MERL Specialist- Ukraine Response, Poland (Maternity Coverage)

Background

Plan International is an independent development and humanitarian organisation that advances children’s rights and equality for girls. We believe in the power and potential of every child. But this is often suppressed by poverty, violence, exclusion, and discrimination. And it’s girls who are most affected.

Working together with children, young people, our supporters, and partners, we strive for a just world, tackling the root causes of the challenges facing girls and all vulnerable children and girls.

We support children’s rights from birth until they reach adulthood. And we enable children to prepare for – and respond to – crises and adversity. We drive changes in practice and policy at local, national, and global levels using our reach, experience, and knowledge.

We have been building powerful partnerships for children for over 80 years and are now active in more than 70 countries.

Role Purpose

The conflict in Ukraine is resulting in a major humanitarian crisis with over 3 million people having fled to neighboring countries, and millions displaced within Ukraine. Plan International is responding to the crisis and working in partnership with civil society organizations, including in Poland, to meet the key needs of affected populations including internally displaced people (IDPs).

Plan International has been present in Poland since March 2022 and has established partnerships with civil society organisations, interagency fora, and national actors across the country. In direct coordination with partners, Plan International is implementing humanitarian and early recovery projects inside Poland with a primary thematic focus on child protection, mental health and psychosocial support, basic needs, and education in emergencies. 

Dimensions of the Role

The MERL Specialist will oversee capacity exchange, quality assurance, and procedural operationalization for all monitoring, evaluation, research, and learning (MERL). Moreover, she/he will act also as Accountability to Affected Populations (AAP) Focal Point, covering the responsibilities in the Poland mission projects and response strategy. The role will involve working in direct coordination with national civil society partners, interagency partners, and internal partners to implement MERL frameworks, execute capacity exchange plans, and drive MERL processes.

This position will play a key role in supporting the Poland country level MERL activities and ensuring high quality information and analysis is provided across the Plan International federation. The postholder will provide MERL leadership, technical support, and guidance to Plan International teams and partners in Poland. The position will be based in Warsaw, Poland.

The role is the primary point of contact for staff and partners in the Ukraine mission on all MERL & AAP support requirements. The post holder will implement MERL requirements, in alignment with the Plan International Global Hub and Ukraine Response Hub MERL standards and practice. The post holder will represent Plan International in external fora, ensuring the organization is seen as a leader in gender focused programming in humanitarian response.

Accountabilities

• Provide technical MERL leadership to Plan International Poland partners and stakeholders, acting as the MERL focal point for the Poland mission.
• Lead the development of project MERL frameworks and MERL plans in coordination with in-country partners.

• Lead country level data monitoring, dissemination, and processing for the Poland mission.
• Develop MERL & AAP capacity exchange plans to improve in country partner MERL & AAP processes and systems.
• Champion MERL & AAP capacity exchange activities through the delivery of training, coaching and mentorship to in-country partners and stakeholders.
• Lead the development and review of MERL & AAP partner project tools and strategic instruments as aligned to the Plan Global MERL Policy.

• Act as country focal point for needs assessments, evaluations and research initiatives undertaken in Ukraine mission.
• Support the management, planning, and delivery of project evaluations and impact assessment products.

• Support recruitment to ensure sustainability and continuity of MERL resources as the response progresses.
• Ensures all MERL & AAP work has a strong gender & child friendly focus in line with Plan International’s Global Strategy.
• Ensure that the different capacities, vulnerabilities and coping mechanisms of girls and boys are considered and analysed.
• Socialise the MERL Chapter of the Emergency Response Program Manual for use in the Poland mission, Ukrainian Response.
• Identify key data visualisation approaches to maintain profile of the response activities and to support learning and improvements.
• Capacitate staff and partners to collect quantitative and qualitative data, ensuring disaggregation by sex, age, and disability.
• Provide MERL & AAP  input to the regular response sitreps.
• Foster use of the Child friendly Complaints and Feedback Mechanism toolkit and the Adolescent Consultations toolkits to meaningfully involve children, adolescents and young people throughout the response phases.
• Build and maintain relationships with relevant government departments, UN agencies and NGOs.
• Actively contribute to M&E & AAP Coordination Mechanisms. Support partner organisations take a co-leadership role in relevant Working Groups as and when requested by partners.
• Establish/maintain new/existing relationships with key donors
• Provide MERL & AAP advice and input for the development and submission of quality proposals and donor reporting products.
• Contribute to relevant global advocacy and policy objectives with documented learning and evidence.

Key relationships

Internal

• Poland mission team
• Programme technical leads.
• Ukraine Hub
• National Organisations
• Global Hub departments (including humanitarian, MERL)

External

• Civil Society Organisations
• UN Agencies
• Institutional Donors
• Embassies
• Technical expertise, skills and knowledge

Essential

• 3-5 years experience in implementing MERL & AAP activities in a variety of humanitarian crises, particularly displacement and refugee settings.
• Strong understanding of implementing processes, approaches, tools and methodologies that facilitate and deliver MERL & AAP in these context, and organizational learning, that is up to date with best practices in the sector.
• A theoretical and practical understanding of gender attitudes and power dynamics, including why they exist and how they change, and how these attitudes and dynamics shape MERL & AAP approaches and methodologies.
• Experience providing MERL & AAP technical support to teams and partner organisations.

• Experience of designing, and delivering MERL & AAP capacity building training, and mentorship to a variety of internal and external stakeholders.

• Ability to analyse large amounts of data and generate powerful reports, data visualisation products, and information from them.
• Understand and consistently apply ethical MERL practices
• Excellent communication skills. Fluency in English, written and spoken

Desirable

• Proficiency in Polish language would be an asset.
• Proficiency in Kobo, SPSS, and Power Bi would be an asset
• Experience working in international development or humanitarian projects with a focus on children, women and girls would be an asset.
• Experience developing child friendly complaints and feedback systems would be an asset

Plan International’s Values in Practice

We are open and accountable

• Promotes a culture of openness and transparency, including with sponsors and donors.
• Holds self and others accountable to achieve the highest standards of integrity.
• Consistent and fair in the treatment of people.
• Open about mistakes and keen to learn from them.
• Accountable for ensuring we are a safe organisation for all children, girls & young people

We strive for lasting impact

• Articulates a clear purpose for staff and sets high expectations.
• Creates a climate of continuous improvement, open to challenge and new ideas.
• Focuses resources to drive change and maximise long-term impact, responsive to changed priorities or crises.
• Evidence-based and evaluates effectiveness.

We work well together

• Seeks constructive outcomes, listens to others, willing to compromise when appropriate.
• Builds constructive relationships across Plan International to support our shared goals.
• Develops trusting and ‘win-win’ relationships with funders, partners and communities.
• Engages and works well with others outside the organization to build a better world for girls and all children.

      We are inclusive and empowering

•        Seeks constructive outcomes, listens to others, willing to compromise when appropriate.
• Builds constructive relationships across Plan International to support our shared goals.
• Develops trusting and ‘win-win’ relationships with funders, partners and communities.
• Engages and works well with others outside the organization to build a better world for girls and all children.

Physical Environment

Typical Office environment

Level of contact with children

Occasional interaction with children

Additional Responsibilities:

Child Protection Policy Responsibilities (mandatory for all staff)

• Adhere to the Child Protection Policy, Code of Conduct and reporting any CPP issues. 
• Responsible for the implementation of the CPP standards as they apply to area of responsibility plus the development of actions to address identified gaps and monitoring their effectiveness.
• Ensure that all Plan International partners, visitors and associates in his/her area of responsibility are provided with, are made aware off and have signed and returned a copy of the child protection policy. Inform the partners, visitors and associates that they must comply with the policy in all contacts and communications with children during their visit.

Location: Warsaw, Poland

Type of Role: Fixed term contract (Maternity cover)

Reports to: Programme and implementation Manager

Closing Date: 3rd of October 2024

Kindly note that this position is opened for National applicants. Interviews will be conducted on a rolling basis.

Equality, diversity and inclusion is at the very heart of everything that Plan International stands for.

We want Plan International to reflect the diversity of the communities we work with, offering equal opportunities to everyone regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation.

Plan International is based on a culture of inclusivity and we strive to create a workplace environment that ensures every team, in every office, in every country, is rich in diverse people, thoughts, and ideas.

We foster an organisational culture that embraces our commitment to racial justice, gender equality, girls’ rights and inclusion.

Plan International believes that in a world where children face so many threats of harm, it is our duty to ensure that we, as an organisation, do everything we can to keep children safe. This means that we have particular responsibilities to children that we come into contact with and we must not contribute in any way to harming or placing children at risk.

A range of pre-employment checks will be undertaken in conformity with Plan International's Safeguarding Children and Young People policy. Plan International also participates in the Inter Agency Misconduct Disclosure Scheme. In line with this scheme we will request information from applicants previous employers about any findings of sexual exploitation, sexual abuse and/or sexual harassment during employment, or incidents under investigation when the applicant left employment. By submitting an application, the job applicant confirms their understanding of these recruitment procedures.

Please note that Plan International will never send unsolicited emails requesting payment from candidates.