Natural Resource Management Advisor at Mercy Corps

General Position Summary

The Nutrition Resilience Adviser will provide strategic and technical leadership to ensure the objective of nutrition resilience is at the forefront of everything that Nawiri does. Currently the project is scaling up programming after a robust period of evidence generation, joint analysis and co-creation, all of which has informed strategic investments for driving social, structural, and behavioral change across Samburu and Turkana. The Nutrition Resilience Adviser will report directly to the Technical Director and provide strategic and technical guidance across the program, ensuring teams work in harmony to produce desired program results. The incumbent will have dotted technical support lines to all technical personnel at Nairobi level and also engage intensively with county level teams. Working across all program areas, and in close collaboration with the Program Quality, M&E, Learning and Research Teams, They will support technical personnel to approach all project activities with a critical eye for quality and impact; routinely interrogating monitoring data to facilitate program quality improvements, and analyzing emergent findings from research and learning activities through a holistic systems lens to ascertain risks and opportunities related to Nutrition Resilience.

Essential Job Functions

VISION AND STRATEGY

• Support the Technical Director in providing vision and strategy to the program approach and clarity across the program team on how Nutrition Resilience pervades overall technical direction, as well as each and every program intervention.
• Collaborate with different program components including research, implementation, Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) and learning to drive overall effectiveness and coherence of program strategy and contribution to nutrition outcomes and objectives
• Forge strong, institutional linkages and maintain a productive working relationship with counterparts at USAID, Government of Kenya, the CRS consortium, PREG Partners, and other relevant partners.
• Work closely with the Systems Strengthening and Institutionalization team to cultivate county leaders’ commitments to policies and programs that support Nutrition Resilience and promote changes in social and structural conditions that contribute to persistent acute malnutrition.
• Assist in defining and analyzing Nawiri practices and priorities across all partners; identifying opportunities for integration and synergies within other sectors such as health, water systems, markets and governance.

TECHNICAL LEADERSHIP AND PROGRAM SUPPORT

• In close collaboration with all Nawiri stakeholders, support in the design, development, execution and iteration of a risk-informed project strategy for improving nutrition resilience that is evidence-based, tailored to local realities, and responsive to risk and opportunities.
• Provide technical leadership on Nutrition Resilience for Nawiri consortium members and county partners, including frequent travel to Samburu and Turkana to provide on-site capacity building and technical assistance.
• Provide onboarding and training to all Nawiri team members on nutrition resilience and related topics and transfer capacity of nutrition frameworks and approaches within the consortium and across the larger community of practice.
• Work with the M&E team to support design and roll out of context monitoring and nutrition surveillance systems, including the Longitudinal Study, Action Context Monitoring (ACMS), and recurrent monitoring systems.
• Work alongside the System Strengthening and Institutionalization team to guide and strengthen county information systems related to nutrition analysis.
• Support in the development and delivery of innovative tools and approaches for changing attitudes and practices for health and nutrition outcomes, at multiple levels and scales (e.g. individual, HH, community, public and private sector institutions, etc.)
• Support in the design of community-level interventions that target caretakers of children, household and community decision makers, farmers, and community members at large to increase demand for nutritious, diverse, and safe diets.
• Assist in the development of all program reports, work plans and budgets as appropriate.

PROGRAM QUALITY, LEARNING & ADAPTATION

• Provide strategic, technical guidance and direction to the program, ensuring alignment with latest technical information, evidence and approaches across the nutrition field;
• Support the Technical Director in ensuring that all aspects of the program are evidence-based and coordinated, and in line with the Nawiri goal and principles.
• Work closely with the Strategic Learning Lead to drive the learning agenda within Nawiri and other partners in Turkana and Samburu, and the wider community of practice
• Support in the ongoing development of research and learning agenda and activities; provide support across all research and learning activities, including by identifying and actioning strategic opportunities for rapidly testing and adapting innovative approaches for addressing social and structural determinants of persistent acute malnutrition
• Work with the Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Manager to measure and document progress and impact of project activities.

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND COMMUNICATION

• Work with other team leads to coordinate reporting to the donor
• Represent Mercy Corps and Nawiri at strategic meetings, events, coordination fora and conferences.
• Working closely with other Technical Leads, support the development of case studies and other products to communicate key program learnings.
• Any other task, as identified in consultation with supervisor

ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING

• As part of our commitment to organizational learning and in support of our understanding that learning organizations are more effective, efficient and relevant to the communities they serve, we expect all team members to commit 5% of their time to learning activities that benefit Mercy Corps as well as themselves.

ACCOUNTABILITY TO PARTICIPANTS

• Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts toward accountability, specifically to our beneficiaries and to international standards guiding international relief and development work, while actively engaging beneficiary communities as equal partners in the design, monitoring and evaluation of our field projects.
• Team members are expected to conduct themselves in a professional manner and respect local laws, customs and MC's policies, procedures, and values at all times and in all in-country venues.

Supervisory Responsibility:

No direct supervisory responsibility. The Nutrition Resilience Lead provides advice and support to all Nawiri-based technical staff. Technical oversight of field based activities is undertaken by Nawiri staff and partners.

Knowledge and Experience

• A Master’s degree in Nutrition or related subject, or a Bachelor’s degree with at least 5 years of additional relevant experience.
• At least 7-10 years of demonstrated experience in designing and implementing diverse nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive interventions.
• In depth knowledge and understanding of barriers to improved nutrition in northern Kenya
• Experience collaborating with county officials and leaders, building community capacity and leading community mobilization.
• Experience building capacity of civil society and/or government entities
• Demonstrated success in building and managing relationships with various donors and implementing partners.
• Ability to deliver quality work within deadlines and work independently and cooperatively with team members
• Systems thinker with strong analytical skills; flexible and creative in planning and problem solving
• Ability and willingness to travel to Samburu and Turkana at least 40% of the time.
• Professional fluency in English; Excellent oral and written communication skills.
• Demonstrates patience, diplomacy, tenacity, compassion, determination and a sense of humor
• Excellent written and persuasive oral communication skills in English required.