Communications and Campaigns Manager

Position: Senior MEAL Manager
Job Identification: 14779
Job Category: Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning
Apply Before: 12/18/2025, 11:59 PM
Locations: CO Country Office – Nepal

The Opportunity

Save the Children believes every child deserves a future. In Bhutan and around the world, we give children a healthy start in life, the opportunity to learn and protection from harm. We do whatever it takes for children – every day and in times of crisis – transforming their lives and future we share. Save the Children expects that anyone associated with it abides by its Safeguarding and other Zero Tolerance Policies.

The Senior MEAL Manager will lead Save the Children’s evidence-to-action agenda, ensuring cohesive data collection, analysis, and dissemination both internally and externally—across programs and beyond. The role will support the Director of Program Development, Quality, and Influence (PDQI) in strengthening thought leadership and positioning Save the Children’s work at the forefront of child rights.

The Senior MEAL Manager will drive the production of high-quality, reports and research to build a strong evidence base that enhances fundraising, donor visibility, and organizational credibility. The position will provide leadership, guidance, and technical insights to the MEAL team and field staff, ensuring that evidence is central to learning and decision-making. A robust knowledge management system will be established under their leadership to foster engagement, diffusion of evidence, and adaptive programming.

The position holder is also expected to demonstrate knowledge of existing global evidence-to-action trends, identify gaps and opportunities, and align them with funding traction through active engagement in regional and global sharing platforms. This will further elevate Save the Children’s strength in evidence generation and demonstrate clear linkages to evidence-to-action and overall program quality measurement.

The position will actively contribute to program design discussions, ensuring the integration of innovative MEAL tools and approaches that capture results in areas such as gender equality, climate resilience, and social norms transformation. They will champion approaches to measuring real and lasting change, leveraging narratives through “what works” briefs, one-pagers, and analytical products. In close collaboration with the PDQI Director, they will curate datasets and evidence systems that enhance data-driven decision-making across the organization and support organizational-level advocacy and influence work—building clear linkages to child participation and rights.

The successful candidate will bring a proven track record of building creative, cost-effective measurement and learning systems, strengthening team capacity, and working collaboratively with field offices and partners. They will ensure evidence not only drives program quality and accountability but also bolsters thought leadership, visibility, and resource mobilization efforts.

KEY AREAS OF ACCOUNTABILITY:

Strategy, Planning, and Influencing

• In close collaboration with the PDQI Director, ensure progress on the Country Strategy Plan (CSP) is on track. Lead coordination, support, and mobilization efforts for CSP development through a highly collaborative process, ensuring the strategy is child-led/informed and rooted in community and partner engagement.
• Lead the development of a Country Office Research, Evaluation, Accountability, Learning, and Monitoring (REALM) strategy, aligned with the global REALM framework. Clearly define roles and responsibilities across PDQI, PoD, and other functions to position the CO as a learning organization. As custodian of the
• REALM strategy, ensure KPIs reflect organizational mandates, strengthen thought leadership, and enhance positioning.
• Provide strategic leadership to the Senior Research and Evaluation Coordinator to identify emerging trends and intervention areas that expand the evidence base. Drive the ideation, design, and diffusion of cutting-edge research, including topic identification, secondary data generation, and evidence building. Work closely with MEAL teams, with PDQI Director’s guidance, to strategically position new research for visibility, advocacy, and action.
• Contribute expertise in child rights programming to guide technical teams in developing project-specific MEAL approaches. Ensure tools and methodologies are context-driven rather than template-based, enabling the capture, processing, and diffusion of impact-level evidence and most significant change stories.
• Lead the development of the Annual Report/Annual Snapshot in collaboration with Technical Advisors, Communications and Campaigns, and other departments, consolidating learnings and evidence to highlight priorities for external audiences.
• Lead the development of the annual report for submission to the Social Welfare Council, ensuring alignment with the General/Project Agreement data, and ensure Project Advisory meetings (CPAC/DPAC) are conducted in a timely manner with support to CO and FO teams.
• Produce quarterly evidence briefs and trend analyses, and author high-level evidence-to-action briefs that advance organizational thought leadership on child rights and emerging programmatic areas.
• Oversee existing data collection systems to ensure accuracy, timeliness, and usability. Guarantee datasets are regularly updated, triangulated, and disaggregated for internal and external use. Lead the review and finalization of Program Quality KPIs and provide strategic oversight of humanitarian MEAL actions to ensure quality donor reporting in close coordination with MEAL focal points, Technical Advisors, and project leads.
• Work collaboratively with the Senior Partnership Manager to track localization gains, ensuring that localization strategies have strategic KPIs to monitor progress on “shifting and sharing” power models. Draw insights on localization gains that are foundational to child participation, rights, and local partnership and ownership.
• Work closely with the PDQI Director and New Business Development Manager to develop new proposals based on evidence-to-action, including context-specific datasets, desk reviews, and evidence generation for donor and member proposals.
• Collaborate with the Humanitarian Manager in pre- and post-disaster settings to generate evidence on humanitarian work. Ensure timely development of situation reports and humanitarian reports with disaggregated data, geo-mapping, and contextual analysis.

Monitoring and Evaluation

• Lead and oversee the development, review, and implementation of a CO-wide MEAL system in line with SCI’s Quality Framework. This includes working with IT to oversee the roll-out of a new data management system and ensuring it is responsive to partner and SCI needs.
• Lead and guide teams in developing approaches and tools to capture behavioral insights and Social and Behavior Change (SBC) using human-centered and behavioral insights (BI) approaches. Build the capacity of program, MEAL, and partner staff to identify intersectional changes, understand social norms shifts, and apply nudging strategies to effectively capture and demonstrate changes in programs, advocacy, and campaigns.
• Ensure that regularly updated MEAL mechanisms are in place for each project, including technical reports and MEAL tracking tools that identify necessary future actions.
• Oversee the development of MEAL DIPs and follow up to ensure that MEAL activities are carried out as per agreed plans and budgets.
• Provide strategic direction and guidance to project MEAL and focal points to implement and monitor frameworks, tools, and processes to measure performance and quality. This includes supporting thematic and program staff to develop and monitor Quality Benchmarks and sharing analysis regularly with project teams, ESMT, and SMT for evidence-based decision-making.
• Provide leadership and oversight to ensure the proper use and roll-out of the Project Reporting, Information Management, and Evidence (PRIME) system.
• Develop strategies and capacity-strengthening actions with the Senior Knowledge Management Coordinator to improve project and information management for program delivery across SCI. Review and triangulate data entry and compilation across project information, logframes, DIPs, HR management, budget holders, strategic goal linkages, MEAL plans, action management, and partner data, in line with awards and project requirements.
• Lead quarterly Project on Track (PoT) reviews, sharing detailed qualitative and quantitative analysis with project teams and SMT, including recommendations and course corrections in consultation with TAs and program leads.
• Be accountable for data quality and oversee collection, analysis, and use of evidence, ensuring data includes disaggregated information on gender, disability, and the most marginalized and deprived. Document impact, innovation, and learning on what works for children to inform management, policy, and program solutions. This includes providing oversight for needs assessments, baselines, feasibility studies, evaluations, and research at both CO and field levels.
• Share periodic MEAL/monitoring reports, develop action plans to address quality gaps, and follow up on implementation.
• Ensure MEAL staff conduct monitoring visits as per agreed plans and assess program quality against minimum standards.
• and maintain platforms/forums for all project MEAL functions to share practices and issues, ensuring the MEAL system meets SCI and donor standards.
• Work closely with IT to ensure a functional internal data collection and management system (OPMIS) is in place and used by partners and project teams. Ensure the system remains responsive to CO needs and improvements are communicated to IT in good time.
• Ensure MEAL functions of SCI’s PRIME project management system are consistently used, including Projects on Track data. Refer to PRIME as a data source when presenting project progress to SMT.
• Collaborate with the Awards Manager to track reporting and donor requirements, ensuring that MEAL staff provide accurate and timely data and evidence in line with donor guidance and standards.

Accountability and Strengthened Community Feedback Mechanisms

• Lead the Social Accountability and Social Audit process annually, coordinating with programs, operations, advocacy, and partnership focal points to develop tools and approaches. Ensure audits are conducted at both Save the Children and partner levels, with appropriate documentation and collaboration with relevant departments and SMT members.
• Lead the development of accountability guidelines and strategies and provide strategic guidance to the Senior MEAL Coordinator to ensure feedback loops are identified, captured, addressed, and communicated back to beneficiaries, establishing clear processes for closing the loop.
• Design capacity-strengthening trainings to ensure MEAL and program staff at CO and FO levels have a clear understanding of program accountability to children and communities, with support from the Senior MEAL Coordinator.

Research, Evaluation, Learning, and Knowledge Management

• With guidance from the PDQI Director, develop evidence-to-action strategies. In coordination with TAs and program leads, develop and monitor the Country Learning Agenda, ensuring it is not only internally focused but also provides insights and trend analysis for thought leadership, new business development, donor positioning, and course correction for existing programs.
• Lead the development of the Child Inequality Report every three years, ensuring that key evidence and statistics clearly demonstrate the child rights situation and inequalities through an intersectional, cross-thematic lens.
• Co-lead the implementation and monitoring of the Country Learning Agenda with TAs and the PDQI Director, ensuring it drives strategic thought leadership and aligns with the Country Strategy and influencing priorities. Work with department heads to ensure adequate resources are budgeted.
• Provide guidance to the Senior Research and Evaluation Coordinator to identify strategic research throughout the CSP period, ensuring appropriate resources, tools, ethical clearance, and consultant onboarding. Oversee implementation of research and evaluation, including assessments, situational analyses, formative studies, impact studies, and evaluations.
• Lead identification of high-priority research actions and ensure clear pathways for dissemination and resonance internally and externally. Ensure all research outputs include use and dissemination plans.
• Intentionally capture evidence representing the most under-represented children and communities, building a strong base to demonstrate intersectionality and the poly-crisis impacting children.
• Systematically identify, document, share, and use learning from Save the Children’s work to continuously adapt and improve programming. This includes learning agendas, workshops, after-action reviews, and tracking learning uptake.
• Participate in technical project/program review meetings and thematic communities of practice to review progress, challenges, and lessons learned.
• Trial innovative methods to capture outcomes and impact, including participatory approaches with children and youth. Design research to demonstrate evidence on social norms change and innovations that maximize impact for children and communities.
• Distill learnings and evidence into succinct programmatic guidance and provide thought leadership for internal and external audiences.
• Manage the MEAL budget effectively, understanding funding sources and gaps, and ensuring sufficient resourcing for MEAL and research to meet SCI quality standards.
• Provide guidance to the Senior Knowledge Management Coordinator to develop and roll out a knowledge management strategy, ensuring platforms (internal and external) effectively share knowledge and track reach, resonance, and impact.

MEAL Staff Management, Mentorship, and Development

• Lead the country’s MEAL team by structuring it appropriately and then hiring and retaining highly qualified MEAL staff. This includes a mix of direct and technical supervision to MEAL staff across Country Office and Field Offices.
• Ensure management, communication and meeting cadence are in place to facilitate effective line and matrix management for MEAL staff across different teams and projects.
• Support the high performance of MEAL staff by clearly setting objectives, assessing performance, and providing coaching, mentoring, and training that aligns with SCI’s Global MEAL Capacity Building Strategic Workplan.
• Ensure MEAL staff have and understand clearly defined roles and responsibilities and proactively create opportunities for MEAL staff to meet, share learnings and communicate across projects and teams.
• Explore opportunities and ensure that MEAL team members access appropriate capacity building and development opportunities.
• In consultation with PDQI Director, develop/revise the MEAL structure over time according to need and ensure high quality recruitment of MEAL team.

Capacity Building

• In coordination with Program Operations and Delivery Department (POD), provide on-going and one-off technical MEAL support and advice to programmes and partners as needed.
• Ensure that core MEAL training modules and approaches are rolled out effectively and with fidelity to MEAL staff and partners, e.g. conducting situation analysis, developing log frames and M&E plans, designing baseline and operational research, conducting total reach analysis, tracking global indicators, etc.
• Support the PDQI Director to adapt MEAL practices to localisation by transferring knowledge and capacity to partners, providing tailored strengthening support to partners, and developing new ways of working in MEAL to facilitate local ownership and sustainability.

Qualifications and Experience:

• Master’s degree in relevant field.
• Minimum 7 years’ experience in leading, developing and managing M&E systems for large scale, complex, multi sectoral programmes linked to one or more of Save the Children’s priority technical sectors (Education, Child Poverty, Child Protection, Child Rights Governance,, Health & Nutrition), and with the majority of that time focused on overseeing comprehensive MEAL systems that ensure programme effectiveness and quality.
• Demonstrated experience in leading Behavioural Insights and SBC focused research and evidence to action work.
• High level of technical skills, knowledge and experiences on strategic planning, program design using various logical modules including log-frames, result framework etc.
• High level of technical proficiency in research and evaluation, including in the design and implementation of high-quality research pieces and evaluation studies.
• Experience and knowledge of evidence generation and learning on what works (and doesn’t work) for children, including designing/commissioning, implementing and applying: needs assessments, baseline studies, evaluations and research, learning workshops and learning agendas.
• Experience and knowledge of project monitoring systems, including robust and responsible data collection and use.
• Experience and knowledge of systems for accountability to children and communities, including information sharing, participation of adults and children, and feedback and reporting mechanisms.
• Demonstrated track record of leading and building MEAL teams including capacity development (developing training tools, training, coaching and mentoring).
• Able to generate and use data and evidence to innovate, deliver, learn and share what works and what doesn’t work for children.
• Ability to prepare and facilitate technical MEAL workshops and project learning reviews.
• Skilled at communicating and influencing across relevant teams and offices.
• Strong results orientation, with the ability to challenge existing mindsets.
• Ability to present complex information in a clear and concise manner.
• Proven ability to work in a team.
• Excellent spoken and written English and Nepali.
• Strong data management skills (quantitative and qualitative)
• Proficiency in data analysis software (SPSS, Kobo, Excel, etc.)
• Ability to work under pressure, within short deadlines and with limited supervision.
• Very high levels of integrity, including experience managing confidential information, establishing systems to protect data, and high levels of respect for reporting channels.
• Proficiency in relevant data collection and analysis software.
• Availability to work early or late to accommodate calls with teams in other regions and time zones.

Required No.(s): 1 (Nepalese Citizen Only)

Contract length: Fixed Term

Location: Kathmandu, Country Office

The Organisation

We employ approximately 25,000 people across the globe and work on the ground in over 100 countries to help children affected by crises, or those that need better healthcare, education and child protection. We also campaign and advocate at the highest levels to realise the right of children and to ensure their voices are heard.

We are working towards three breakthroughs in how the world treats children by 2030:

• No child dies from preventable causes before their 5th birthday
• All children learn from a quality basic education and that,
• Violence against children is no longer tolerated

We know that great people make a great organization, and that our employees play a crucial role in helping us achieve our ambitions for children. We value our people and offer a meaningful and rewarding career, along with a collaborative and inclusive workplace where ambition, creativity, and integrity are highly valued.

Application Information

Please apply using a cover letter and up-to-date CV as a single document. Please also include details of your current remuneration and salary expectations.

We need to keep children safe so our selection process, which includes rigorous background checks, reflects our commitment to the protection of children from abuse.

All employees are expected to carry out their duties in accordance with our global anti-harassment policy.

Save the Children does not charge a fee at any stage of the recruitment process.