MEAL Officer Job Description

What is the job description of a MEAL Officer? What are the duties and responsibilities of a MEAL Officer? What does a MEAL Officer do?

Job description of a MEAL Officer

A Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, and Learning (MEAL) Officer manages information and reporting processes and products to ensure professional, high-quality communication in an organization's activities and results. A MEAL Officer also plays an important role in improving information management and data quality, and in strengthening knowledge sharing and learning across the organization.

MEAL Officers are also responsible for full-cycle monitoring and evaluation of programs, developing appropriate methodologies and tools to design evaluations.

This MEAL Officer job description example includes the list of most important MEAL Officer duties and responsibilities as shown below. It can be modified to fit the specific MEAL Officer profile you're trying to fill as a recruiter or job seeker.

MEAL Officer Duties and Responsibilities

MEAL Officer job description should contain a variety of functions and roles including:

  • Develop, implement, and assess monitoring frameworks for all organization's partnerships and projects, as well as for funding proposals
  • Develop the overall framework for project M&E systems in collaboration with donor and senior project staff, including requirements, reporting, baseline, and evaluation surveys; develop and monitor project management plan to systematically document performance
  • Facilitate design of “SMART” objectives, logic models, monitoring frameworks, and evaluation plans during annual work-planning process
  • Ensure the alignment of M&E activities with program goals
  • Contribute to the development of annual work plans to identify project targets and ensure inclusion of M&E activities
  • Maintain existing indicator tracking tools; develop additional databases and tracking tools as needed to demonstrate the effectiveness of project interventions
  • Ensure adherence to specific monitoring and reporting requirements
  • Analyze data for accuracy, flag validation or quality issues, and contribute to system fixes
  • Generate indicator reports for tracking progress against key indicators as needed
  • Create and integrate graphics in reports and information products to help visualize data in a meaningful way
  • Edit content and presentation of all reporting and deliverables before submittal to ensure superior quality and professionalism
  • Coordinate responses to requests for information
  • Contribute to developing and reporting of project reviews, assessments, surveys, and other analytic or evaluation processes and products
  • Ensure a unified approach to partner self-assessment and programmatic close-out reporting
  • Conduct field visits for data validation and to monitor the quality and completeness of data sets; coordinate data collection at project sites to monitor program development and ensure timely compilation and reporting of data; capture and document lessons learned; and champion the scaling up best practices
  • Provide technical leadership and support to project and partner staff in planning and implementing M&E systems and activities, data-based program decision-making, and results reporting; provide training as needed
  • Support the development, design, and writing of proposals and concept notes for related programming information management and reporting
  • Support recruiting, interviewing, and training new M&E staff and/or consultants
  • Cultivate and strengthen relationships with local partner organization, donors, private sectors partners, and national authorities
  • Other duties as assigned

MEAL Officer Requirements / Skills / Qualifications

MEAL Officer job description should include these common skills and qualifications:

  • Bachelor’s degree required, Master’s degree in statistics, demographics, public health, or international development preferred
  • Minimum of five years of experience working in the field of monitoring and evaluation
  • Proven success in designing, implementing, and operating M&E systems from project initiation to close out
  • Experience in strategic planning and performance management, including indicator selection, target setting, reporting, database management, and developing M&E and performance monitoring plans
  • Knowledge of the major evaluation methodologies (qualitative, quantitative, mixed method, and impact) and data collection and analysis methodologies
  • Ability to manage critical relationships with diplomacy and tact and engage a wide range of stakeholders
  • Excellent written and oral communication skills.
  • Strong attention to detail, organizational. and time management skills
  • Willingness and ability to travel
  • Computer proficiency
  • Experience in planning and managing surveys, developing and refining data collection tools, and with data quality assessments and oversight
  • Ability to handle multiple tasks simultaneously in a fast-paced environment, set priorities, and meet deadlines
  • Ability to synthesize complex information and communicate it effectively to diverse audiences;
  • Ability to design and implement efficient work flows and procedures

As a hiring manager, recruiting an ideal MEAL Officer starts with crafting a good job description. Use this MEAL Officer job description template to save yourself time and help you attract the most qualified candidates. Feel free to revise it to meet your specific needs.

Job seekers interviewing for the role of a MEAL Officer may also reference it in preparation for the interview.