Program Performance and Quality (PAQ) Director at Mercy Corps

Program / Department Summary 

Mercy Corps began working in Kenya in 2008 and has to date built a robust and diverse portfolio in working to enable Kenyans affected by poverty, resource scarcity and conflict - in particular, youth, women, adolescents and marginalized communities - to be healthy, productive and to drive peace and development of their communities. To do this, we deliver integrated programming to strengthen resilience, market and governance systems, address the root causes of conflict, and equip vulnerable populations with the skills, opportunities, and resources they need to be healthy, productive and to drive the development of their communities. Mercy Corps Kenya also collaborates with neighboring countries to implement several multi-country and cross-border programs.

Working with a diverse base of donors that includes the , European Commission (EC), United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Embassy of the Kingdom Of the Netherlands, Gates Foundation, Swiss Agency for Development and Corporation (SDC),  and other foundations and institutional donors, Mercy Corps empowers people to recover from crisis, build better lives and transform their communities for good. We work closely with the private sector, civil society, and governance structures at local and national levels to facilitate change and ensure that opportunities are inclusive of all Kenyans.

General Position Summary 

The Performance and Quality (PAQ) Director oversees the PaQ Unit in Kenya. The unit's role is to ensure the development of consistent standards, processes, and practices of program management and to improve the quality, effectiveness, and efficiency of Mercy Corps’ programs, serving as a nexus between various programs and teams.  This includes; the development of effective monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) processes for both humanitarian and market system development programs. It also involves facilitating research and learning functions, program management standards and training roles, ensuring gender integration, and leading the implementation of knowledge Management and communication strategy. The role will be overseeing capacity development strategy, fostering community accountability reporting mechanism (CARM) and safeguarding policy, coordination of key functions such as timely and quality program reporting (internal and external), and proposal development. The PaQ Director thus plays a key role in helping build an environment of evidence-based programming and adaptive management at all levels. The PAQ Director is also a member of the Senior Management Team and will have an important role in contributing to global and regional conversations and initiatives around program performance and quality.

Essential Job Responsibilities 

Program Strategy and Vision

• Support the overall strategic and annual planning for Mercy Corps Kenya in integrating cross- grants learning and ensure that lessons learned are used to inform adaptation of activities and future program design
• Support the development of the country strategy and ensure it is appropriately adapted to the diversity of geographic contexts of Kenya
• Lead the development of sector strategies and frameworks in accordance with the overall country strategy
• Develop and provide oversight of the Performance and Quality (PaQ) team’s strategy
• Support the design of cost-effective, innovative, and high-quality programs, ensuring relevance to stakeholders and agency strategy and that incorporate Mercy Corps’ standards on design, monitoring, and evaluation
• Coordinate efforts on the development of partnership strategy, ensure a coherent and consistent approach to partnership and decision-making

Program Quality and Capacity Building 

• Contribute to the global and regional conversation around program performance and quality tool, initiatives and processes
• Regularly conduct project site visits to provide hands-on training to field staff on management practices and how to capture and organize information for accurate documentation and reporting.
• Act as the key liaison point to coordinate efforts to roll out adaptive management and PM@MC training nationwide.

Knowledge Management and Learning

• Ensure that all reports (both internal and external) are timely, high-quality, and responsive to donors in collaboration with a variety of team members
• Lead the development and implementation of Mercy Corps Kenya Knowledge Management and communication strategy as well as offer guidance in program design, implementation and utilization of information collected at different project cycle phases and stages to raise Mercy Corps’ profile among relevant stakeholders.
• Contribute to the development and implementation of knowledge management to further stimulate use of evidence for learning, strategic adaptive management, and high-impact programming.
• Connect best practices and learning from other programs across Mercy Corps countries to ensure an evolving and effective learning system for improving program implementation.
• Support teams to capture lessons learned during program implementation, and feed this information into thought leadership and research opportunities and into ongoing program management and program design;
• Collect impact stories and evidence from Mercy Corps’ country teams on a regular basis.

Monitoring and Evaluation

• Design and manage a country-wide Monitoring, Learning and Evaluation system providing managers and their teams real time information that can steer program implementation and maximize Mercy Corps Kenya’s ability to analyze and represent impact to donors, government, colleague agencies, and communities themselves.
• Promote adherence to Mercy Corps’ standards, including the use of standardized indicators, Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) systems, program and adaptive management approaches, and country-level learning and strategic objectives.
• Support in-country program design and development at proposal stage ensuring minimum standards for MEAL are incorporated.
• Provide leadership and training to ensure programs meet minimum standards, use necessary PM@MC systems and tools to inform and improve each individual program and feed into broader country-wide Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) system, country strategy and agency level information system.
• Support teams to improve data collection, management, and use to build a culture of adaptive management, high-quality program performance, and learning.
• Support the roll out and maintenance of TOLA, Institutional Performance Tracking System (IPTS), Concept Note Management System (CNMS), PM@MC, Gender and SADD standards
• Contribute to the understanding and application of new DM&E approaches to emerging themes like resilience, systems thinking, and complex humanitarian crises.
• Engage in other agency level tools and initiatives to ensure country input, coordinated delivery, messaging and consistent high-quality implementation in the region.
• Conduct internal DQAs to ensure data is collected with attention to accuracy and consistency
• Support programs team in integrating Do No Harm approach throughout project life cycle
• Coordinate proposal development processes (as appropriate), following agency’s best practices and donors’ compliance
• Serve as a focal point for any temporary or short-term Technical Advisors and Consultants

Gender Mainstreaming 

• Ensure all Mercy Corps Kenya programs comply with GEDSI/GESI policy and standards
• Create a culture of gender sensitive and where appropriate, gender transformative programing 
• Ensure timely training and other resources to raise awareness of gender across Mercy Corps Kenya country office.
• Lead on protection mainstreaming across projects, including developing team and partners capacities on the matter and utilizing protection mainstreaming tools in all processes.

Team Management 

• Promote accountability, communicate expectations and provide constructive feedback informally and formally via regular one on ones and performance reviews.
• Provide supervision to the PaQ team members, ensure their work is aligned and contributing effectively to the strategy and that they have access to MC resources.
• Develop the capacity of the team, deepen understanding of their roles and assist with career development.
• Assist team members with information, tools and resources to improve performance & reach objectives.
• Create and sustain a work environment of mutual respect where team members strive to achieve excellence.
• Hire, orient and lead team members as necessary.

Representation and coordination 

• Contribute to the global and regional conversation around program performance and quality, PaQ strategies, and global program quality initiatives; PM@MC, gender minimum standards, adaptive management, Safeguarding policy, TOLA etc.
• Lead efforts in sharing best practices with other NGOs working in Kenya
• Identify, build and manage collaborative partnerships with donors and other stakeholders, as required.
• Represent Mercy Corps in external coordination and donor meetings, as required.
• Participate in the complex program board call, as required.
• Contribution to media and advocacy needs, as required.

Security 

• Ensure compliance with security procedures and policies as determined by country leadership
• Lead the development of processes to support programs team in integrating cross- grants learning and ensure that lessons learned are used to inform adaptation of activities and future program design
• Ensure that team members operate in a secure environment and are aware of security policies

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 Beneficiaries 

• 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.

Supervisory Responsibility - 

• The PaQ Director directly supervises Country MEL Manager, Partnership and New Initiatives Manager, Safeguarding and CARM Manager, Knowledge Management and Communication Coordinator, Database officer and Country Technical Advisors, and dotted line technical reporting relationship with all program M&E 

Accountability 

Reports Directly To: Country Director 

Works Directly With: Director of Programs, CoPs, Program Managers, Regional Technical Advisors, Headquarters PaQ Team (TOLA, MEL, PM@MC, and Technical Support Unit).

Knowledge and Experience 

• BA/S or equivalent in social science, management, international development, or other relevant field; MA/S in similar relevant fields preferred.
• 7+ years of progressive experience and proven high level of competence in working in international settings,
• Significant experience implementing M&E systems particularly remote monitoring, mobile data collection platforms and managing evaluations.
• Demonstrated success with program development and design, including conceptualizing and articulating programming ideas in concept notes and proposals.
• Strong knowledge of and experience with humanitarian and development programming.
• Strong leadership, communication, and project management skills.
• Personal dedication to quality and learning.
• Strong remote management skills.
• Ability and interest to work with a multi-ethnic team in a culturally appropriate manner.
• Willingness to work in a face-paced, fluid environment on multiple tasks.
• Fluency in English is required.