Humanitarian Action MEAL Advisor

Humanitarian Action MEAL Advisor 

Unit: Humanitarian Action – Disaster Preparedness & Technical Support (IDS) 

Location: Dakar (Senegal), Nairobi (Kenya), Addis Adeba (Ethiopia) and Skopje (North Macedonia) 

Duration: 1 year maternity replacement 

About us  

SOS Children's Villages, founded in 1949, is the world's largest non-governmental organization focused on supporting children and young people without parental care, or at risk of losing it.  

Child neglect, abuse and abandonment is everywhere. Families are at risk of separation. Locally led, we work in more than 130 countries and territories to strengthen families who are under pressure so they can stay together. When this is not in a child or young person's best interests, we provide quality care according to their unique needs.  

Together with partners, donors, communities, children, young people and families, we enable children to grow up with the bonds they need to develop and become their strongest selves. We speak up for each child's rights and advocate for change so all children can grow up in a supportive environment. 

They contribute to the leadership of SOS SOS Children's Villages International (CVI) including enabling sound budgeting and financial management by leaders and managers in the two units: FCS (Federation Secretariat) and IDS (International Development Support). 

Mission 

The Humanitarian Action team enables and supports local national offices and partners in pursuing their mission as set out in the SOS Children’s Villages International Humanitarian Policy. It is ensured by an agile team of deployable senior humanitarian experts with an executive role to Member Associations, aiming at reinforcing their capacities and ensuring a timely start-up or scale-up of humanitarian operations. This includes internal coordination of funding streams and humanitarian appeals, provision of support for disaster preparedness and recovery, and the institutionalization of the Humanitarian Development and Peace nexus approach. 

The Advisor / MEAL strengthens evidence-based humanitarian programming across SOS Children’s Villages by setting and promoting MEAL standards and minimum requirements, and by ensuring that data and learning inform decision-making. This role provides hands-on technical support to Member Associations, including the design and review of MEAL frameworks, data collection tools, and indicator tracking systems. The Advisor / MEAL ensures meaningful participation of affected populations—especially children and young people—throughout the project cycle, leads CHS accountability processes, and drives organizational learning through reporting, peer exchange, and dissemination of good practices. 

Tasks and Responsibilities 

1. Technical Assistance, Tools & Capacity Strengthening 

• Provide technical assistance to Member Associations across the project cycle, including design and review of MEAL frameworks, indicators, log frames, and monitoring plans. 

• Develop, adapt, and maintain data-collection tools (including Kobo) and advise on methodology for needs assessments, baselines, and endline surveys. 

• Review and analyse indicator data, ensuring quality and recommending adjustments to improve project delivery; ensure findings inform decision-making and project adaptation. 

• Maintain a pool of evaluators, review and advise on mid-term and final evaluation design and implementation, and ensure results are disseminated and acted upon. 

• Train and coach MEAL and project staff — virtually and on-site — on MEAL standards, CHS, results-based management, and digital data collection. 

1.  MEAL Standards, Tools & Minimum Requirements 

• Develop, maintain, and promote MEAL minimum requirements and standards for humanitarian projects, including global indicators and key processes. 

• Maintain and adapt the SOS CV Child Protection in Humanitarian Action handbook (Companion) and MEAL toolkit, ensuring alignment with global standards. 

• Lead the collection and consolidation of data on numbers of direct and indirect participants reached. 

1. Coordination & Systems Integration 

• Ensure that humanitarian projects are fully registered and accurately reflected in SOS systems (ProDIGI, PDB2), global reports, and dashboards. 

• Coordinate with IT, ProDIGI, PDB2, and other departments to ensure systems are aligned and user needs are addressed; gather feedback and lead change requests or pilots as needed. 

1. Accountability & Participation 

• Ensure participation of affected populations — especially children and young people — throughout project design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation. 

• Support development and use of child-friendly feedback and complaint mechanisms, ensuring findings are systematically used for program decisions. 

• Lead SOS CV’s CHS accountability processes, including certification maintenance, documentation, tracking action plans, and liaising with the CHS Alliance. 

1. Reporting & Organisational Learning 

• Produce periodic global humanitarian response reports for donors, PSAs, and internal stakeholders. 

• Lead learning and knowledge-sharing initiatives, including peer-to-peer exchanges, newsletters, and dissemination of lessons learned. 

Responsibilities to Uphold Safeguarding (standards) and Promote a Safe Environment  

As someone working for or on behalf of SOS Children’s Villages, you are responsible for helping to create and maintain a safe and protective environment for staff, as well as for the children, young people, and adult program participants supported and cared for by SOS Children’s Villages. You are expected to:  

• Commit to the Code of Conduct and reflect on the safeguarding implications of your work on an ongoing basis.  

• Actively participate in team discussions to identify risks and share and apply preventative and mitigation measures and strategies.   

• Integrate safeguarding principles into your daily decisions and tasks.  

• Report any safeguarding concerns promptly and in line with procedures.  

• Promote values-based culture, accountability and zero tolerance of harm. 

Requirements 

• Master’s degree, preferably in Monitoring & Evaluation, humanitarian or development studies, international relations, project management, social sciences, or a related field. 

• 5–8 years of professional experience, with a minimum of 5 years in MEAL roles and project management within humanitarian or development contexts in a multi-sector INGO. 

• At least 2 years of international field experience in Asia, Africa, or Latin America. 

• Experience with research methods and data management and analysis. 

Technical Skills 

• Humanitarian expertise – Advanced (Essential): strong knowledge of humanitarian standards and systems (CHS, Sphere, CPiHA). 

• Proven MEAL expertise – Advanced (Essential): indicator design, log frames, survey methodology, and data analysis (quantitative & qualitative). 

• Data and information management – Intermediate (Essential): proficiency with digital data tools (Kobo, Excel, Power BI) and information management systems (ProDIGI, PDB2, SharePoint). 

• Data-driven decision-making and program monitoring – Intermediate (Essential): ability to produce clear reports and use MEAL findings for project adaptation. 

• Training and coaching – Intermediate (Essential): experience training and coaching MEAL and project staff. 

• Accountability mechanisms – Intermediate (Desired): practical experience with AAP and child-friendly feedback mechanisms. 

• Program evaluation – Intermediate (Desired): experience commissioning or leading evaluations and managing pools of evaluators. 

• Data visualization – Intermediate (Desired): skills in Power BI and collaboration tools such as Salesforce and SharePoint. Interest in AI tools for data analysis or reporting is a plus. 

Language Skills 

• English – Advanced (Essential) 

• Spanish, French, or Arabic – Working knowledge (Desired) 

Other Competencies and Soft Skills 

• Strong planning and organizational skills; ability to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced humanitarian environment. 

• Effective communication skills, with the ability to convey complex MEAL concepts to diverse audiences. 

• Strong self-starter, able to take initiative and adapt to changing circumstances and priorities. 

• Ability to cooperate effectively in a multicultural and geographically distributed environment. 

• High attention to detail and commitment to data quality (Desired). 

• Strategic thinking and innovation in programme design and learning (Desired). 

• Ability to facilitate consultation and feedback processes effectively and sensitively (Desired). 

Ways of working:    

• Global collaboration and communication – Working effectively across countries, cultures, and time zones by maintaining clear communication, transparency, and shared understanding within distributed teams.   

• Cross-functional collaboration – Working closely with colleagues across different functions and areas of expertise to combine knowledge, solve problems collectively, and deliver meaningful outcomes aligned with the organisation’s mission.   

• Effective collaboration within matrix structures – Working constructively within solid and dotted reporting lines by maintaining open communication, aligning priorities with both line and functional managers, and ensuring clarity on roles, responsibilities, and expectations to support coordinated delivery across teams.   

• Flexibility and adaptability – Remaining responsive to evolving contexts and adjusting priorities, approaches, and ways of collaboration as projects, services, or organisational demand evolve.   

• Ownership and accountability – Taking responsibility for advancing tasks and initiatives, proactively addressing obstacles, and ensuring that commitments, decisions, and actions are carried through to completion, taking initiative within your scope of responsibility rather than waiting for direction.   

• Strengthening member associations and their autonomy – Ensuring that knowledge, tools, and lessons from projects and services are shared with member associations so they can learn from the work carried out and progressively strengthen their capacity and independence.   

• Continuous feedback and transparency - Contributing to a culture where feedback and data are shared openly and constructively, enabling teams and stakeholders involved to reflect, learn, and continuously improve their work and impact. 

What We Stand For  

 
SOS Children’s Villages is committed to creating and maintaining a caring and protective environment, which promotes its core values, and prevents and addresses child abuse and exploitation. We strongly condemn all forms of child abuse and exploitation, be it within or outside of our organization, and always respond to any case of proven, alleged or attempted abuse within our sphere of influence according to its nature. Efforts ensure that mechanisms are in place to raise awareness, aid prevention, encourage reporting and ease response. They range from human resource development actions such as training and counselling to measures such as suspension, dismissal, and legal action.  

SOS Children’s Villages is committed to creating and maintaining a safe working environment for our staff, the children and young people and the communities that we work for. The organization prohibits harassment, exploitation and abuses by or of any employee, supervisor, manager, child, young people, community, contractor, applicant, or other individual with whom SOS Children’s Villages employees come into contact by virtue of their work. All employees are expected to carry out their duties in accordance with our prevention and protection against Sexual Harassment, Exploitation and Abuse policy.  

In addition, SOS Children’s Villages apply a zero-tolerance concerning any fraud situation. The organization does not charge a fee at any stage of the recruitment process.  

Successful candidates will have to submit a criminal record certificate, current within the last three years. In accordance with the organisation’s child protection policy, these positions will be subject to criminal record checks.  

How to apply? 

If you are interested in this position, please send your detailed application in English through ICISMs here: Job Listings at SOS Children's Villages International  

Please note that applications will be reviewed and suitable candidates will be contacted for interviews on an ongoing basis. The position will remain open until filled.