Internals Only : MEAL Team Lead (Cluster)

The MEAL Lead provides strategic leadership and technical oversight for War Child’s Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL) systems, including the Quality of Care (QoC) Framework and MEAL for humanitarian and emergency responses, across the War Child Alliance and with strategic partners. The role is responsible for the effective operationalisation of MEAL strategies, frameworks, and tools, ensuring that evidence, learning, and accountability are consistently embedded in programmes and organisational initiatives. Through line management of MEAL Coordinators and engagement in strategic planning and reporting processes, the role drives programme quality, organisational learning, and evidence‑based decision‑making at scale. 
 
What you will do:

• Lead the design, implementation, and continuous improvement of organizational MEAL strategies, frameworks, standards, and tools, ensuring alignment with organizational priorities, accountability commitments, and evidence needs. 
• Support results‑based planning and strategic program design processes, including the development, validation, and use of theories of change to guide planning, implementation, monitoring, and learning 
• Lead the integration and operationalization of Quality‑of‑Care indicators within the War Child Alliance, implementing partners and strategic partners, ensuring consistent application and use for performance monitoring and improvement. 
• Lead the onboarding of partners and implementing teams on Quality of Care and MEAL systems for EBMs and EIMs, providing ongoing technical support to ensure effective application and use. 
• Oversee technical quality assurance of MEAL systems, processes, and data, including standardization of indicators, interpretation of results, and evidence generation to ensure credibility, comparability, and use. 
• Strengthen organizational learning and adaptive management through consolidation and use of evidence and insights. 
• Build and strengthen MEAL capacity across teams and partners through guidance, tools, training, mentoring, and on‑the‑job technical support.  
• Lead the operationalization of the MEAL localization agenda, including application of the localization matrix and support to partner‑led MEAL systems, capacities, and leadership, in line with organizational commitments. 
• Contribute to the development of the organizational MEAL strategy and MEAL positioning within the Alliance.  
• Line manages MEAL Coordinators and oversees the performance, coherence, and effectiveness of the MEAL function across contexts, where applicable

 
 ROLE-SPECIFIC OR CONTEXT RESPONSIBILITIES 

• Provide leadership on Humanitarian MEAL, ensuring context‑appropriate, timely, and adaptive MEAL approaches that support rapid decision‑making, accountability to affected populations, and learning (through coordinating After Action Reviews) in emergency and fragile contexts. 
• Lead development and governance of Quality of Care and Reach indicator guidance, systems, and tools. 
• Support the design, oversight, and strengthening of accountability and feedback mechanisms to ensure meaningful participation of affected populations and response to community feedback. 
• Establish and maintain EBM and reach dashboards consolidating program delivery and learning insights. 
• Ensure ethical, safe, and responsible data collection, management, and use, in line with data protection, safeguarding, and organizational policies. 
• Promote systematic use of MEAL evidence and learning to inform program adaptation, strategic decision‑making, and organizational priorities. 
• Provide technical MEAL inputs to donor engagement, proposal development, and compliance with evidence and reporting requirements. 
• Promote alignment and coherence of MEAL, Quality of Care, and evidence systems across the War Child Alliance. 
• Support multi‑sectoral, technical, and rapid needs and strengths assessments. 
• Ensure internal and external communication of MEAL and learning results, including contributions to communications products. 
• Represent War Child in relevant global and inter‑agency MEAL, quality, and evidence networks. 
• Undertake regular travel to support implementation, oversight, and learning.

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS, EXPERIENCE  
 

Education	Bachelor’s degree in Monitoring & Evaluation, Social Sciences, Development Studies, Public Policy, or a related field.  Master’s degree in a relevant discipline is an asset.
Experience	Progressively responsible experience in MEAL or Monitoring and Evaluation roles.  At least 3 years’ experience working in humanitarian, development, or conflict‑affected contexts.  Demonstrated experience designing, leading, and institutionalising MEAL systems and frameworks.  Proven experience providing strategic and technical advisory support to country teams and partners.  Experience contributing to organisational strategy, programme design, proposals, implementation, and reporting.  Proven experience developing tools, methodologies, guidance, and delivering training and learning activities.  Strong experience coordinating and leading cross‑functional teams, working groups, or communities of practice.
Languages	Fluency in English is required for this role.   Additional languages may be useful depending on stakeholder groups and organisational context, for example Arabic, Dari, French, Spanish, or Ukrainian
(Technical) Knowledge	Advanced knowledge of MEAL methodologies, tools, and systems.  Strong expertise in Quality of Care frameworks, indicators, and best practices.  Solid understanding of accountability to affected populations approaches.  Experience with assessment methodologies, results frameworks, learning and adaptation processes.  Ability to design and assess indicators and measurement systems for programme and organisational initiatives.  Strong proficiency in Microsoft 365 tools (Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Teams, SharePoint).  Sound understanding of ethical evidence use, safeguarding, and child‑centred programming principles.