Program / Department Summary

General Position Summary

Essential Job Responsibilities

Strategy & Vision

• Work closely with M&E, research, and partner team members to develop comprehensive learning strategies and agenda during start-up, which are incorporated in annual workplans and regularly updated.
• Work with CoP and senior management team to ensure adaptive program management and CLA principles are incorporated at start-up and throughout implementation.
• Participate in the senior management team to set the strategic vision for the Activity, including how research and learning will be integrated into the program design and implementation.
• Recognize opportunities for innovative action and create an environment where alternative viewpoints are welcomed.
• Identify and share creative, efficient, and effective ways to share learnings and information, engage audiences, and facilitate collaboration.
• Design and facilitate regular, strategic planning sessions and learning events, assisting the program in a learning journey as well as development of its annual plans.

Learning and Adaptive Management

• Create a stakeholder map and stakeholder analysis to guide collaboration with other programs, initiatives and institutions to link program participants to sustainable outcomes and enable the program’s theory of change.
• Develop a program-wide strategy and supportive systems/structures for adaptive management and CLA; ensure these link to and support wider systems for program performance, including review and reflection meetings, feedback loops, and communication flows .
• Develop and support a plan for ensuring collaboration between local actors, other USAID-funded activity stakeholders, local government stakeholders, donor agencies, private sector actors and other implementers operating in the same target areas.
• Lead staff and partners in regular reviews of program activities to pause and reflect on programmatic learning based on implementation experience and monitoring data, to review and revise results chains and theories of change, and suggest programmatic changes in collaboration with the M&E Lead.
• Support study and assessment processes, facilitating sensemaking workshops based on study findings and summarizing findings and recommendations in short learning briefs.
• Capture and document changes made to program design as a result of formative and operational research findings and operation planning discussions.
• Lead and support learning events such as CLA workshops at all levels to ensure to review and reflection on the evidence and ensure it is captured into program design and implementation
• Work closely with COP, DCOP, M&E Lead and others to identify the program’s research and learning agenda and ensure it captures both Mercy Corps and USAID priorities.
• Work closely with the M&E team and various technical teams to ensure the program is capturing and critically analyzing performance data and evidence.
• Explore opportunities to collaborate with potential research partners, other programs and donors.
• Facilitate inclusive and gender-sensitive research processes and approaches, engaging local organizations, institutions, and women, to design and implement national- and community-level data collection tools and contribute to data analysis and meaning-making of results.
• Work closely with the M&E team to plan for and conduct the final internal performance review by the end of program activities

Capacity Sharing

• Lead the team to create a plan to operationalize and build capacity in CLA practice across implementing teams and partner organizations, including creating a culture of learning and systems thinking to stimulate an adaptive, iterative management approach;
• Build the capacity of all relevant team members to develop, review, and maintain an excellent knowledge management system, including regular reflection and analysis of program monitoring data and production of evidence-based recommendations and reports.
• Assist the M&E Lead in other M&E-related capacity building activities, e.g. through the development of learning toolkits or by setting up webinars or brown bag meetings.
• Promote and nurture a culture of reflection, critical thinking and learning within the Activity and among staff and partners.
• Build the capacity of the M&E and other relevant program teams to design, analyze, rigorously interpret and present high-quality data from quantitative and qualitative research.

Documentation, Packaging and Knowledge management

• Work with COP, DCOP, Program Performance, Quality and Learning Director and other program staff to document lessons learned from implementing key program interventions, and disseminate communication and learning products to showcase project successes and results.
• Produce high-quality learning briefs, case studies, white papers or other reports that showcase key insights from the program’s research and learning initiatives, as well as recommendations for the program, mission, agency and/or donors and other implementing partners.
• Concisely communicate key program insights from learning activities with program audiences in a concise and appropriate manner.
• Ensure close coordination and information sharing with consortium partners, sub-grantees, local government and other implementers, as well as with other Mercy Corps programs.

Representation

• As requested by the COP, represent the program in front of USAID, support partners and agency-internal partners from the Technical Support Unit and the PAQ team, and other project stakeholders or professional bodies.

Supervisory Responsibility

Accountability

• MA/S or equivalent experience in development studies, international relations, agriculture, nutrition, public health, research methods, knowledge management or a related field.
• Minimum 3 years (5+ years if only undergraduate degree) of related work at a program or country level, including supervising staff. Proven use of program technology in a M&E function required.
• Demonstrated experience in facilitating learning and knowledge sharing processes, in establishing and managing dynamic feedback systems to capture experiential learning and unintended consequences, and in fostering collaboration across teams and organizations.
• Experience in strategic planning and performance measurement, including indicator selection, target setting, reporting, database management and developing performance monitoring plans that support learning agendas and contribute to program efficacy.
• Experience with theoretical and practical background in research and skilled in participatory qualitative and quantitative methodologies and techniques, including experience in planning and managing surveys and developing and refining data collection tools required.
• Strong qualitative and quantitative data analysis skills and knowledge:
  • Demonstrated understanding of intermediate statistics and ability to summarize and make predictions from multiple data sets. Power user with Excel required. Experience with statistical packages including STATA, R, or SPSS preferred
  • Demonstrated understanding of qualitative methodologies. Prior experience of using a qualitative analysis package: MAXQDA, Dedoose, Atlas.ti, any of the QDA packages, or other preferred.
• Knowledge of and prior experience of using M&E and CLA technologies required. Ona/CommCare for data collection, Tableau or Power BI for data visualization and reporting preferred.
• Familiarity with M&E and CLA approaches to measuring behavioral and normative change at the individual, interpersonal, community and societal levels required.
• Familiarity with competencies-based approaches to agency and empowerment preferred.
• Excellent written communications, including the ability to tailor communications to program and policy audiences at multiple levels.
• Experience with gender and social inclusion analysis frameworks preferred.
• Experience working on USAID programs is essential.
• Previous experience living and working in challenging or insecure environments.
• Prior experience working in DRC is highly desirable.
• Fluent oral and written French as well as strong oral and written English
• Tshiluba language skills are highly desired.

Success Factors

Living Conditions / Environmental Conditions

Mercy Corps is committed to ensuring that all individuals we come into contact with through our work, whether team members, community members, program participants or others, are treated with respect and dignity. We are committed to the core principles regarding prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse laid out by the UN Secretary General and IASC. We will not tolerate child abuse, sexual exploitation, abuse, or harassment by or of our team members. As part of our commitment to a safe and inclusive work environment, team members are expected to conduct themselves in a professional manner, respect local laws and customs, and to adhere to Mercy Corps Code of Conduct Policies and values at all times. Team members are required to complete mandatory Code of Conduct elearning courses upon hire and on an annual basis.