MERIAM 2.0 Project Manager 

Country Office: Ethiopia

Work Base: [Addis Ababa]

Availability: As Soon As Possible

Salary Scale: EMS - 09  level 1 $1,407

Insurance - (Life, Group Personal Accident and Medical Insurances are covered upon the organization policies).

Seniority Allowance – paid depending up the years of service.

Female candidates are highly encouraged to apply for this position.

About Action Against Hunger 

Action Against Hunger-USA is a global humanitarian organization that takes decisive action against the causes and effects of hunger. We save the lives of malnourished children and we enable entire communities to be free from hunger. With more than 8,000 staff in over 50 countries, our programs reached 17 million people in 2019.

About the Country Program in Ethiopia

Action Against Hunger has been operational in Ethiopia since 1984 responding to both chronic and acute needs through a multi-sectoral strategy where nutrition, Food Security and Livelihoods, WASH, and Mental Health and Psychosocial Support activities are integrated to have a meaningful impact on people’s resilience. Action Against Hunger currently operates in 5 different regions (Oromia, Somali, Amhara, Benishangul Gumuz, and Gambella) with a portfolio of 20m USD/year of emergency, resilience building, research, and innovation programs. We have a country team of around 600 staff in 17 regional and satellite offices. Our main donors in Ethiopia in 2020/2021 are BHA, ECHO, Europaid, UNHCR, UNICEF, GFFO, BPRM, SIDA, EHF, WFP, CIAA, and others.

        I.     Summary of position:

Action Against Hunger (AAH) has received new award to implement a project in tittle “Enabling Anticipatory Action for Acute Malnutrition in Practice through strengthening Early Warning Systems”. The project will be implemented in four different countries – Ethiopia, South Sudan, Kenya and Somalia and funded by German Federal Foreign Office (GFFO).  The project aims to promote capabilities of effective anticipatory action by generating model-based forecasts of acute malnutrition in children under five years of age, which will be incorporated into existing national and regional EWS in support of anticipatory actions. It will be implemented by Action Against Hunger, Universities of Maryland (UMD) and Minnesota (UMN). In country, the project will work closely with anticipatory action actors such as N/RDRMC, N/RENCU, NGOs, local health offices, UNICEF, WFP, FAO, IOM and OCHA to effective achieve the project goal and objectives. The project has a string study component regarded as Modeling Early Risk Indicators to Anticipate Malnutrition 2.0 (MERIAM 2.0), which is a successor of MERIAM 1.0 project piloted in Kenya. MERIAM’s primary aim in this regard is to develop, test and scale-up an effective and efficient predictive model that improves the use of secondary nutrition data in countries that experience frequent climate and conflict related shocks to monitor the  nutrition situation, predict the likelihood scenarios and build anticipatory plan of action based on the information gathered and analyzed.

The MERIAM project manager will be based in Addis Ababa (Capital officer) and serve as the main point-of-contact in country for all elements of the project. S/he  contribute to the successful implementation of the project by providing high-level oversight of project activities in close collaboration with the HoD- Nutrition and Health Department, field based colleagues, Key government and NGOs focal persons in the country and externally with HEARO, HQ as well as with the Universities of Maryland (UMD) and Minnesota (UMN).

Purpose

The MERIAM project manager will be primarily responsible for implementing the MERIAM 2.0 project in Action Against Hunger USA, Ethiopia mission. She/he will serve as the main in-country point of contact for all matters related to the project. The candidate for this position will play a strategic role in enhancing the missions role in generating evidence on anticipatory plan of action for nutrition and  contribute to its growth. 

Engagement

The MERIAM project manager is expected to engage internally with the Health and Nutrition, MEAL, Finance, Grants, Logistics and HR departments as well as HQ, HEARO and focal persons of the two international universities on regular basis during the implementation of the project. Externally the incumbent is expected to engage with relevant government line ministries, NDRMC, respective clusters (Nutrition and Health), various working groups such as EWS and CMAM.

Delivery

The MERIAM project manager will oversee implementation of project activities by ACF in Ethiopia. In addition and specifically, S/he together with the rest of the project staff should ensure the development of an innovative acute malnutrition prediction model which will be included and utilized in the EWS at different levels to anticipate and respond to acute malnutrition risk and crises effectively. Moreover, S/he should strive to ensure the quality standard of  both programmatic and research endeavors in the project.

II. Essential Job Duties

1.      Lead, Coordinate, Design, Implement and Monitor project activities.  (60% LoE)

The MERIAM project manager will have the primary responsibility of leading, coordinating, designing, implementing and monitoring of the project activities in Action Against Hunger Ethiopia mission.

Specific duties include:

• Serve as the in-country point of contact and liaise with relevant government ministries, including MoH, NDRMC, EPHI for project update provision, report and study protocol submission and so on.

• Coordinate the implementation of the project in close consultation with other project staff based in Addis, HEARO and HQ. 

• Act as a research focal person for MERIAM 2.0 study and manage both the technical and administrative aspects of the project.

• Provide strategic oversight to the project team and in particular for the research team in providing technical and managerial insights, conducting/facilitating formative research activities, including community mapping, surveys of existing activities and resources, and identifying existing community structures.

• Ensure standard study protocol is produced, submitted and implementation in close coordination with key project actors, including Universities of Maryland (UMD) and Minnesota (UMN).

• Submit, follow up, achieve in-country IRB approval for the study protocol, and liaise with relevant line ministries to communicate study updates as needed.

• Ensure and oversee proper ethical clearance acquisition and permission procedures are applied and implemented throughout the MERIAM 2.0 study as per the SOP and study protocol.

• Work closely and coordinates with field colleagues to set up proper project management structure and system.

• Develops and maintain SOP, leads project implementation strategy, project management, technology applications for effective and efficient implementation of MERIAM 2.0 study.

• Develop ToR for scooping and contextual analysis and hire consultants to do the task.

• Ensure that the findings of the project assessments are properly documented, disseminated and translated into action and decision-making process.

• Develop or adapt a minimum project specific monitoring standard checklist in collaboration with MEAL department, field-based colleagues and focal persons from Universities of Maryland (UMD) and Minnesota (UMN).

• Provide technical and managerial oversight to the development of study materials and behavior change communication materials as well as any tool required for effective implementation of the project.

• Oversee and support the data collection and analysis of the MERIAM 2.0 in close consultation with project data analysis and focal persons from Universities of Maryland (UMD) and Minnesota (UMN)

• Ensure a high level of data accuracy through periodic data quality checks and oversight of implicated research staff.

• Assist in the final analysis of study data and results

• Ensure close coordination and clear communication between Action Against Hunger Ethiopia mission, HEARO, HQ staff and focal persons of Universities of Maryland (UMD) and Minnesota (UMN).

• Performs other duties as assigned by her or his line manager.

2.      Support and assist regular project development and set up (30% of LoE)

• Develop project specific Detailed Implementation Plan (DIP), project procurement plan (PPP), and supply plan (SP).

• Regularly follow project budget utilization in collaboration with finance department based on latest budget follow up Units (BFUs) and provide regular guidance and support to base team for efficient budget utilization.

• Undertake and participate in regular (weekly/bi-weekly) meetings with key project actors, including Universities of Maryland (UMD) and Minnesota (UMN).

• Assist in the coordination of effective procurement, transportation, storage, and distribution of project specific commodities and supplies in close consultation with other project staff.

• Hire and train (e.g. data analysis, enumerators and supervisors) for the MERIAM 2.0 study and the project in line with HR procedure and in coordination with other project staff.

• Collaborate closely with key departments with Action Against Hunger for the smooth implementation of the project.

• Organize regular capacity building (face-to-face and virtual) project specific review meetings and training with base tea in consultation and coordination with other project focal persons such as

• Ensure adherence to standard project designing, implementation, monitoring and evaluation tool across all bases for Nutrition and Health programs/projects.

3.      Partnerships and engagement (10% of LoE)

• Serve as the in-country point of contact to achieve in-country IRB approval and liaise with relevant line ministries as necessary to provide updates.

• Engage and actively participate in global, national and sub-national level EWS TWGs, networks and similar forums.

• Update and share relevant meeting notes from EWS, sectoral and cluster cooridantion platforms and meetings to capital and base team as well as research team.

      II.  Supervisory Responsibilities

•  S/he will directly supervise project data analysist based in Capital.

    III.            Fiscal Responsibility

• Undertake budget follow up for the project activity in close consultation with Head of Department for Nutrition and Health.

    IV.            Physical Demands

• While performing the duties of this job, the employee is required to sit for long periods and to concentrate on work, including typing, and turn out heavy volumes of work accurately, within short time frames under stressful situations in the context of an operational base. Must be able to proofread own work accurately so that only minor corrections are needed on an infrequent basis.

• The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

      V.            Working Conditions, Travel and Environment

• The duties of the job requires regular job attendance.

• Must be available to work outside normal office hours or on the weekends as needed or required by contact with the PI or in-country partners.

• Must be able to travel coach fare for standard domestic and international business travel as well as to the country project sites if appropriate.

• While in the field, the employee may be exposed to precarious settings under high security risks and/or very basic living conditions and outside weather conditions, as well as to infectious diseases.

• The candidate must be able to travel to remote locations, often over poor road conditions.

    VI. Gender Equality Commitments

• Foster an environment that reinforces values of women and men, and equal access to information.

• Provide a work environment where women and men must be evaluated and promoted based on their skills and performance.

• Promote a safe, secure, and respectful environment for all stakeholders, particularly for children, beneficiaries, and members of staff.

• Help to prevent any type of abuse including workplace harassment and sexual abuse and exploitation.

• Respect beneficiaries’ women, men, children (boys and girls) regardless of gender, sex orientation, disability, religion, race, color, ancestry, national origin, age, or marital status.

• Value and respect all cultures. 

  VII. Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (SEA)

• Beware of minimum operating standards of SEA

• Protect and prevent others from SEA.

• Report SEA.

• Strictly comply with AAH child protection and SEA policies.

Job Requirements

 I. Required Qualifications and Professional Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in public health, human nutrition, epidemiology, statistics from accredited university or college and at least 8 years of relevant experience  in the field of nutrition research, Early Warning System (EWS) , humanitarian and development nutrition, public health programs

• Master’s or other advanced degree in similar field of study with more than 5 years of relevant experiences is preferred.

• Experienced in managing nutrition and health programs and staff in senior management position and Previous experience of managing projects funded by GFFO is desired.

• Familiarity with the national and regional EWS and strategies, policies, anticipatory plan of action for crises response is desired.

• Exposure and participation in national and subnational Early warning System coordination and technical working groups is preferred.

      II. Required Skills:

•  Ability to take initiative and prioritize multiple tasks with minimum supervision.

• Good strategic and analytical ability with strong organizational skills and attention to detail.

• Embracing Diversity, Self-Awareness and Self-Regulation, good experience in staff management and capacity building.

• Desirable project management skill, including preparation of quality report writing skill.

• Experience in organizing and participating in nutrition researches, field-level surveys, assessments and program monitoring and evaluation exercises.

• Strong interpersonal communication skill, networking and representation skill.

• Knowledge and skills of MS Office Suite is required and skills on other statistical software (Epi Info 7, ENA for SMART, and SPSS) is desirable.

• Genuine interest and commitment to the mission and principles of Action Against Hunger.

    Language

• Fluency (written and Spoken) in English is compulsory.

• Knowledge of more than one local language, including Amharic is a plus.

 How to Apply

APPLICATION PROCEDURE

 If you are interested, please send your application composed of none returnable CV, a Covering Letter with “MERIAM 2.0 Project Manager-Addis Ababa” written in the subject line, and three references, applicants to the following addresses:

 Through THIS LINK

Deadline: Wednesday 12- January - 2024

 NB: Only shortlisted applicants will be communicated and the selection process includes a technical test and an interview.