Job Purpose:

The Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL) Coordinator establishes and coordinates MAG Lebanon’s MEAL department, reports to the Programme Manager and line manages the MEAL Officer. The role covers humanitarian mine action (HMA) and weapons and ammunition management (WAM), and partner activities across MAG Lebanon’s portfolio.

The department’s main objectives are to strengthen programme quality and effectiveness, assess the changes MAG’s work contributes to for communities and institutions, and strengthen accountability to affected populations. It ensures that reliable evidence, community feedback and lessons learned inform project design, implementation, reporting and programme decisions.

The Coordinator promotes the adoption of a MEAL approach across the programme through internal advocacy, practical training and coaching for relevant programme, operational and support staff. This includes helping staff understand their responsibilities within the MEAL framework, collect and use meaningful evidence, reflect on results and apply learning to improve their work.

The role ensures that internal evaluation is built into project plans and undertaken at appropriate stages during implementation, alongside routine monitoring. These evaluations should assess relevance, effectiveness, outcomes and unintended effects, identify areas for improvement, and lead to documented actions and follow-up. This enables MAG to assess and improve its projects proactively, without waiting for external evaluations.

The Coordinator agrees and documents clear responsibilities and working arrangements between MEAL, Operations including the Community Liaison (CL) and Information Management (IM), and WAM team. Operational teams remain responsible for implementation, technical accuracy and routine activity and output data. CL leads community engagement, EORE delivery and associated routine data collection, and supports outcome assessments and community feedback processes. IM maintains the central database and leads data quality assurance, processing, analysis and information production. MEAL coordinates monitoring frameworks, outcome assessments and internal evaluations, undertakes assigned MEAL data collection, interprets and synthesizes evidence, and facilitates accountability, learning and follow-up across these teams.

Principal Responsibilities:

Planning

Review existing MEAL activities, tools and responsibilities across departments, identify strengths and gaps, and agree with the PM and relevant teams on a phased transition plan.
Coordinate the development and periodic review of a programme MEAL framework, with PM oversight and PPL support, bringing together project logframes, donor requirements and MAG's HMA and Armed Violence Reduction Theories of Change.
Support the strengthening of appropriate MEAL systems and the delivery of key organisational MEAL priorities across the country programme
Prepare a MEAL workplan and monitoring calendar covering field visits, outcome follow-up, evaluations, accountability and learning. Review priorities with the PM as funding, security and access change.
Contribute to the design of new projects and proposals by drawing on monitoring and evaluation findings, community feedback, lessons learned and projections of future needs. Work with relevant teams to use this evidence to define appropriate interventions, expected outcomes, realistic targets, indicators and MEAL resource requirements.
Work to integrate gender and inclusion, conflict sensitivity and environmental considerations into measurement and learning.

Monitoring

Agree data collection tools, sampling plans and schedules with IM, CL and technical teams. Guide and, where required, participate in surveys, interviews and focus group discussions using approved methods.
Coordinate clearance outcome monitoring with Operations and CL using MAG's rapid and comprehensive pre- and post-clearance assessment tools. Plan comprehensive post-clearance follow-up at least six months after task completion, in line with HQ guidance.
Coordinate EORE retention surveys three to six months after sessions, following up the same participants assessed through pre- and post-session tests. CL retains responsibility for routine EORE delivery records and immediate tests.
Ensure all data collected is sex age disability disaggregated, and include the use of the Washington Group Short Set questions as appropriate
Coordinate monitoring of WAM projects, including infrastructure activities and training programmes, with relevant technical teams and LAF. Use agreed monitoring tools, pre- and post-training assessments and subsequent follow-ups to capture outcome-level evidence on knowledge and skills retention, application of learning, and changes in institutional capacity and weapons and ammunition storage, security and management practices.

Evaluation

Support the PM and PPL in planning internal and external evaluations, drafting terms of reference, defining evaluation questions and reviewing methods. Coordinate programme inputs, access, logistics and stakeholder engagement.
Support qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis of outcome and output level change on a periodic basis as required as part of the MEAL framework, to routinely evaluate programme performance and develop findings and recommendations
Coordinate programme input to evaluation reports and management responses. Maintain an action tracker with responsible staff, deadlines and follow-up, and escalate overdue actions to the PM.

Accountability

Support the Country Director (CD), PM, CL and Safeguarding Lead to establish and maintain safe, accessible community feedback and complaints channels. Consult different community groups on language, accessibility and preferred channels.
Design and implement community surveys and other feedback collection activities, and liaise with HR to receive relevant community feedback through existing channels. Analyse findings to identify community needs, priorities and emerging trends, and use this evidence to inform programme design, adaptation and MAG Lebanon’s overall business strategy. Share anonymised findings and practical recommendations with relevant members of MAG’s Senior Management Team (SMT) and programme teams to support decision-making and follow-up actions.
Contribute to the development and roll out of MEAL tools and processes as part of MAG’s commitments to accountability to the affected population, to partners and relevant stakeholders including the national government and donors

Learning

Facilitate regular reflection and lessons learned discussions, bringing together monitoring, evaluation and feedback findings. Record practical recommendations and follow up agreed changes with the PM and responsible teams.
Work with CL, programme and communications departments to develop evidence-based case studies and Stories of Change, including challenges and unintended effects.
Document examples of innovation in the Lebanon programme, sharing lessons learnt on the piloting of innovative approaches (globally and/or nationally within Lebanon)

Systems capacity and coordination

Agree data flows, validation steps and reporting schedules with IM. Submit internally checked MEAL datasets to IM and use controlled extracts from OMIS for interpretation and reporting.
Promote informed consent, secure handling of personal data and appropriate sex, age and disability disaggregation. Support use of the Washington Group Short Set where suitable, with trained staff and approved tools.
Assess MEAL capacity needs and deliver practical training and coaching for staff and local partners, in coordination with the Partnership Coordinator and relevant managers. Support consistent methods while avoiding duplicate reporting demands.
Line manage the MEAL Officer, agreeing workplans and priorities, allocating tasks and reviewing progress, performance and quality of work. Provide regular supervision, training and coaching based on identified development needs, and work jointly on monitoring, assessments and analysis to strengthen practical skills and ensure effective delivery of MEAL activities.

Essential requirements and skills:

A university degree in social sciences, statistics, development studies or a related field, or equivalent relevant professional experience.
At least four years of relevant MEAL experience in humanitarian or development programmes, including coordination across several projects and work with programme or operational teams.
Practical experience establishing & applying MEAL frameworks, logframes and Theories of Change; developing or adapting indicators and tools; and supporting evaluations and donor reporting.
Experience in quantitative and qualitative methods, sampling, data interpretation and communicating findings, including sound judgement about evidence quality and limitations.
Experience in supervising, mentoring or coordinating staff, facilitating learning and delivering practical training; ability to work constructively with local partners.
Strong Excel skills and experience with digital data collection tools; ability to work with IM team on data quality and reporting.
Strong planning, facilitation and report writing skills; ability to coordinate across departments, manage deadlines and adapt to changing field conditions.
Fluent written and spoken Arabic and English, with the ability to communicate clearly with communities, staff and external stakeholders.
Knowledge of OECD-DAC evaluation criteria and experience with statistical or qualitative analysis software is an asset.

General:

All MAG staff is expected to undertake the following general duties:

Work towards achieving departmental business plan objectives.
Work within the framework of MAG’s core values, promoting its ethos and mission statement.
Work as part of a team and liaise with other departments to ensure effective communications across the organization.
Ensure familiarity with and adhere to all MAG policies and procedures and Safeguarding framework.
Ensure confidentiality of information as required by MAG policies and procedures.
Undertake any other duties appropriate to the post as may be required and/or requested by the PLM.
Aware of gender mainstreaming and ready to participate in gender awareness courses/training
Able to work in a mixed team
Responsible for his/her own continuing training to develop his/her skills
Understand and uphold the standards outlined in MAG’s Safeguarding Framework, acting with due care and attention to safeguard the well-being of anyone who comes into contact with MAG’s work and reporting concerns if they arise.