Vacancies at Mercy Corps

The Position

As an integral member of the global communications team, the Regional Communications Officer will focus on raising the profile and influence of Mercy Corps in Africa through earned media, messaging, and storytelling for defined issues and topics to our global target markets and within the regions, we work.

The Communications Officer will stay abreast of the media landscape in Mercy Corps regions and support the team to anticipate and respond to news cycle moments and land media coverage in Mercy Corps' global and regional target markets. The officer is expected to demonstrate initiative and be a self-starter who will generate ideas and drive content forward, providing compelling case studies, images and videos, spotting strong news lines, and writing engaging headlines and news content.

Essential Responsibilities

• Write, edit and distribute press releases, talking points, fact sheets and other media relations and communications materials.
• Build relationships with regional, national and international journalists, including non-traditional media influencers, who can help tell the Mercy Corps story.
• Generate story ideas; liaise with program staff, fundraisers and others to keep up-to-date on potential stories.
• Develop and implement media outreach plans; coordinate with social media and web content experts to maximise the value of outreach and engage non-traditional media influencers.
• Deploy to program locations when needed to research stories, conduct media outreach, and gather stories and visual assets. 
• General support for Mercy Corps communications team, including overseeing internal team reporting, systems and analytics.
• Conduct media coverage analyses and report on trends in mainstream and social media.
• Monitor the news cycle daily and update the team on relevant topics, drafting responses to emergency news cycle moments as appropriate.
• Research and create targeted media lists.
• Stay abreast of the media landscape in Mercy Corp's programmatic regions across Africa.
• Provide media training to country-level and regional spokespeople.
• Other duties as necessary.

Minimum Qualification & Transferable Skills

• BA/S or equivalent in journalism, marketing, public relations or international relations required; MA/S in related fields preferred.
• University degree in a relevant subject or equivalent field experience.
• At least five years of professional experience in media relations in an international development agency and experience in dealing in the international media environment OR as a journalist in a credible news organization.
• Established track record of generating positive media coverage; relationships with media in or reporting for regional or international news markets.
• Superior written and verbal communications skills a must; ability to "translate" technical language into compelling stories needed.
• Experience in implementing training in communications and media skills.
• Politically and culturally sensitive with qualities of patience, tact and diplomacy
• Experience in international development or knowledge of development issues preferred.
• Knowledge of photography and video editing software is an added advantage
• Fluency in French is preferred.

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The Position

The Regional Climate Resilient Agriculture Advisor position focuses on providing technical support and capacity strengthening to Mercy Corps Africa-based teams in the climate resilient agriculture and broader economic growth sectors to ensure program quality. The support includes program design and development, helping to monitor and improve program quality and relevance, delivering training, network and partnership development, representation at key sector forums and events, staying current on industry innovation and best practices, writing competitive proposals for submission to donors and disseminating information to internal and external partners. The advisor, in collaboration with the Global Agriculture Systems technical team, will also collaborate closely with other sectoral teams to increase impact.
 
The Regional Climate Resilient Agriculture Advisor is part of the Africa Regional Team that supports 17 country programs and sets regional strategy. The position is additionally closely connected with Mercy Corps’ Global Technical Support Unit (TSU) Agriculture Systems department, providing regionally-focused support services in close coordination with the global team while working more intensively with a small number of strategic programs in the region under the direction of the regional leadership team.

Essential Responsibilities

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP AND STRATEGY

•   Building on our global agriculture systems approach, spearhead the development of an Africa climate resilient agriculture systems strategy.
•   Serve as the key technical resource within the region for the agency’s priorities in climate resilient agriculture, including support to key target countries in the region to build their strategies, identify partnerships, leverage resources, and build learning and thought leadership.
• Contribute to agency-wide agriculture systems’ efforts and communities of practice and ensure that Africa’s priority agriculture areas of focus are reflected within the Agency’s agriculture systems’ strategy.
• Develop and support a research, learning and thought-leadership agenda that feeds into the global learning agenda around climate resilient agriculture, and work closely with other parts of the agency (TSU, Research, Media and Comms, etc).

 PROGRAM AND PROPOSAL DEVELOPMENT

•   Nurture a portfolio of climate resilient agriculture programs to ensure high quality implementation
•   Conduct program quality support visits to key climate resilient agriculture systems programs within the region.
•   Contribute to or lead proposal development efforts for country-level and regional climate resilient agriculture programs, with a focus on identifying and scaling innovative partnership models, leveraging best practices, and harnessing Mercy Corps’ key technical approaches.
•   Cultivate and nurture donor relationships and strategic partnerships that may result in stronger or more impactful program development efforts, particularly with European donors, USAID, FCDO and private sector donors.

INFLUENCE AND REPRESENTATION

• Represent Mercy Corps at relevant regional and international conferences, forums, and events to elevate our relationships and establish our voice as a thought leader within this sector.
• Identify and nurture strategic regional partnerships with other organizations, donors, institutions and local actors to build our credibility and reputation as a key thinker and implementer of innovative and high-impact programs in the region. 
• Support internal and external communication efforts (articles, case studies, conferences and forums) to highlight Mercy Corps’ agriculture systems’ work in Africa.

LEARNING AND IMPACT

•   Develop and support implementation of a climate resilient agriculture research strategy aimed at capturing in-depth learning from, and feeding learning back into, our climate resilient agriculture programs to ensure quality.
•   Work closely with the PAQ Department to establish assessment, monitoring and evaluation frameworks and indicators to measure the impact of our climate resilient agriculture programs at the country and aggregate level.
•   Develop key learning and impact briefs to articulate our regional impact on climate resilient agriculture systems outcomes across our regional portfolio.

COACHING AND MENTORSHIP

• In partnership with the global TSU teams, lead capacity strengthening efforts aimed at strengthening the skills of climate resilient agriculture specialists and champions across the region.
• Lead the Africa community of practice of regional, country-level, and project based climate resilient agriculture systems’ specialists. Work closely with the global TSU, regional technical specialists, program managers, field and HQ teams as required to ensure a dynamic and learning-focused community of practice exists at the regional level.
• Provide team members with information, tools and other resources to improve performance.

Minimum Qualification & Transferable Skills

• Masters in climate resilient agriculture, OR a comparable area of study preferred. Alternatively significant practical experience in this field will also be considered.
• 5-7 years of experience in a climate resilient agriculture technical role, preferably in international development including practical implementation of climate resilient agriculture approaches, proposal design, partnership building, and capacity strengthening.
• Substantial background and experience in regenerative agriculture, nature-based solutions or similar including soil and water management.
• Significant experience working in East and West Africa required, including a good understanding of dryland and conflict-sensitive programming.
• Strong writing, presentation and representation skills in English required.
• Proficiency in French strongly preferred.
• It is expected that this position will travel to Mercy Corps country offices within the Africa region, including insecure environments, for up to 40% of time.