Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Specialist

Organizational Setting

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is implementing the Project entitled “Building Resilience to Cope with Climate Change in Jordan (BRCCJ)”, The goal of the seven-year project is increased climate resilient sustainable development in the country. Towards this aim, the project combines infrastructure development and natural resources management with principles of local capital formation at the community level. The project will have three interrelated components, which will work synergistically to address key barriers and enhance the impact of project investments. The components are designed to deal with the lack of infrastructure, limited capacity of rural farming households and weak institutional capacity. They include (i) Component 1: Climate Resilient Water Systems; (ii) Component 2: Climate Change resilience for Enhanced Livelihoods and Food Security; and (iii) Component 3: Scaling-up climate adaptation. Coherently with identified lesson learned in Jordan as well as with the GCF Gender guidelines, the project builds on the idea of inclusion of women as change agents for climate adaptation.

The project will be executed jointly by FAO, UNDP, Ministry of Environment (MoE), Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) and Ministry of Water and Irrigation (MWI) indicating the strong collaborative and partnership approach which will be adopted during the implementation of the project. The project will capitalise on the strong experience and convening power that both FAO and UNDP have established in the country.

For the implementation of the Project, a project management unit (“PMU”) will be formed. The PMU will be responsible for day-to-day project management, providing human resources management, financial and procurement services, coordinate the Project activities, generate work plans and prepare reports. The PMU will be established within MoE and will report to the FAO.

The incumbent will be part of the project team based within the project PMU in the Ministry of Environment of Jordan.

Reporting Lines
The Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist will be under the overall supervision of FAOR and will report to the LTA.

Technical Focus
Provide:
•     Progress monitoring and tracking, 
•     Ongoing and terminal evaluations, 
•     M&E planning across the project’s components, 
•     M&E reporting to government and partners as well as internal reporting
•     Quality assurance across M&E activities 
•     M&E training to project staff and, where necessary partners/ service providers

Tasks and responsibilities

Task 1: Overall M&E Management:

•     Lead the management of the M&E Unit.
•     Lead monthly reporting on project progress and activities to MoEnv
•     Support the tasks and performance of the M&E Officer.
•     Assume the overall responsibility for all M&E functions across the three project components, outputs and activities, including measuring and reporting, and providing key performance data and tools to ensure efficient and effective use of the resources, support the strategic planning and real-time decision-making.
•     Support the PMU by providing timely and verifiable data to share in meetings, workshops, and training.

Task 2: Establishment and operationalisation of an M&E system:

•     Establish an M&E System aligned with BRCCJ Theory of Change and the Results Framework in keeping with the guidelines of FAO and GCF to report on the Performance Measurement Frameworks (PMF) designed to measure the key indicators. 
•     Develop a Management Information System (MIS) which will geo-reference all activities using FAO’s Remote Sensing application Earth Map. 
•     Develop a comprehensive yearly M&E plan on the basis of the PIM and FP. 
•     Lead the formulation of the Annual AWPB, with a particular focus on the annual physical targets indicated in the FP and PIM and monitor performance accordingly.  
•     Develop formats for each of the BRCCJ required reports namely the monthly statistical reports, the quarterly statistical and narrative reports and the Annual Performance Reports (APRs) with support from and endorsement of the PM and LTA.
•     Ensure that APRs contain a narrative with updates on the progress of each output and outcome envisaged at the project level, as well as an update on the status of the achievement of the GCF investment criteria.
•     Design easy-to-use field-based reporting formats to inform about the project progress, best practices, lessons learned, success stories, synergies, and challenges. 
•     Develop field-based easy-to-use data collection templates and tools coherent with the specifications of each component and output. 
•     Assess the capacity of the relevant ministries involved regarding M&E systems and identify opportunities to strengthen M&E at the government level (MOE, MWI, and MOA) to improve the BRCCJ impact.

Task 3: Managing M&E partners’ roles and responsibilities:

•     Ensure that all partners such as private contractors, service providers, technical experts and UNDP (as EE for some of the activities) are responsible for maintaining records using the agreed upon format designed as part of the project MIS and the reporting system. 
•     Ensure that all implementing partners provide sex disaggregated information on the core indicators, impact, outcome, and output level indicators specified in the PMF. 
•     Ensure that service providers report annually on physical and financial progress and on key performance indicators and outputs if needed. 
•     Ensure that the contracts of the implementing partners specify their reporting responsibilities, the frequency of the reports to be produced and provide them with the formats to be used. 
•     Ensure that the implementing partners report on the indicators related to social inclusion and gender as well as on environment in close coordination with the Social Inclusion and Gender Specialist and the Environment and Social Safeguard Specialist. 
•     Ensure that the implementing partners provide requisite sex disaggregated data for the mid-term and final impact evaluations and make themselves available and open for any external financial and performance audits.

Task 4: Monitoring, Evaluation, Learning and Reporting:

In addition to reporting responsibilities referred to in Task 2:
•     Draft the M&E sections in BRCCJ reports to deliver to GCF. 
•     Support the LTA and PMU specialised experts in drafting specific M&E tasks and requirements in the TORs and tender documents prepared to outsource expertise (individual experts, service provider, other).
•     Expand and follow up on the M&E indicators set at the activity level and ensure the feasibility of the activity-based monitoring process using the attributed objectively verifiable indicator, the baseline and target values, the means of verification, source of verification, reporting frequency, responsibilities for data collection and reporting and the assumptions as defined in the logical framework. In addition, develop indicator reference sheets that include all the information relevant to the documentation of the indicator definition, measurability, reporting, and developments/changes related.
•     Monitor and report on the baseline and target values referred to in the PMF. Promptly report to and suggest remedial actions to LTA on any inconsistency found in these values. 
•     Prepare annual results and related analysis for each annual year planning exercise to be jointly reviewed by FAO and the LTA and presented to the PSC (NCCC) in order to support its strategic role and to secure transparency and evidence-based strategy development.
•     Report on the progress made towards the targets of the indicators and any additionally identified project level indicators using sex-disaggregated data. 
•     Support the mid-term and final evaluation missions by ensuring that all the necessary reports, data are available.
•     Elaborate and follow-on M&E reporting matrix identified in the FP and PIM taking into account the respective timelines and reporting responsibilities.

Task 5: Capacity building on M&E requirements:

•     Train the PMU staff on M&E system, tools and reporting requirements and on how to identify/ manage/ update the data collection at national and Governorates’ levels.
•     Train BRCCJ partners on the use of the geo-referencing tool and maintain MIS records consistent with the overall system designed for the project and adopt the reporting formats developed by the project.

Task 6: Other duties and functions:

•     GRM follow up duties
•     Perform other project tasks and duties requested/assigned by the Project LTA.
•     Provide support to other technical specialists in M&E field.
•     Assign the M&E Officer as the acting M&E Specialist (Head of Unit) during times of in-office unavailability.

CANDIDATES WILL BE ASSESSED AGAINST THE FOLLOWING

Minimum Requirements

•     M.Sc. degree in M&E, project management, business administration, economics or a related field. 
•     A minimum of (7) years of progressively responsible experience working in projects of which 5 years in monitoring and evaluation of development projects or programmes.
•     Working knowledge (level C) of English and Arabic.
•     National of Jordan

FAO Core Competencies

•     Results Focus
•     Teamwork
•     Communication
•     Building Effective Relationships
•     Knowledge Sharing and Continuous Improvement

Technical/Functional Skills

•     M&E, reporting, analytical skills, communication, negotiations and good moderation and presentation skills.
•     Preparation of annual plans and budgets
•     Database and information management systems

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION