery of humanitarian assistance to the most vulnerable people who are in need of humanitarian aid due to the combined impact of conflict, displacement and extreme poverty.

For nearly six years, the conflict has threatened the lives, physical and psychological well-being of millions of civilians. Collateral damage to critical infrastructure and systems, including hospitals, roads, schools and water infrastructure, has affected services and is now compounded by a socio-economic downturn aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the Humanitarian Needs Overview 2021, 3,4 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance in Eastern Ukraine.

PUI’s strategy/position in the country

PUI priority is to improve or restore equitable access to quality health services as well as to water, sanitation and hygiene for the most vulnerable population living in cities located along the contact line in the Donetsk Oblast. PUI focus of provision of humanitarian aid to vulnerable population within the conflict-affected area employing complex approach strategy based on technical, medical and non-medical expertise

Overall Objective and Responsabilities

Under the overall supervision and direct line management of the Head of Mission, the Grants/MEAL Manager serves as facilitator for grants management and MEAL processes for PUI Ukraine mission.

S/he is an active key for the development of concept papers, proposals, donors´ reports, communication materials and other documents relevant to the programs and ensure that the MEAL strategy of the mission is implemented.

In constant liaison with the operational and support teams, s/he supports the gathering and compilation of all necessary information on ongoing projects and mission developments, in order to report on PUI’s activities internally and externally, with utmost attention to timeliness and quality. Following PUI’s MEAL Framework s/he will contribute to harmonization of MEAL tools and processes on the mission and will look over the quality and relevance of internal monitoring and evaluation activities, recommendations and analysis produced by his/her department (studies, maps…).

Also, the Grants/MEAL Manager will help the Mission Coordination Team in their daily tasks, depending on emergencies and priorities established.

Grants’ responsibilities:**

1. Ensures the qualitative and timely production of internal and external reporting;
2. Ensures the qualitative production of project proposal and amendment packages, in close collaboration with program teams.
3. Contributes to the Communication strategy of the mission.

MEAL responsibilities:

1. Provide a methodological support to all program teams on technical questions linked to MEAL and cross-cutting issues such as: design of the Project Monitoring Tools and indicators table, MEAL plan, quantitative and qualitative data collection, measure of indicators, complaint response mechanism, do no harm analysis etc.
2. Contribute to institutional knowledge building and improvement of MEAL methods and techniques.
3. Strengthen the information system within the mission
4. Supervise the MEAL department and technically support program teams in data collection, processing and analysis

Note: The responsibility for some assessments, monitoring and evaluation of program activities will remain the primary responsibility of the program teams. The Grants/MEAL manager, will however ensure the proper tools are developed, made available to the field teams and used properly.

Specific objectives and activities

ENSURE THE QUALITATIVE AND TIMELY PRODUCTION OF INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL REPORTING

• Ensure that contractual deadlines for donor reporting as well as contractual templates and guidelines are known and respected by the operational team. He/She disseminates key information to relevant PUI staff in timely manner.
• Ensure that all relevant information and data is collected from Program and Support teams in a timely and quality manner to be included in the reports and in the appropriate format and s/he submits the final paper for validation to HOM.
• Ensure that external reports are drafted in a timely manner and with an attention to quality (coherence of data, quality of writing, justification of the gaps and variation, measurement of indicators, results and objectives, spelling) and adheres to and faithfully transposes donors contractual guidelines
• Prepare all necessary attachments and annexes to the report.
• Ensure that final versions of reports and proposals are communicated to the operational team.

ENSURES THE QUALITATIVE PRODUCTION OF PROJECT PROPOSAL AND AMENDMENT PACKAGES, IN CLOSE COLLABORATION WITH PROGRAM TEAMS

• S/He takes a significant part in the preparation of all PUI grant documentation :
• Coordinate (planning, distribution of tasks, milestones, list of components, etc.) program and proposal development (proposals, concept notes, amendments, no cost extension request, etc.);
• Support the technical and operational teams in the bases within the collecting information and inputs from Program teams in due time;
• Ensure the information fits the appropriate template and respect donor’s guidelines;
• Timely submit a qualitative, coherent and timely package for validation to HOM
• Check that the human, financial and logistics means are in line and coherent in all grant documentations, reports any discrepancies and participates in the identification of solutions.

SUPPORT THE COMMUNICATION STRATEGY OF THE MISSION

• Produce external communication materials to improve the knowledge of the humanitarian community on the areas covered by PUI
• With the Technical Coordinators support, disseminate adequate humanitarian language according to PUI’s values among external stakeholders (Facebook page) and internally.

TRAINING AND TECHNICAL SUPPORT ON MEAL

• Identify training needs in relation to MEAL among project and technical teams
• Develop program teams’ capacities in the department’s field of expertise: data collection and analysis (method, format, software etc.), measure of indicators, feedback and response mechanism, do no harm analysis, etc.
• Deploy PUI’s MEAL Framework and develop tailored training modules when needed
• Provide program teams with a technical and methodological support for M&E activities, data management (questionnaire design, sampling, data entry, extraction of useful data and interpretation) and integration of cross-cutting issues.
• Support program teams in creating or adapting tools for: PMT, indicators monitoring, impact monitoring (MEAL plan and survey tools) or risk analysis.

MONITORING AND EVALUATION OF PUI PROGRAMS

• Contribute to the elaboration, review and harmonization of M&E tools, data management, especially in the PMTs (indicators table) and the MEAL Plan.
• Create / revise the tools needed to implement program-based evaluation monitoring (database, survey form …) and ensure that the monitoring tools developed work and are correctly used by the teams;
• Define / improve / monitor and ensure the quality of information and data collected in the field;
• Design baseline and baseline studies to collect information on performance indicators and project results;
• Check relevance of reports, analysis, maps and recommendations produced.
• Propose adjustments, new activities to improve the quality of the operations or approaches, in consultation with PMs and program / technical coordinators.
• Upon ad hoc request from the program / technical coordinator, perform advanced analysis.
• Contribute to terms of references for external evaluations and studies

ACCOUNTABILITY

• Support the design and roll out of complaint feedback and response mechanisms.
• Check that the key principles of the feedback mechanism are respected.
• Produce regular analysis of the complaints and feedbacks received.
• In conjunction with the program teams, ensure that a participatory approach is initiated with local actors and partners in the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of projects
• Work in collaboration with the program teams on the design and improvement of accountability mechanisms.

LESSONS LEARNT AND INSTITUTIONAL KNOWLEDGE BUILDING (IKB)

• Build on institutional knowledge on M&E activities and missions’ results (lessons learnt and recommendations) and make sure these are known by PMs and other team members.
• Support recommendation-tracking process and work on action plans.
• Use PUI’s tools to document MEAL tools and methodologies/approaches.
• Ensure that learning activities are included in the project activities
• In link with PUI’s MEAL framework and tools ensure the implementation at base level of the recommendation tracking process (internal and external) and work together with PMs on action plans.

HR MANAGEMENT/CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT

• Make sure that new staffs are briefed on GMEAL’s roles and responsibilities.
• Participate in the evaluation and in the assessment of the performance of collaborators under his/her supervision
• Identify training needs
• Supervise and support MEAL teams in implementing their action plan and achievement of their objectives

Profile

Training:

• Bachelor’s or Master degree in a field related to Project Management, international development and/or social sciences

Experience:

• At least 2 years previous NGO experience
• Previous working experience abroad
• At least 1 year managing MEAL teams

Knowledge and Skills:

• Experience writing high quality proposals for major donors and knowledge of major main institutional donors’ rules and regulations (e.g., ECHO, BPRM, EC, DFID, CDC, AFD, UNICEF and the UNHCR.
• Experience of writing, reviewing and editing narrative and financial reports and excellent attention to detail.
• Capacity for analysing and synthetizing comprehensive information & technical data
• Excellent knowledge of Excel, data bases, kobo and other data software.
• Demonstrated ability to transfer knowledge to diverse audiences through training and mentoring
• Good written communication skills
• Knowledge of project management

Languages: Excellent writing/editing skills in English

Required Personal Characteristics:

• Ability to work independently, take the initiative and take responsibility in a proactive approach
• Self-motivated, flexible and adaptable to the needs of the team and organization
• Strong commitment in humanitarian principles
• Resilience to stress
• Diplomacy and open-mindedness
• Good analytical skills
• Organisation and ability to manage priorities and varied workload
• Ability to guarantee effective and timely outputs
• Problem solving and leadership skills
• Ability to work and manage professionally and maturely
• Ability to integrate into the local environment, taking account of its political, economic and historical characteristics

Conditions

• Employed with a Fixed-Term Contract
• Monthly gross income: from 1815 to 2145 Euros depending on the experience in International Solidarity + 50 Euros per semester seniority with PUI
• Cost covered: Round-trip transportation to and from home / mission, visas, vaccines…
• Insurance including medical coverage and complementary healthcare, 24/24 assistance and repatriation
• Housingin collective accommodation
• Daily living Expenses (« Per diem »)
• Break Policy : 5 working days at 3 and 9 months + break allowance (for missions longer than 5 months)
• Paid Leaves Policy : 5 weeks of paid leaves per year + return ticket every 6 months