Program Implementation Lead: GIRL-H

Location: Kenya or Nigeria
Position Status: Full time
**
About Mercy Corps**
Mercy Corps is a leading global organization powered by the belief that a better world is possible. In disaster, in hardship, in more than 40 countries around the world, we partner to put bold solutions into action — helping people triumph over adversity and build stronger communities from within. Now, and for the future.
**
The Program / Department / Team (Program / Department Summary)**
Girls Improving Resilience through Livelihoods and Health (GIRL-H) is a three-year, 10-million-dollar program implemented in Kenya, Uganda, Haiti and Nigeria and seeks to improve the well-being of adolescent and young people by increasing their access to skills and knowledge, health resources, formal education and economic opportunities. GIRL-H also fosters an enabling environment by working with communities to transform unhealthy social norms and create opportunities for girls and boys to access education and economic opportunity. Key to GIRL-H is a robust learning and research agenda that reaches across three countries to contribute to the evidence base on what works to secure access to opportunities for adolescent girls within the most marginalized communities and to better understand their contribution to household resilience. This evidence and learning will be shared to elevate Mercy Corps’ influence in the adolescent girl space and to bolster fundraising efforts to scale the model. The GIRL-H
Program Manager will coordinate and support the successful implementation of the GIRL-H program across the target countries, driving innovation and learning to refine a replicable and evidence-based GIRL-H programming model, and will play a critical role in leading regional and global expansion efforts for Mercy Corps’ adolescent girl programming.
**
General Position Summary**

• The Program Manager is responsible for supporting the country offices implementation of the GIRL-H program, including ensuring that project activities result in positive outcomes for male and female participants of different age groups.
• S/he will have the responsibility for program start-up and implementing, while building team members’ and partners’ capacity to integrate a gender and youth perspective into project activities.
• The Program Manager will support country Program Managers to ensure the effective and timely execution of all activities within this program, including social capital and life skills, linkages to formal, informal, and technical education, promotion of the enabling environment for young girls.
• The Program Manager will be responsible for ensuring the integration of Safe Spaces into relevant programs. He/She is responsible for overseeing the implementation of training modules and the management of the Mercy Corps GIRL-H Safe Space activities for adolescent girls and boys, within relevant programs, including the GIRL-H program.

Essential Responsibilities
**
STRATEGY AND VISION**

• Develop a clear vision for the program, as well as a clear and effective strategy for program implementation and evaluation and ensure that the vision and mission are aligned with contextual realities.
• Ensure that the program strategy is clear and communicated to team members, local beneficiaries and partners.
• Ensure that program implementation is responsive to communities and partners and aligned with Mercy Corps’ principles and values.
• Collaborate with other related Mercy Corps programs to create synergies wherever possible.
• Guide the technical implementation of women’s and girls’ leadership country strategies based on Mercy Corps’ Country Strategy for Uganda, Haiti, Kenya and Nigeria.
• Promote gender strategies across the country portfolio and adapt and improve them as needed.

PROGRAM MANAGEMENT

• Manage and oversee program implementation, in cooperation with key project stakeholders, including local non-governmental organizations, local government officials, community- based organizations, other international agencies on the ground, and key donors;
• Support transition of graduating participants across implementing countries
• Work with MEL and country teams to tease out learnings and make adaptations where necessary
• Develop communication materials including quarterly newsletters
• Collaborate with program, finance and administrative staff to ensure systems comply with donor and Mercy Corps policies and procedures, including adherence to Mercy Corps program management minimum standards.
• Ensure program implementation is on time, scope and budget, using effective M&E systems to reach desired impacts.
• Create and maintain systems ensuring effective and transparent use of financial resources for timely and informative reporting in line with donor and Mercy Corps policies and procedures.
• Increase Mercy Corps and partner organization staff capacity by designing and delivering technical training and coaching plans on topics related to building resilience and achieving gender-equitable program outcomes.
• Provide leadership and oversight in all aspects of program implementation, management, and evaluation.

TEAM MANAGEMENT

• Manage a specialized team dedicated to the specific project deliverables.
• Work with different consultants – make documentaries, digitize curriculum
• 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.
• Promote accountability, communicate expectations and provide constructive feedback informally and formally via regular one on ones and performance reviews;
• Create and sustain a work environment of mutual respect where team members strive to achieve excellence.
• Oversee program staff and partner performance and quality of program implementation and if security context allows, conduct frequent field visits to all program sites.

FINANCE & COMPLIANCE MANAGEMENT

• Ensure compliance with donor and Mercy Corps regulations related to gender, resilience, and safes spaces programming.
• Draft and/or review scope of work to hire and manage any technical consultants, including review for technical efficacy and contract budget.
• Establish and oversee effective program monitoring, evaluation, and reporting systems for both internal and external use and ensure high quality input is obtained from team members.
• Use reporting results to monitor program success, measure impact, and calibrate program strategy accordingly.
• Ensure documentation of achievements and lessons learned to ensure best practices are captured and disseminated in quarterly and final program reports.
• Monitor adherence to the donor grant agreement as well as Mercy Corps’ and donor’s policies and procedures for procurement and compliance.

KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCE

• Masters or equivalent experience in international development, political science, women’s or development studies, economics, sociology or other relevant field.
• 7-9 years’ experience in gender and youth development work including experience developing and conducting gender training, gender/youth mainstreaming and engaging in gender advocacy.
• Experience in implementing adolescent and young people programs
• Demonstrated ability to implement a program, manage a team and develop their capacities.
• Demonstrated capacity to lead the collection, analysis and utilization of information from a broad range of sources to ensure effective integration of gender and youth concerns throughout the project’s duration. In-depth understanding of gender, age and other socio- cultural factors in the context of food security programming.
• Ability to foster commitment and build capacity among project staff and in-country actors around gender and youth integration.
• Experience in African preferred.
• Strong public speaking and facilitation skills required.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office.
• Excellent oral and written English skills
• Capacity building experience especially for national organizations, local stakeholders and participants among others.
• Knowledge of Sphere standards and other training in humanitarian response preferred.

REGIONAL SYSTEMS AND SUPPORT FUNCTIONS

• Ensure that effective systems are in place in all country offices for the adequate management of human resources, financial and operational field support functions.
• Review and support country team adherence to Mercy Corps and donor policies and procedures.
• Capture and disseminate best practices on operations, finance, and HR systems across country teams to ensure highest quality and standards.
• Provide dedicated support to country teams in the event of an emergency or start up of a complex program that requires additional resources.
• Collaborate with country finance leads in producing bi-annual master budgets.

HUMAN RESOURCES, SAFEGUARDING AND DIVERSITY

• Support Mercy Corps global and regional initiatives for human resources, including safeguarding and diversity, and talent development.
• Collaborate with the people team to promote staff access to high quality learning opportunities, with a special emphasis on national team member development.
• Assist with the on-boarding of senior team members, ensuring they are set up for success and familiar with agency systems, procedures, and protocols.

RISK MANAGEMENT

• Engage and support countries across the region to ensure that adequate risk management systems are in place.
• Collaborate with country leadership to support preparedness and response to major disruptive events.
• Engage with country teams on the internal audit process to track findings and ensure country team compliance with IA findings and recommendations.
• Engage with country level Ethics and Assurance managers as well as the global Ethics and
• Assurance department to track and analyze trends and needs across countries.

Supervisory Responsibility
Program Manager Nigeria and Kenya and PMU officers
**
Accountability:** Country Office Director of Programs
**
Reports Directly To:** GIRL-H program Director.
**
Works Directly With:** Country Program Manager and other PMU staff.
**
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.

Success Factors
The successful candidate will have excellent team and interpersonal relationship skills, with demonstrated ability to work effectively in complex environments. S/he will combine strong communication skills, creativity, initiative, participatory leadership, and tactful decisiveness to assist in program implementation. Multi-tasking, prioritizing, problem solving and simultaneous attention to detail and strategic vision are essential. S/he must have the confidence and humility to work effectively with a diverse group of people – as well as be sensitive to political and cultural nuance. S/he must be able to consistently apply excellent judgment to a variety of demanding and fast- ‐ changing situations while working as part of a tea and coordinate with program personnel.

Living Conditions / Environmental Conditions
This position can be based in Nigeria or Kenya and may involve 40% travel to support country programs, which may include travel to insecure locations where freedom of movement is limited and areas where amenities are limited..
**
Ongoing Learning**
In support of our belief that learning organizations are more effective, efficient, and relevant to the communities we serve, we empower all team members to dedicate 5% of their time to learning activities that further their personal and/or professional growth and development.
**
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion**
Achieving our mission begins with how we build our team and work together. Through our commitment to enriching our organization with people of different origins, beliefs, backgrounds, and ways of thinking, we are better able to leverage the collective power of our teams and solve the world’s most complex challenges. We strive for a culture of trust and respect, where everyone contributes their perspectives and authentic selves, reaches their potential as individuals and teams, and collaborates to do the best work of their lives.
We recognize that diversity and inclusion is a journey, and we are committed to learning, listening, and evolving to become more diverse, equitable and inclusive than we are today.
**
Equal Employment Opportunity**
Mercy Corps is an equal opportunity employer that does not tolerate discrimination on any basis. We actively seek out diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and skills so that we can be collectively stronger and have sustained global impact.
We are committed to providing an environment of respect and psychological safety where equal employment opportunities are available to all. We do not engage in or tolerate discrimination based on race, color, gender identity, gender expression, religion, age, sexual orientation, national or ethnic origin, disability (including HIV/AIDS status), marital status, military veteran status or any other protected group in the locations where we work

Safeguarding & Ethics
Mercy Corps is committed to ensuring that all individuals we meet 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.