MERL and AAP Specialist

Our Organisation

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 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 Ukraine, to meet the key needs of affected populations including internally displaced people (IDPs).

Plan International has been present in Ukraine since August 2022, and has established partnerships with civil society organizations, to ensure national actors are equipped with technical support, best practices, and flexible resources, to respond with a primary focus on Child Protection in Emergencies, Education, and Mental Health & Psychosocial Support.

Dimensions of the Role

The MERL and AAP Specialist will oversee capacity building, quality assurance, and processes for all monitoring, reporting and evaluation and learning (MERL) responsibilities in Ukraine office projects and response strategies in addition to ensuring a strong establish AAP system and capacity in place. The role will involve working in direct coordination with national civil society partners, interagency partners, and internal partners to implement MERL and AAP frameworks, execute capacity exchange plans, and assessments. 

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

The role is the primary point of contact for staff and partners in the Ukraine mission on all MERL and AAP support requirements. The post holder will ensure Plan International is following the organization’s MERL and AAP standards. 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 and AAP leadership and advice to Plan partners and stakeholders, acting as the external relations focal point for the Ukraine Response, Ukraine office.
• Lead the development of project MERL frameworks and MERL plans in coordination with in-country partners.
• Ensures all MERL work has a strong gender focus in line with Plan International’s Global Strategy. 
• Socialise the MERL Chapter of the Emergency Response Program Manual for use in the Ukraine office.
• Develop M&E and AAP capacity exchange plans and deliver training, coaching and mentorship to civil society partners internal and external stakeholders.
• 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, and ensure accountability planning and implementation.
• Provide MERL input to the regular response sitreps.
• Design and oversee the implementation of accountability strategies, ensuring community feedback is integrated into program design and execution.
• Lead the monitoring, evaluation, and improvement of feedback mechanisms to assess the effectiveness of accountability processes.
• Manager and 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.
• Provide MERL 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.

General

1. Ensures that Plan International’s global policies for Safeguarding Children and Young People and Gender Equality and Inclusion are fully embedded in accordance with the principles and requirements of the policy including relevant Implementation Standards and Guidelines as applicable to their area of responsibility. This includes, but is not limited to, ensuring staff and associates are aware of and understand their responsibilities under these policies and Plan International’s Code of Conduct (CoC), their relevance to their area of work, and that concerns are reported and managed in accordance with the appropriate procedures.

Key relationships

Internal

• Ukraine mission team
• Programme technical leads.
• Project Implementation Manager
• Business Development Manager (BDM) 
• Information Management Officer/Specialist
• Ukraine ECE Hub
• National Plan International Officers
• Global Hub departments (including humanitarian, MERL, AAP)

External

• Civil Society Organisations
• UN Agencies
• Institutional Donors

Technical expertise, skills and knowledge

Essential

• Significant experience in implementing M&E activities in a variety of humanitarian crises, particularly displacement and refugee settings. 
• Significant experience in designing logframes and M&E frameworks.
• Strong understanding of implementing processes, approaches, tools and methodologies that facilitate and deliver M&E in these context, and organizational learning, that is up to date with best practices in the sector.
• Experience providing M&E technical support and capacity strengthening to teams and partner organisations.
• Significant understanding of global accountability standards, such as the Core Humanitarian Standard (CHS), Sphere Standards, and other humanitarian accountability frameworks.
• Proficiency in designing, implementing, and analyzing monitoring and evaluation systems specific to AAP activities.
• Ability to assess the effectiveness of community feedback loops, identify gaps, and make recommendations for program improvements.
• Able to analyse large amounts of data and generate powerful reports and information from them. 
• Understand and consistently apply ethical MERL practices
• Excellent computer literacy, including MS Excel, power point. (PowerBI is an asset).
• Ability to build trust and manage sensitive issues while ensuring the protection and confidentiality of the affected populations.
• Previous experience with digital systems, CRMs such as activity info is a strong asset.
• Excellent communication skills. Fluency in English and Ukrainian, written and spoken

Desirable

• Proficiency in Ukrainian language would be an asset. 

Plan International’s Values in Practice

We are open and accountable

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

We strive for lasting impact

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

We work well together

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

We are inclusive and empowering

1. We empower our staff to give their best and develop their potential
2. We respect all people, appreciate differences and challenge equality in our programs and our workplace
3. We support children, girls and young people to increase their confidence and to change their own lives. 

The position is based in Ukraine.