MEAL MANAGER: What does he do?

MEAL MANAGER: the sandwich maker? In truth, it does something else entirely. But of what?

MEAL Management (Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning) is a term that designates the planning and monitoring of each project life cycle. The figure of the MEAL Manager works closely with those who manage the project, with the aim of providing accurate data and analysis for decisions relating to the implementation of the same while it is in progress, with an eye to future activities.

To contribute to the success of a humanitarian project, qualified figures are needed, aware of the objectives, principles, practices and operational tools with which it must be conducted.

The MEAL, as the name suggests, brings together four aspects: monitoring, or monitoring, which allows you to understand how the project is progressing compared to the initial planning. The evaluation, ie the evaluation of each project activity according to international standards, on which the accountability or reliability of the organization depends on the assisted populations, donors, partners and its own staff. Learning, or learning, allows for each activity to identify good practices and mistakes made, in order to be able to make improvements. The four aspects of the MEAL interact and effectively become an integral part of every project, from inception to closure.(IRC Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL) Handbook Standards, Practices and Guidance October 2022 External Version)

INTERSOS MEAL Advisor, Giulia Gemelli, explains what it means to monitor and evaluate a project, how it is required to do it and why, above all, it is precious to carry it out with attention and constancy: "especially in the humanitarian field when the implemented projects are emergency projects and therefore contexts can change rapidly, it is essential to have a monitoring system in place that allows us to understand how we are doing compared to what we had planned and how much our activities are actually in line to achieve the set objectives.”

At INTERSOS Lab on 20-21-22 June we held the workshop "Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability & learning (MEAL) and Information Management (IM)" able to provide the skills to be able to do a good monitoring and evaluation of the project, and acquire the operational tools to manage the information. The workshop was aimed at all those working, or aiming to work, in projects in the humanitarian or development sector, both as project managers and as technical referents (in the health, protection, or other sectors), and interested in improving the quality of the intervention through the implementation of monitoring and evaluation systems. The trainers of INTERSOS Lab talked about some concrete case studies and reflected on some work procedures or on the different roles and figures present in the Staff in humanitarian projects, in Italy and abroad.

For more information visit the page dedicated to the workshop .