Planning and Monitoring Coordinator - Plan International

Plan International is an independent development and humanitarian organisation that advances children’s rights and equality for girls.

We believe in the power and potential of every child. But this is often suppressed by poverty, violence, exclusion and discrimination. And it’s girls who are most affected.

Working together with children, young people, our supporters and partners, we strive for a just world, tackling the root causes of the challenges facing girls and all vulnerable children.

We support children’s rights from birth until they reach adulthood. And we enable children to prepare for – and respond to – crises and adversity. We drive changes in practice and policy at local, national and global levels using our reach, experience and knowledge.

We have been building powerful partnerships for children for over 80 years, and are now active in more than 70 countries.

ROLE PURPOSE

The purpose of the position is to support and supervise the planning, and monitoring, of the results in Plan CO. Ensures those results are used in a way to improve the quality of the projects in the CO. The role is a critical role in the successful implementation of the M&E framework.

Dimensions of the Role

Financial measures or statistics relevant to post such as budget; list of direct and indirect reports

• Responsible for ensuring quality in project design, planning and monitoring in line with the country strategy and the Program Quality and Influencing Policy (PQIP)
• Accountable for corporate system monitoring and reporting
• Supports the rollout of PQIP
• Responsible for all planning and monitoring activities being conducted in line with Plan International’s child protection and ethical principles, and promoting accountability to beneficiaries
• Member of Country Office (CO) MER unit
• Line manages one person (the Management Information Systems (MIS) officer

Accountabilities

“What” is done and “why”, but not “how”; include indicators for success

1. The design and planning of all projects in the Country Office (sponsorship and grants) comply with high quality standards and are aligned with the Country Strategy (CS) objectives

Activities

• Review the design and  planning  of  programs  and  projects (both sponsorship and grant funded) to  ensure  high quality M&E components
• Ensure the intervention logic (linkages between projects and the Country Strategy at the outcome level)
• Ensure sufficient M&E budgets for all sponsorship and grants projects
• Develop the MERL component for sponsorship and grant proposals
• Develop and ensure regular updates of M&E frameworks for grant and sponsorship projects in line with the M&E minimum requirements
• Provide support to the Situation Analysis and the Country Strategy design and planning
• Provide support to the annual review processes
• Provide guidance to the MIS assistance in the review process of projects
• Coach and train other staff on high-quality planning and monitoring practices
• Document and disseminate internally, learning from practices on MERL and program quality

Improved accountability, program and reporting quality through highly efficient monitoring and feedback systems

Activities

• Design and provide support to the implementation of participatory monitoring tools
• Support/ lead the design and set up of community-based monitoring and reporting systems
• Develop and implement a countrywide program performance database to monitor key Country Strategy indicators
• Set up feedback and implement feedback and complaint mechanisms to gather data on perceptions and opinions on Plan’s work and approach from communities and partners
• Compile national reports for management on feedback and complaints from communities/ partners
• Supervise SAP/Y.O.D.A/other cooperate system management and reporting at Country Office (CO) and Program/grant Unit level
• Supervise the management of databases at CO and PU/grant level (confidentiality, security, storage and destruction of data collected during E&R initiatives in line with the global E&R standards)
• Supervise GIS management and reporting at Country Office (CO) and Program Unit (PU) level
• Fulfils Plan’s child protection policy at all times to ensure children are protected from all forms of abuse
• Performs all other duties assigned by supervisor

Dealing with problems:

This includes how much freedom the position has to make decisions; for example, “may approve invoices up to $1,000.”

This includes how much freedom the position has to make decisions; for example, “may approve invoices up to $1,000.”

Monitoring, Evaluation and Research (MER) are crucial components for ensuring high quality outcomes and impact in rights based programming. Barriers that the Planning and Monitoring Coordinator will have to deal with include:

• Some staff at CO and PU level have insufficient knowledge and practice regarding design, planning and monitoring processes.
• The monitoring budget is often integrated in the running costs of projects and programs which leads to insufficient resource allocation to monitoring and feedback processes.
• The quality and availability of secondary data from programs and projects makes design, monitoring and planning very challenging.
• The budget allocated to MERL capacity building is insufficient and MERL capacity assessments are not undertaken at all times
• Some limited data collection is done using pen and paper methods meaning inefficiencies and data reliability issues.

The Planning and Monitoring Coordinatorneeds to

• Be able to communicate clearly on the remits of the work;
• Be capable of providing capacity building and coaching on design, planning and monitoring matters
• Convince people to modify practices and procedures that they have grown accustomed to
• Handle challenges with pragmatism and flexibility
• Ensure the principles and guidelines on the new Global Policy on Prevention of Sexual Harassment, Exploitation and Abuse is fully embedded and in your area work.
• Ensure all concerned person, Child, member of a community where Plan International works and/or Programme Participant knows how to and feels safe and empowered to report any concerns, allegations or suspicions of Sexual Harassment, Exploitation or Abuse and the report is taking seriously.
• Create and strengthening the capacity of all staff, Associates and visitors to prevent and respond in a timely, effective, safe, comprehensive and confidential manner to all complaints, allegations and incidents on Sexual Harassment, Exploitation and Abuse.
• Support knowledge management activities and mainstreaming
• Works with minimal supervision

Ensures that Plan International’s global policies for Safeguarding Children and Young People and Gender Equality and Inclusion are fully embedded in accordance with the principles and requirements of the policy including relevant Implementation Standards and Guidelines as applicable to their area of responsibility.

This includes, but is not limited to, ensuring staff and associates are aware of and understand their responsibilities under these policies and Plan International’s Code of Conduct (CoC), their relevance to their area of work, and that concerns are reported and managed in accordance with the appropriate procedures.

Communications and Key relationships

[This section refers to people inside and/or outside of the organisation that the post-holder needs to have contact with, and why. This should include virtual presence.]

• There is a low contact with community members, children and other stakeholders to develop and implement programs that would meet Plan Ghana’s MERL activities implementation.
• Maintains high contact with staff working on programs activities at CO and PU/grant level to offer support for understanding and implementation of MERL-related activities
• There is a high contact with other staff to support them with understanding MERL activities and their support in the implementation of MER-related activities

Technical expertise, skills and knowledge

Essential

• Gained through education, training, & experience.
•  Knowledge of theories of child-rights programming and child protection (programmatic and safe-guarding)
• Knowledge of development issues, trends, challenges and opportunities and implications to community development
• Knowledge of measuring influencing project outcomes
• Understanding of gender-transformative programs/projects
• In-depth knowledge of strategic planning processes results based management and the design of MER frameworks and demonstrated experience as a development professional in the design, planning and monitoring of  programs and projects
• Knowledgeable of participatory and gender-sensitive monitoring tools and systems
• Knowledgeable in tool design for collecting qualitative and quantitative data for monitoring and feedback processes

Qualification and Experience

• A university degree in Planning, Monitoring & Evaluation, Development Studies, Social science or other relevant field/ or equivalent
• At least 5 years’ experience  in program planning, monitoring, evaluation or research position;
• Knowledge of various technical sectors including child rights, food security, health, and education
• At least 3 years in working with INGOs
• A qualification in ICT is an added advantage
• Strong experience in the usage of SAP/Y.O.D.A/PMERL/GIS is required

Demonstrated behaviours needed by the postholder to successfully perform the role:

• Committed to respecting  deadline;
• Good listening capacity
• Able to make effort for adaptability
• Strong Team spirit
• Be proactive and be able to anticipate
• Capacity to work under pressure
• Good capacity to communicate to ensure good understanding by the audience
• In-depth knowledge of the processes, procedures and systems in project planning, management, monitoring and evaluation.

Skills Specific to the post needed to put knowledge into practice.

• • Good knowledge of monitoring, research, and evaluation using quantitative and qualitative principles-
  • Good knowledge of data management software ( (SPSS/STATA EXCEL, Word, PowerPoint, Access, etc)
  • Proficient in Microsoft applications and use of relevant software and other applications, e.g. word processing, spreadsheet, database, internet.
  • Good report writing and presentation skills
  • Good written and reading skills in English
• Strong planning skills
• Working experience in community participation in development/programming and child participation in monitoring and feedback processes