Jobs at Mercy Corps

The Position Summary

The USAID Nawiri Program Coordinator will Lead the program implementation coordination and coherence within the consortium, manage staff and program resources, lead in representation with government and stakeholders at sub-county and decentralized levels (wards, villages) and a variety of other stakeholders that are committed to reducing acute malnutrition. S/he will promote a culture of collaboration, learning and adaptation amongst USAID Nawiri staff from across the consortium and local implementing partners’ staff, Mercy Corps staff, partner organizations and county government  S/he will ensure coherent integration between diverse program activities and the continual refinement of our approach based on evidence of what works. The Program Coordinator will support the Field Director and lead integrated planning for the technical program scope implemented within the field-office management (wards) ensuring coordinated management with key focal point persons, including and not limited to technical leads, local implementing partners, staff and component resource persons. The Program Coordinator will build collaborative relationships with county government, CSOs, the private sector and other key stakeholders within the Sub- County to ensure efficient program implementation and shared ownership of the program as well as its results. S/he will be the primary program representative to donors, relevant government entities, partners, other implementers and stakeholders in the Sub- Counties and wards under the Program.

Essential Job Responsibilities

 Strategy, Leadership and Representation

• Communicate a clear vision of the USAID Nawiri program to Program program team members, government and other stakeholders that translates into concrete program coordination in implementation, adaptive learning and management.
• Represent the COP (Mercy Corps) and the program at the highest levels within the sub-counties, maintaining productive relationships with internal and external constituents such as private sector partners, county government, civil society, communities, and other stakeholders.
• Lead Sub- County level planning processes and provide strategic updates to the Field Director, the Chief of Party, Deputy Chief of Party, in collaboration with coordinators and with support of Technical Director and Technical leads.
• Ensure that all program activities are tightly integrated at the Program level and are responsive to the overall vision for the program - in close collaboration with the other team members at the county and Nairobi level.
• Continuously monitors program performance and, in coordination with the Field Director, generates and evaluates alternative solutions and makes effective and timely decisions.

 Team Management

• Coordinate USAID Nawiri staff at Program level, across the consortium and oversee the timely development of Program integrated work plans.
• Coordinate quality and timely implementation of a coherent, integrated program that reflects use of evidence in driving program interventions and their adaptations.
• Supervise, provide leadership, mentor, and build the capacity of direct reports, including through individualized professional development plans.
• Coordinate timely development of quality program progress reports (weekly, quarterly) as needed capturing key milestones and learnings.
• Promote a culture of learning, systems thinking, and critical analysis. Create a working environment in which sharing of successes and failures is encouraged and capitalized through learning to establish mechanisms that ensure informed adaptive actions.
• Create a work environment of mutual respect that attracts motivated, skilled, and effective team members and enables them individually and collectively to strive to achieve excellence.
• Encourage use of evidence from learning and best practices in M&E to ensure that information and knowledge is accessible to all staff and partners.
• Onboard and lead team members so that they are positioned for success.

Program Management

• Provide leadership and oversight that helps inform and improve program outcomes and Sub- County level results.
• Lead in the principles, methods, or tools for developing, scheduling, coordinating, and managing program activities and resources - including monitoring and inspecting costs, work, staff and consultant performance.
• Oversee daily office and program activities by ensuring program staff are following work plans as assigned by respective team leaders.
• Serve as a resource for program staff and input into activity design, evidence-based programming, M&E plans, and annual program assessments.
• Support internal and external reviews and lead the analysis of findings, with a strong emphasis on learning.
• Ensure adherence to Mercy Corps administrative procedures by support and program staff.
• Work daily with support staff i.e., Operations, Finance and Human Resources departments to ensure proper daily support functions and compliance with MC and donor policies.
• Work daily with program staff and receive regular updates of program activities- ensure activities are on schedule.
• Conduct daily meetings and receive routine reports from support functions, as per MC policies, and facilitate linkages to programming.
• Encourage platforms for evidence based planning, adaptation and decision-making and support local system strengthening at ward and community level.

Security

• Ensure compliance with security procedures and policies as determined by country leadership.
• Proactively ensure that team members operate in a secure environment and are both abiding by and aware of policies.
• Represent Mercy Corps as required with local governments and authorities for security meetings/briefings.
• Assist the Field Director, CoP and DCoP in developing strategies to continue work in times of heightened security.

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.
• 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

Direct day to day supervisory and administrative management of USAID Nawiri Mercy Corps staff in the Program while co-managing technically with the thematic coordinators. These include: The M&E Officer and Assistants, SSBC officers, Citizen Engagement and Social Accountability officers, Integrated Water Resources Management Officers, Assistant Livelihoods Officers,  Snr. Livelihoods Officers, Operations Officer,  health and nutrition officers, Household Economic Strengthening officers and Drivers, partner officers and diverse resource persons. 

Accountability

• Reports Directly To: Field Director.
• Works Directly With: Consortium Program lead staffs and officers across the consortium partners and local implementing partners’ staff; local government devolved units, support departments (Finance, HR and Operations)

Accountability to Participants and Stakeholders
Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts toward accountability, specifically to our program participants, community partners, other stakeholders, and to international standards guiding international relief and development work. We are committed to actively engaging communities as equal partners in the design, monitoring and evaluation of our field projects.

Mercy Corps team members represent the agency both during and outside work hours. 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 locations.

Minimum Qualifications & Transferrable skills

• Bachelor's degree in a relevant field; an advanced degree is preferred
• At least 5 years’ work experience with 3 years field experience managing diverse multi-sector, multi-partner programs and teams (familiarity with nutrition programming and at least three or more sectors contributing to nutrition sensitive interventions preferred).
• Proven experience managing a large team with programmatic and operational functions.
• Deep familiarity with the local context in the ASALs. Direct experience in either Turkana or Samburu is preferred (for the Program applied for).
• Demonstrated ability and/or appetite to demand evidence and translate it into practice.
• Demonstrated ability to work with policymakers/practitioners on translating evidence into practice.
• Strong writing skills: ability to analyze and consolidate information into succinct and timely reports.
• Highly proficient English verbal and written skills; additional verbal proficiency in Turkana/Samburu preferred.

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The Position Summary

The Nawiri Social, Structural, & Behavioral Change (SSBC) Advisor for Nutrition will provide strategic leadership in the design, development, and execution of a coherent SSBC for Nutrition Resilience Strategy that crosscuts all areas of the project. During the first phase of Nawiri, s/he will ensure the program’s research and learning agenda is designed and routinely iterated to build a robust evidence base for informing strategic investments for driving social, structural, and behavioral change. This will include championing a determined search for interventions that address social and structural determinants of persistent acute malnutrition that are both amenable to change and scalable, with particular attention to identifying opportunities for testing modifications to existing interventions or platforms. Working across all program areas, and in close collaboration with the Learning and Research Teams, s/he will support the Nawiri team to routinely analyze emergent findings of research and learning activities through a systems lens with focus on implications for risks and opportunities related to SSBC. The SSBC for Nutrition Resilience Advisor will also provide technical support across all of Nawiri’s strategic learning areas that will be reflected in Nawiri’s SSBC for Nutrition Resilience strategy and approach.

The SSBC Advisor will report directly to the Deputy Chief of Party and provide strategic and technical guidance across the program, ensuring teams work in harmony to produce desired program results. The SSBC for Nutrition Resilience Advisor will have dotted technical support lines to SSBC personnel and functions embedded within implementing teams at the county levels.

 Essential Job Responsibilities

VISION AND STRATEGY

• Support the Deputy Chief of Party (DCoP) by providing vision and strategy to the program approach and how SBCC integrates into the overall technical direction and implementation.
• Forge strong, institutional linkages and maintain a productive working relationship with USAID, Government of Kenya, the CRS consortium, PREG Partners, and other relevant partners in economic and market-related activities.
• Assist in defining and analyzing Nawiri practices and priorities across all partners; identifying opportunities for integration and synergies within other sectors such as nutrition, health, water systems, and governance.
• Recognize opportunities for innovative action and create an environment where alternative viewpoints are welcomed; promote and model a culture of learning and adaptive management.
• Ensure that cross-cutting aspects of the program such as gender equality, social inclusion, youth, climate adaptation, and resilience are included and well integrated and cut across all activities
• Collaborate with different program components including research, implementation, Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) and learning to drive overall effectiveness and coherence of program strategy from inception to scale up.

TECHNICAL LEADERSHIP

• In close collaboration with all Nawiri stakeholders, lead in the design, development, execution and iteration of a risk-informed SSBC strategy for improving nutrition resilience that is evidence-based, tailored to local realities, and responsive to risk and opportunities.
• Provide SSBC technical leadership for Nawiri consortium members and county partners, including frequent travel to Samburu and Turkana to provide on-site capacity building and technical assistance.
• Lead in the identification and development of innovative approaches for changing the attitudes, perceptions, and practices around decision-making for health and nutrition outcomes, at multiple levels and scales (e.g. individual, HH, community, public and private sector institutions, etc.)
• Develop comprehensive behavior change tools and SBC campaign activities using evidence-based theories and methodologies, in close collaboration with external stakeholders.
• Support in the design 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.
• Provide oversight of SBC activities implemented by Nawiri partners.
• Manage the work of external agencies (research firms, advertising agencies, public relations experts, production vendors, community mobilizers, and/or consultants hired by the program) to assist with SBC. This includes building capacity of local implementing partners to implement quality and successful SBC work.
• Ensure that SBC materials are pre-tested, proven effective, and used efficiently.
• Work with the Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Manager to measure and document progress and impact of SBC activities.

PROGRAM SUPPORT AND IMPLEMENTATION

• Provide leadership and oversight in the development of risk-informed and shock-responsive SSBC tools, materials, and communication channels.
• Provide strategic, technical guidance and direction to the program, ensuring alignment with latest technical information, evidence and approaches in the SSBC field;
• Oversee programmatic and technical aspects related to SSBC activities ensuring SSBC efforts are evidence-based and coordinated, and in line with the Nawiri goal and principles.
• Function as the “lead learner” (e.g. equivalent to “principal investigator” for research) on at least one of Nawiri’s strategic learning areas; provide leadership and management in all aspects of the activity.
• Support in the development of research and learning agenda and activities; provide strategic 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
• Transfer capacity of SSBC frameworks and approaches within the consortium and across the larger community of practice.

TEAM MANAGEMENT AND COMMUNICATION

• Work closely with the Systems Strengthening and Institutionalization Lead and 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.
• 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
• Work with other team leads to coordinate reporting to the donor
• Represent Mercy Corps and Nawiri at strategic meetings, events, and conferences.
• Develop case studies and other products to communicate key program learnings related to SBC
• Contribute to the design and implementation of M&E activities, including any baseline, end-line, or other activities related to SBC.
• Assist in the development of all program reports, work plans and budgets as appropriate.
• In accordance with the Deputy Chief of Party, take on representation role on specific coordination forums. Communicate effectively to ensure the program is accurately represented.
• Any other task, as identified in consultation with supervisor

Security

• Work closely with the country team’s security focal point to promote and maintain systems that promote the safety and security of all team members. Ensure that gender specific needs and interests of program staff in relation to safety and security are identified and responded to appropriately.

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. 

Minimum Qualifications & Transferrable skills

• A Master’s degree in Behavioral or Social Sciences, Public Health, Social Psychology, Communications, Marketing, Health Communication, Behavioral Economics, or other relevant behavioral/social science field or Bachelor’s degree with at least 7-10 years of additional relevant experience.
• At least 7-10 years of demonstrated experience in designing and implementing SSBC activities, preferably in northern Kenya. Demonstrated success in generating and executing innovative and effective social, structural and behavior change solutions.
• Experience applying a range of SBC approaches, including social marketing and nudges, or a willingness to learn to apply a range of new and innovative SBC approaches.
• Knowledge and understanding of local cultural practices, social networks, and gender and age dynamics 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 in social and behavior change.
• 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 the field (Samburu and Turkana) at least 50% 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.
• Ability to travel for field missions for 30-50% level of effort as needed.

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The Position Summary

The Gender, Protection, Youth & Social Dynamics (GPYSD) Lead will be responsible for providing leadership and technical oversight to ensure the gender, protection, and social dimensions (inclusive of such issues as age, ethnicity, and relationships) of malnutrition, food security, and resilience are effectively integrated across all programming. S/he will help define implementation strategies in coordination with the Deputy Chief of Party, technical, research and learning leads. The position will train and influence staff, providing them with the necessary technical support and ensuring that common strategies and approaches are adapted and implemented with consistent quality. S/he will work across sectors of NAWIRI, with consortium team members as well as counties to build capacity in gender, protection mainstreaming and youth sensitive programming in ways that contribute to the quality design and implementation of gender transformative and youth responsive initiatives. The GPYSD will be responsible for coordinating assessments, providing capacity building to county government, ensuring contextually appropriate social dynamics are incorporated into county policies, and making the appropriate connections between Research, Learning and M&E to ensure gender responsive results can be tracked, analyzed, and reported.

Essential Job Responsibilities

VISION AND STRATEGY

• Support the Deputy Chief of Party (DCoP) to create a strong vision for NAWIRI’s approach when it comes to the integration of gender, Protection, youth, and social dynamics.
• Develop and help operationalize NAWIRI’s Gender, Protection, Youth and Social Dynamics Strategy to guide effective integration of GPYSD in key sectors such as nutrition, health, water systems, and governance - throughout the program’s cycle.
• Forge strong, institutional linkages and maintain a productive working relationship with USAID, Government of Kenya, the NAWIRI consortium, PREG Partners, and other relevant partners in the youth & gender field; develop relationships and linkages with organizations implementing other donor-funded programs focused on GPYSD in Kenya
• Recognize opportunities for innovative action and create an environment where alternative viewpoints are welcomed; promote and model a culture of learning and adaptive management.
• Ensure that cross-cutting aspects of gender equality, social inclusion, and youth responsiveness are included and well integrated into NAWIRI approach and activities.
• Contribute technical expertise that feeds into a dynamic community of practice of NAWIRI staff and partners; sharing best practices across all NAWIRI areas and work streams, while seeking opportunities to build NAWIRI staff’s motivation and capabilities in GPYSD.
• Collaborate with different program components including Research, Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) and learning to drive overall effectiveness and coherence of program strategy.
• Represent NAWIRI at all relevant GPYSD related meetings/workshops and other stakeholder meetings as requested.

TECHNICAL LEADERSHIP

• Lead the execution of the NAWIRI Gender Analysis. Support with data collection, analysis, and development of recommendations. Work closely with the NAWIRI team on the Gender Analysis, while mainstreaming youth vulnerability analysis, to ensure early level engagement and subsequent integration of findings into the project’s work-plan.
• Conduct a GBV risk analysis and ensure that recommendations for mitigation are integrated in the GPYSD strategy and the project’s work-plan. Ensure that all staff and partners are trained on safeguarding and understand their roles in protecting program participants from sexual exploitation and abuse.
• Support NAWIRI team, including partners, on GPYSD integration including conducting capacity building activities such as training, learning-by-doing, reflection process and field monitoring support.
• Contribute to research conducted in the program to ensure that relevant issues on GPYSD are well represented and applied across all sectors.
• Monitor the implementation of the NAWIRI’s GPYSD strategy and other gender related commitments in the project’s design and ensure that the project activities align with USAID’s gender equity and female empowerment policy.
• Ensure the integration of Positive Youth Development principles within NAWIRI.
• Work with field teams to conduct regular community consultations to ensure programming remains gender and age responsive and on-track. Support field teams with ensuring that gender diversity principles inform processes of community consultations.
• Provide leadership and technical support to local partners in developing effective gender and youth-focused project action plans that are in line with NAWIRI’s GPYSD strategy.
• Assist partner staff to communicate information from the field to the appropriate decision-making forum on the gender integration in activities undertaken in all components, processes, and impacts.
• Provide support, coaching, mentoring and technical guidance on gender mainstreaming and youth responsive interventions to county and partner GPYSD officers.
• Develop and lead the integration of social dynamics into all capacity-building efforts in support of Samburu and Turkana County governments.
• Routinely collect and share learnings and best practices on gender, protection, youth social inclusion with diverse project stakeholders.
• Share learning and best practices on gender, youth, and social inclusion among Mercy Corps’ global DFSA teams.
• Identify relevant training and learning opportunities for Mercy Corps and partner staff to advance knowledge and skills in gender mainstreaming and youth responsive programming; manage a gender and youth capacity building in alignment with NAWIRI Learning Agenda

PROTECTION

• Support and give technical assistance for gender and protection mainstreaming efforts within the organization’s programs/projects.
• Working closely with various organizations projects and programs, to establish and consolidate GBV coordination structure, including the provision of psychosocial support for survivors of violence of GBV, and establishing a service referral system.
• Develop Standard Operating Procedures for GBV and facilitate their roll-out and implementation in the field.
• Collaborate with the organization safeguarding team, to prepare and conduct capacity building trainings for the organizations staff in thematic topics and implementation of minimum standards and various SOPs (internal and external gender, gender-based violence and protection SOPs).
• Coordinate and provide technical support to the Organization, County Governments, and local implementing partners staffs on the implementation of protection activities.
• Support in the identification of resources to strengthen existing GBV prevention and response programmes; particularly to address gaps in access to safe shelter, psychosocial support, and income-generation projects for women at risk.
• Identify emerging protection issues within the organizations projects/programs and provide recommendations to organization projects/programs regarding strategies and initiatives to enhance the policies aimed at combating violence against women and children.
• Ensure gender sensitive approaches, gender-sensitive accountability mechanism for beneficiaries and the needs of women, girls, boys, and men have been clearly considered and included in the design and during the whole organization’s project/program cycle.
• Support partners NGOs in maintaining a safe and confidential record keeping system and making sure referral of cases are confidential, safe and in a timely manner.
• Ensuring that individuals and groups with specific needs are identified; and incorporate these approaches, policies and concerns into the design and implementation of programme and protection activities.

MANAGEMENT & COORDINATION

• Supervise and mentor Gender and Youth Officers involved in NAWIRI through technical visits, mentorship, and coaching sessions.
• Ensure that program and country staff understand and adhere to Mercy Corps’ Gender Minimum Standards.
• Liaise with key external stakeholders to provide guidance on gender and youth perspectives in all aspects of NAWIRI program activities.
• Ensure that NAWIRI and partners are in compliance with gender and youth related USAID/FFP requirements.
• Support programming team to integrate gender and youth into programming and assist in gender responsive participatory planning, resource allocation and support implementation.

INFORMATION MANAGEMENT & REPORTING

• Work closely with the M&E team on GPYSD integration and provide technical backstopping in the collection and use of sex and age disaggregated data, gender indicators and gender sensitive data collection processes across sectors. Make recommendations based on regular monitoring to inform program strategies to better meet the needs of the program participants.
• Ensure NAWIRI is capturing required level of gender and youth disaggregated data and specific success stories on gender transformation and youth empowerment.
• Lead preparation of reports, issues-papers and case studies on gender and youth perspectives to promote gender and youth integration. Support the review of program reports and documents for gender and youth sensitive communication.
• Support in the setting of indicators for assessing progress with gender and youth integration, adapted to specific contexts of Samburu and Turkana.
• Work with Strategic Learning Lead to disseminate information regarding gender, Protection and youth achievements and impact.
• Represent the program’s gender strategy with external stakeholders at workshops, conferences, and annual learning events. Speak thoughtfully to the analysis, research and learning that NAWIRI is conducting.

Security

• Work closely with the country team’s security focal point to promote and maintain systems that promote the safety and security of all team members. Ensure that gender specific needs and interests of program staff in relation to safety and security are identified and responded to appropriately.

Minimum Qualifications & Transferrable skills

• Master’s degree in a relevant academic area – e.g., a social science discipline.
• Minimum of five years of experience at the community level is required.
• Minimum of five years of progressive management and technical responsibility, including supervising and mentoring multi-sectorial teams, for humanitarian and development assistance, preferably with an international NGO; preferred experience in gender mainstreaming, youth workforce development, youth entrepreneurship, or youth peacebuilding; USAID experience preferred.
• Must have experience in leading the Gender Strategy of a large program and have demonstrated technical experience leading gender responsive interventions and youth integration into food security programming.
• Experience in Kenya and an in-depth understanding of gender, age, and other locally significant socio-cultural factors in the context of food security programming preferred.
• Demonstrated capacity to lead the collection, analysis, and utilization of information from a broad range of sources.
• Experience working with major donors, USAID/FFP preferred.
• In-depth understanding of gender, age, and other locally significant socio-cultural factors in food security context, and demonstrated capacity to lead the collection, analysis, and utilization of information from a broad range of sources to ensure effective integration of innovative and context specific gender and youth concepts.
• Demonstrated ability to foster commitment and build capacity among activity staff and in-country stakeholders (including government) to gender and youth integration and empowerment.
• Demonstrated capacity to understand and advise on critical technical and operational issues related to gender transformative and youth responsive programming: education, job skills, employment creation, social cohesion, health, psycho-social wellbeing.
• Ability to self-manage and succeed in an integrated management model, with demonstrated proactive and flexible nature in resolving problems and finding innovative solutions.
• Demonstrated attention to detail, ability to follow procedures, meet deadlines and work independently and cooperatively with team members. Strong interpersonal and communication skills and the ability to work effectively with groups to produce high quality results.
• Cultural sensitivity, patience, flexibility, and ability to work well in a multi-sectoral and multi-cultural team and to work c
• Ability to travel for field missions for 30-50% level of effort as needed.