School Meals Accelerator Evaluation, Monitoring

DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS

10 September :59-GMT+01:00 Central European Time (Rome)

ABOUT THE SCHOOL MEALS ACCELERATOR

School Meals Accelerator (the Accelerator) is the fifth and newest initiative under the School Meals Coalition, operating as an independent initiative while being hosted by the World Food Programme (WFP). It is designed to support governments to scale and strengthen their national school meal programmes and turn their ambitions into real impact. Acting as a network catalyst and convenor, the Accelerator mobilizes resources and expertise from the right partners to deliver strategic technical assistance where it matters most.

The Accelerator’s mission: unlock the full potential of national school meal programs by improving design, scaling investment, and fostering collaboration across education, health, and food systems. It embraces a systems-thinking approach, adapts to country priorities, and thrives in deep collaboration among global, regional, and local actors. The Accelerator’s ambition: to help low
- and lower-middle-income countries reach anadditional100 million children by 2030, making school meals a cornerstone of human capital development and a global standard of care.

The Accelerator operates in conditions of high complexity. Because it operates as a network facilitator rather than a traditional organization, its work spans multiple countries, organisations and institutional logics, and seeks to support system-level change rather than the delivery of predefined solutions.

For this reason, the Accelerator has adopted a systemic leadership approach, which accepts that pathways to change are non-linear, and progress depends on learning, adaptation and collaboration across boundaries. Working in this way places ongoing demands on those involved and requires leaders who are able to work productively with uncertainty, difference and incomplete authority while maintaining accountability for results. Joining the Accelerator team therefore means being part of a first-of-its-kind development enterprise: a systems-focused effort to drive lasting, country-led change that requires a willingness to learn, adapt and be shaped by the work as it evolves.

About the School Meals Accelerator:

School Meals Accelerator (the Accelerator) is the fifth and newest initiative under the School Meals Coalition, designed to support governments to scale and strengthen their national school meal programmes and turn their ambitions into real impact. Acting as a network catalyst and convenor, the Accelerator mobilizes resources and expertise from the right partners to deliver strategic technical assistance where it matters most.

The Accelerator’s mission: unlock the full potential of national school meal programs by improving design, scaling investment, and fostering collaboration across education, health, and food systems. It embraces a systems-thinking approach, adapts to country priorities, and thrives in deep collaboration among global, regional, and local actors. The Accelerator’s ambition: to help low
- and lower-middle-income countries reach an additional 100 million children by 2030, making school meals a cornerstone of human capital development and a global standard of care.

The Accelerator operates in conditions of high complexity. Because it operates as a network facilitator rather than a traditional organization, its work spans multiple countries, organisations and institutional logics, and seeks to support system-level change rather than the delivery of predefined solutions.

For this reason, the Accelerator has adopted a systemic leadership approach, which accepts that pathways to change are non-linear, and progress depends on learning, adaptation and collaboration across boundaries. Working in this way places ongoing demands on those involved and requires leaders who are able to work productively with uncertainty, difference and incomplete authority while maintaining accountability for results. Joining the Accelerator team therefore means being part of a first-of-its-kind development enterprise: a systems-focused effort to drive lasting, country-led change that requires a willingness to learn, adapt and be shaped by the work as it evolves.

Purpose of this role:

This role is part of the Engagement Team of the Accelerator, which is responsible for ensuring that the Accelerator’s engagement at the political level continues to enable and facilitate its work, generating more support, tapping into diverse networks, and deepening relationships that can continue to create a favourable authorizing environment for the initiative. The Evidence, Monitoring & Reporting Consultant strengthens SMA’s results, reporting, and adaptive learning functions. The postholder leads day‑to‑day monitoring and end‑to‑end reporting workflows—including donor reporting, periodic management reporting, an