Planning, Monitoring, Evaluation, Reporting and Quality Assurance (PMERQA), Senior Officer

Organizational Context

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) is the world’s largest humanitarian organisation, with a network of 191-member National Societies (NSs). The overall aim of IFRC is “to inspire, encourage, facilitate, and promote at all times all forms of humanitarian activities by NSs with a view to preventing and alleviating human suffering and thereby contributing to the maintenance and promotion of human dignity and peace in the world.”  IFRC works to meet the needs and improve the lives of vulnerable people before, during and after disasters, health emergencies and other crises.

IFRC is part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement (Movement), together with its member National Societies and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The work of IFRC is guided by the following fundamental principles: humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity, and universality.

IFRC is led by its Secretary General and has its Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. The Headquarters are organised into three main Divisions: (i) National Society Development and Operations Coordination; (ii) Global Relations, Humanitarian Diplomacy and Digitalization; and (iii) Management Policy, Strategy and Corporate Services.

IFRC has five regional offices in Africa, Asia Pacific, the Middle East and North Africa, Europe, and the Americas.  IFRC also has country cluster delegations and country delegations throughout the world. Together, the Geneva Headquarters and the field structure (regional, cluster and country) comprise the IFRC Secretariat.

IFRC has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment and other forms of harassment, abuse of authority, discrimination, and lack of integrity (including but not limited to financial misconduct). IFRC also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles.

The PMER & QA Senior Officer position is based in Budapest, Hungary and providing support to the Regional Office for Europe.

Job Purpose

Two positions are open, reporting to the Regional Head of PMER and Quality Assurance, the overall purpose of this positions are to contribute to the strengthening and improvement of the quality, accountability, performance and impact in the IFRC by providing technical assistance and guidance, and support the culture and practice of reliable planning, monitoring, evaluation and reporting on IFRC activities across the Europe Region.

Position 1: A strong focus will be on the IFRC’s Ukraine and impacted countries crisis Emergency Appeal, which started in February 2022 and is due to close at the end of 2025 and as well as other emergency operations and development programmes across the region.

Position 2: A strong focus will be on emergency operations and development programmes across the region.

This entails collaborating closely with the IFRC Delegation offices and National Societies, providing technical assistance and guidance on PMER-related matters.

Responsibilities include ensuring reliable planning, monitoring, evaluation and reporting for both development and emergency programming, donor reporting, establishing a Federation Wide Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) framework and bolstering NS programmes and operations through capacity-building efforts. The position aims to elevate project quality, performance, and impact through specialised technical assistance and direction in PMER practices.

Job Duties and Responsibilities

Planning

• Support and coordinate with in-country PMER and Delegation offices in the Unified Planning process and the bi-annual reporting.
• In coordination with regional HDCC unit and in-country PMER, ensure that emergency planning documents are published, updated, revised when needed, including the M&E plan and reporting framework.
• Support the revision of the Federation-wide Appeal and the transition to a Unified Plan.
• Review and provide feedback during the design of project proposals and logical frameworks to ensure logical coherence, SMART indicators, and the inclusion of means of verifications, targets, and baselines.
• Initiate streamlining project proposals and logical frameworks to promote coherence across projects.

Monitoring

• Coordinate with Delegation offices in providing technical advice on setting up M&E framework & tools, monitoring activities, programmes and plans to facilitate results-based management, strengthen accountability, and produce evidence-based results. This includes coordination with Community Engagement and Accountability (CEA), protection, gender, and social inclusion (PGI) focal points on developing and disseminating of CEA and PGI monitoring tools.
• In coordination with the regional M&E focal point and in-country PMER, support IFRC and NS in establishing Federation-wide frameworks for planning, monitoring and reporting wherever applicable.
• Coordinate with the Regional Office’s Information Management (IM) team to support the collection and analysis of Federation Wide data to improve and strengthen programme quality, performance, and impact.
• Coordinate with Delegation offices in ensuring in-country IFRC and NS are aware of and use tools such as the MEAL plans, Gantt charts, indicator tracking tables (ITTs), baseline–endline studies, and matrixes to monitor objectives, indicators, and activities, as per IFRC guidelines; and provide the necessary technical assistance and training in furtherance of this objective

Evaluation & Learning

• Working together with regional M&E focal point, take part in the management of IFRC evaluations and ensure they are timely, useful, and ethical. Participate in the design and implementation of programme surveys, mid-term, real-time and final evaluations, special studies, and other components of evaluation and lessons learned activities.
• Support the use of evaluation results within the project and in a way that contributes to IFRC learning processes at Country, Regional, and Global levels; ensure the development and usage of management response plans for IFRC Secretariat evaluations.
• Coordinate with regional M&E focal point and Delegation offices on planned evaluations and update the Head of PMERQA regarding planned evaluations, their progress, and reports.
• Contribute to a culture of learning, performance and accountability by identifying and sharing best practices with the IFRC Secretariat and National Societies. Facilitate learning events, such as lessons learned workshops.

Job Duties and Responsibilities (continued)

Reporting

• Ensure the adherence to the IFRC reporting formats and different donor requirements during quality control. Undertake quality control of the reports in coordination with Regional Financial Unit, ensure the coherence between narrative and financial reports.
• Ensure operation’s sector leads /project managers / in-country PMER are aware on reports due and overdue in liaison with the Finance and SPRM teams.
• Liaising with CD/CCDs, facilitate initiating and finalising all mandatory operation updates for the Emergency Appeal and pledge-based reports (donor reports). This includes other reporting such as Mid-term and Annual reports, etc.
• Liaise with SPRM team and other stakeholders on the status of donor reports.
• Ensure timeliness and compliance with standard IFRC and donor reporting requirements. Share finalised reports with the Strategic Partnerships and Resource Mobilization (SPRM) Team for their submission to the donors. Publish endorsed appeals and reports on the official website and send out notifications thereof.
• Provide support in creating SOPs and workflows for reporting, facilitate and drive reporting and data collection processes as needed (internal and external).

Capacity building and general support:

• Provide technical guidance for assessments, planning, monitoring, evaluation and reporting of related programmes and operations.
• In coordination with the Delegation offices, contribute to strengthening the development of PMER technical capacity of NS and IFRC staff through training, workshops and/or capacity-building initiatives. In coordination with the Delegation offices and regional thematic focal points, foster synergies and best practices for PMER/IM at NS.
• Deputize for the Regional Head of PMERQA and/or PMER Coordinator during their missions and leaves of absence.

Duties applicable to all staff
1. Actively work towards the achievement of the Federation Secretariat’s goals
2. Abide by and work in accordance with the Red Cross and Red Crescent principles
3. Perform any other work-related duties and responsibilities that may be assigned by the line manager

Education

Required:

• Graduate degree in a relevant humanitarian or Social Sciences, ideally studies relating to data management, statistics etc.

Preferred:

• Basic Delegate Training Course or IMPACT, ERU, CAP Training or equivalent experience.

Experience

Required:

• 3 years of experience working for the RCRC Movement
• 3 years of experience working in PMER and/or IM
• Experience working in an emergency response context
• Background in data collection, management, analysis and presentation methods and tools, and ability to set up systems and procedures for reliable data collection and management.
  

Knowledge, Skills and Languages

Required:

• Skills in supporting organizational learning, accountability and performance
• Strong analytical and written skills, including reports and presentation skills
• Strong skills in designing and using PMER concepts, tools, and best practices
• Knowledge of results-based or adaptive management systems and processes
• Knowledge and skills around results-based planning (logframe) and setting up robust planning systems for complex programmes
• Knowledge of assessment, survey and monitoring methodologies and experience implementing them
• Knowledge of evaluation and review for disaster response or recovery work
• Experience in capacity building through on-the-job or other training methods
  
• Fluently spoken and written English

Preferred:

• Good command of another IFRC official language (French, Spanish or Arabic).

Competencies, Values and Comments

Values: Respect for diversity; Integrity; Professionalism; Accountability

Core competencies: Communication; Collaboration and teamwork; Judgement and decision making; National society and customer relations; Creativity and innovation; Building trust

Functional competencies: Strategic orientation; Building alliances; Leadership; Empowering others. 

Comments: This is a national staff position open to Hungarian nationals and others who are legally eligible to work in Hungary. Candidates must be able to provide proof of their eligibility to work in Hungary.