REALM (Research, Evaluation, Accountability, Learning and Monitoring) Specialist

ROLE PURPOSE: 

Save the Children Indonesia is now a full Member Office within Save the Children International — a national, independent, and self-sustaining organisation working as a strong local voice for children in Indonesia. As a Member Office, we are accountable for the quality and effectiveness of everything we deliver, from national strategy through to implementation on the ground. This role contributes directly to Save the Children Indonesia's Country Strategic Plan, supporting both the Strategic Goals and the Enabler Goals, so that our programmes create real impact for children through evidence-based programming and the use of common approaches.

The REALM Specialist will bring significant experience to develop and implement a National MEAL  strategy and systems, especially for Accountability Mechanism and Learning component. ensuring that they are institutionalized within the existing project cycle management framework, and that staff and implementing partner have the capacity to implement them.

The REALM Specialist will have a key role in establishing and promoting programme quality and innovation, which will be achieved through developing and improving monitoring, evaluation, impact assessment and learning methodologies.

S/he will be part of National REALM Team and give support to SC Indonesia’s projects and humanitarian response are continually monitored and that lessons are documented and communicated to inform on-going implementation and future programming. S/he will guide teams and implementing partner in achieving outcome/impact focused projects and accountability to beneficiaries in line with Save the Children’s and donors’ policies and practices.

This position focuses on Save the Children Indonesia’s Humanitarian Programme portfolio, covering Resilience, Emergency Response, Recovery, and Anticipatory Action, and is therefore also referred to as Humanitarian REALM Specialist. The post holder is expected to bring strong capacity in MEAL in Emergencies, working knowledge of the Core Humanitarian Standard (CHS) and SPHERE standards, and the ability to establish rapid and fit for purpose monitoring and accountability systems during emergency response, while mentoring implementing partners to lead these functions independently in line with Save the Children’s localisation commitment.

The role drives three core areas of the REALM function:

Accountability — strengthening the accountability pillars, with particular focus on information provision, ethical and meaningful child participation, and a functioning feedback and reporting mechanism.

Learning — ensuring learning runs continuously, at both national and project level, through a clear learning agenda.

Research and Evaluation — ensuring research and evaluations are of high quality, follow valid and robust methods, are accountable, and comply with ethical standards.

The post holder will also be responsible and accountable to lead or contribute to the standards as noted in the Member Framework as follows: 

• Contribute to developing high quality Save the Children Humanitarian Plan (SCHP), i.e., Emergency Response and Recovery and Anticipatory Action programs in program design phase, implementation and evaluation which are evidence based
• The post holder will contribute to the achievement of the global KPIs on timely and quality reporting contributed from Humanitarian Portofolio Program
• Contribute to effective advocacy for children at the national level, especially in the context of humanitarian and emergency

 

KEY AREAS OF ACCOUNTABILITY:

Lead and Coordinate REALM activities 

Coordinate REALM functions across projects and programs, ensuring effective design, planning, and implementation. Contribute to facilitate collaboration across departments and partners to achive program KPIs, Member Shared KPIs, and Global Results Frameworks, providing analysis, validation, and recommendations for improvement in humanitarian sector. Ensure compliance with MEAL in Emergency standards and the consistent application of Quality Benchmarks at every phase of humanitarian intervention, from emergency response through recovery and rehabilitation. Ensure the compilation, validation, and reporting of total direct reach achieved under the SC Indonesia Humanitarian Plan, and ensure that measurement is carried out at outcome level, not only at output level.

Project Design and REALM planning

Support project kick-off processes by embedding REALM requirements from the outset of humanitarian portofolio. Contribute to support in developing logical frameworks and indicators with measurable KPIs in proposal design phase. Ensure appropriate resources for evaluation, research, and learning are included in proposals. Establish REALM product planning processes including Indicator Performance Tracking Tables (IPTT), Quality Benchmarks, Accountability Frameworks, and research and learning agendas.

Humanitarian Preparedness, Anticipatory Action, and Emergency Deployment

Maintain and further develop the Anticipatory Action programme approach, including its dashboard, and support the activation mechanism together with the Humanitarian Team. Lead and conduct Rapid Needs Assessments at the onset of emergencies to inform response design. Be ready for deployment as a first responder and serve as a member of the National Emergency Reponse Team (ERT) through the REALM roster, acting as a centre of excellence reference point for MEAL in Emergency. Represent Save the Children Indonesia in the national Data Management cluster in Indonesia and contribute to inter agency data coordination.

Technical assistance and capacity building

Provide technical support and mentoring to project teams and implementing partners on REALM practices. Facilitate capacity development and promote cross-learning through peer groups, training, and technical exchanges.. As projects in this portfolio are delivered through partnership with a strong emphasis on localisation, the post holder is expected to have strong capacity-building skills — mentoring and strengthening implementing partners so they can lead REALM in humanitarian sector functions independently. Design and deliver structured MEAL in Emergency capacity building for implementing partners, covering preparedness, rapid assessment, monitoring during response, and accountability in emergency.

Research, Evaluation, and Evidence Generation

Lead and coordinate project-level research and evaluations, ensuring quality standards, timeliness, and use of results for decision-making. Manage resources to enable assessments, evaluations, or research in both development and humanitarian contexts. Lead Post Intervention Monitoring (PIM) and Post Distribution Monitoring (PDM) processes for humanitarian interventions, and conduct outcome level measurement to demonstrate the results of the Humanitarian Programme portfolio.

Humanitarian Information Management and Data Systems

Develop data collection and information management systems tailored to the needs of the Humanitarian Programme, including mobile data collection during response. Support the development of Business Intelligence (BI) dashboards, and maintain, update, and report on them so that programme and response decisions can be made quickly on the basis of current data.

Knowledge Management and Learning

Promote organizational learning through peer assists, after-action reviews, and retrospects. Consolidate and analyze REALM humanitarian learning agenda results across projects to generate insights for adaptive programming. Conduct and facilitate After Action Reviews and Midterm Reviews (MTR) of humanitarian interventions to capture lessons from implementation and ensure they inform ongoing response and future programming.

Accountability and Feedback Response Mechanism (FRM)

Ensure accountability in emergency is applied across both distribution and non distribution processes, including information provision to affected communities, complaint and feedback handling at distribution points, and safe referral of sensitive feedback. Conduct monthly cleaning, review, and validation of FRM data, and prepare accountability findings for monthly Project Management Meetings. 

Humanitarian REALM Project Focal Points

Serve as the REALM focal point for designated humanitarian and resilience program

Facilitating Transformational Change

Promote a culture of continuous learning and professional growth, encouraging staff and partners to adopt evidence-based decision making and adaptive management.

Other Responsibilities

Provide support to additional tasks as mutually agreed with the line manager.

 

QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE

Qualifications

• Bachelor degree in social science or a related field (such as international development, program evaluation, research methods, statistics, communication, or other relevant social science )
• More than 4 years working experiences in the NGO with significant experience in knowledge management and learning related activities in development project
• Strong qualitative analytical skills, including experience using analytical software packages such as SPSS, NVivo etc
• Strong understanding of web-based content management technologies, communication channel, and database management systems
• Knowledge of project management cycle and experience in project design and proposal development
• Excellent interpersonal, communication and presentation skills 
• Fluency in written and spoken Indonesian, strong English written and spoken skills.
• Commitment to and understanding of Save  the      Children’s  aims,  values      and principles  including rights-based approaches.
• Strong capacity in MEAL in Emergency
• Experience implementing the Core Humanitarian Standard (CHS) and SPHERE standards
• Experience in Emergency Response, Recovery, Anticipatory Action, or Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) programmes
• Strong capacity-building skills, with experience working through partnership and localisation
• Have basic technical understanding working across sectors: Health, Education, Child Protection, and Livelihood/Resilience