CHARITY JOBS IN AFRICA

Organization: Mercy Corps
Country: Liberia
Closing date: 13 Dec 2014

This position is pending anticipated funding.

PROGRAM/DEPARTMENT SUMMARY:

Mercy Corps has been operational in Liberia since 2002, most recently implementing programs in food security, peace building, and youth empowerment. Currently, Liberia is the epicenter of a fast-moving regional Ebola epidemic, which also includes Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria. To date, nearly 4,000 people in Liberia have been infected, with over 2,200 deaths (3 Oct 2014). As the Ebola epidemic spreads throughout Liberia, existing social and economic challenges are growing more complex, requiring adaptive and dynamic approaches to help support affected communities as they defend against, cope with, and recover from, this devastating disease.

Mercy Corps’ strategy to respond to the Ebola outbreak focuses on two approaches: 1) to engage local and international organizations through a national network of community organizations to promote healthy behaviors within communities that will help reduce the transmission of Ebola, and 2) address market and household economic challenges that emerge as a result of the Ebola outbreak, paying particular attention to food insecurity and declining livelihoods.

GENERAL POSITION SUMMARY:

The Program Quality Assurance Manager (PQAM) is responsible for the overall development and integration of accountability and quality assurance mechanisms for the Mercy Corps Liberia ECAP (Ebola Community Action Platform) program. S/he champions a team culture of learning and continuous quality improvement and is responsible in concert with the Program Director for the development of program strategies and partnership initiatives to deliver immediate and lasting assistance to the most vulnerable beneficiaries in the Ebola crisis in Liberia. S/he manages a team focused on quality in design, monitoring, evaluation, learning, capacity building and communications. The role requires significant liaison with local and international partners and close coordination with other ECAP Managers as well as working in concert with the Program Director. It will also require strong understanding of quality definition and QA/QC methods in humanitarian response and development programming.This is a management position for Mercy Corps with supervisory and managerial responsibilities and will ensure appropriate and effective implementation of all Mercy Corps and sub-grantee programmatic operations in the field. This response has a particular emphasis on working through local partners, to build their capacity to effectively and efficiently implement activities, constantly assess the capacity of partners and identify new partners.

ESSENTIAL JOB FUNCTIONS:

Strategy and Vision

• Provide leadership by bringing together the various partners and Mercy Corps team members to deliver coordinated and coherent thematic excellence through E-CAP in Liberia. (For example, focus on improvement tools of M&E, QA/QC and promote a culture of continuous improvement);
• Work with the Program Director (PD) and other team members to formulate and revise E-CAP program strategies and priorities based on lessons learned during implementation and changes in the operating context or Mercy Corps’ understanding of such, and help communicate this strategy to constituencies;
• Support the PD in development, planning, implementation, monitoring, evaluation and administration of humanitarian relief and development projects in line with the Liberia program strategy and in service of reducing Ebola transmission and it’s impacts on Liberian populations and systems;
• Ensure that evidence-based results are clearly documented and communicated, and that program strategy adequately reflects an evidence-based, iterative strategic path;
• Work closely and meet regularly with the PD and discuss interventions and program opportunities;
• Be directly involved in the identification, evaluation and selection of sub-grantees, working closely with the Program Director, Sub Awards Director and the program team. Tasks could include drafting programmatic aspects of Expressions of Interest, Request for Agreements; reviewing sub-grantee applications and the programmatic and management capacities of potential partners; providing qualitative monitoring and quality assurance oversight of all sub-grantee activities; and reviewing sub-grantee narrative reports and verifying reported progress against targets, activities and their quality implementation through leading a team of quality monitors.

Program Operations and Management

• In concert with Program Director, design and implement a partner assessment tool for all partners in Liberia;
• Contribute to an innovative program environment, and where teams constantly seek to maximize impact;
• Strive to create and use standardized tools and practices that lead to high quality, impactful program design and implementation;
• Ensure that programs produce professional quality reports and communications materials and that publishable results are disseminated.

Program Quality Monitoring:

• Work with partners to implement systematized program quality monitoring visits and provide structured feedback in a way that improves progress and impact;
• Ensure that partners have sufficient systems in place to meet program management standards and comply to donor and Mercy Corps regulations and good practice;
• Support development and implementation of protocols and procedures for structuring quality definitions (descriptions of deliverables), Quality Control and Quality Assurance for projects across various implementing partners to ensure that programmatic objectives are met within allotted time, and all aspects of the Humanitarian response are in line with Sphere standards and the principles of Do No Harm;
• Review sub-grantee narrative reports and verify reported progress against targets, activities and their quality implementation through leading a team of quality monitors;
• Facilitate elaboration of inclusive program/sub-grant selection criteria that take into consideration needs of different vulnerable groups, and monitor beneficiary selection processes ensuring these criteria are followed;
• Work with program staff to integrate quality monitoring processes based on protocols into program implementation, including internal and external reviews of program quality;
• Ensure that program information shared with stakeholders is presented in languages, formats and media that are appropriate for, accessible to, and can be understood by the target population.

M&E Support:

• Train the Liberia team on principles of accountability and quality management;
• Enhance and support program learning and dialogue through reporting and learning mechanisms to capture programming lessons and outcomes, such as after-action reviews, evaluations, and lessons learned workshops;
• Maintain regular interactions and reporting with key partners, including relevant cluster lead agencies, UN agencies, NGOs, and technical partners;
• Organize and facilitate cross-program or regional knowledge sharing between program staff, beneficiaries, and other stakeholders; represent Mercy Corps in coordination meetings;
• Assist the M&E team in capacity building, program design, monitoring and evaluation exercises;
• Document lessons learned from programs and share internally and externally as appropriate;
• Other duties as assigned .

Team Management

• Work with the Program Director, Sub Awards Manager, Learning and Results Measurement Manager and members of the Program team and partners on capacity building tools for Mercy Corps colleagues and partners;
• Participate in the recruitment, selection, orientation, training and performance reviews of key program staff, and others as requested;
• Review staff training and capacity building of local colleagues and local partners in the humanitarian response;
• Conduct him/herself both professionally and personally in such a manner as to bring credit to Mercy Corps and to not jeopardize its humanitarian mission;
• Other duties as assigned.

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:

Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts towards 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: Monitoring Officers

REPORTS DIRECTLY TO: Program Director

WORKS DIRECTLY WITH: Learning and Results Measurement Manager, All senior team members, program teams, and partners.

KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCE:

• Master’s degree in Social Sciences, in an area of social development or equivalent
• At least 3-5 years’ experience in an NGO environment, including experience directing and implementing programs in emergency contexts
• Demonstrated leadership and management skills in a complex international setting
• Strong understanding of different methodologies of QA/QC, monitoring and evaluation and operational research and experience in developing integrated systems
• Ability to effectively establish a learning culture within an organization and with stakeholders
• Experience in successfully establishing and managing collaborative relationships and partnerships with partner organizations and government counterparts
• Experience managing a diverse workforce including effective performance management and utilization of capacity building, coaching, and mentoring skills
• Demonstrated use of positive coping strategies in stressful environments
• Commitment to and understanding of Mercy Corps aims, values and principles including rights-based approaches
• English proficiency required
• Excellent written and oral skills

SUCCESS FACTORS:

A successful candidate will have effective verbal and written communication, multi-tasking, organizational, and prioritization skills with an ability to effectively represent the organization and its interests to a diverse range of stakeholders, including local and international government officials, local civil society organizations, donors, other international organizations, the media, and the community. S/he will have demonstrated attention to detail, commitment to quality in all things, ability to follow and enforce procedures, meet deadlines, and work independently and cooperatively with team members, have strong people skills and the ability to motivate diverse teams. An interest and ability to travel and work in remote and dynamic environments, with experience in insecure environments is an advantage as is an awareness of and sensitivity to multi-cultural international development work and ability to train and facilitate dialogue among a diverse group of individuals with various skill sets and working styles. S/he will have the ability to creatively problem-solve, to juggle multiple priorities under tight deadlines and to calmly and diplomatically deal with unexpected and sudden events impacting program operations with patience, dynamism, tenacity and a sense of humor.

LIVING CONDITIONS/ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS:

The position will be based in Monrovia, and may require travel to outlying counties and communities throughout Liberia. The security situation is stable but could change quickly in localized circumstances, although general unrest is not anticipated because of a significant UN, US military, and local police forces to maintain public safety. Monrovia is served by an international airport and has many hotels, restaurants and grocery stores. Health services are currently limited and while we have made provisions for emergency care, team members should not anticipate an environment where casual outpatient services are available. Because safe access to health services should not be anticipated, a degree of self-sufficiency in first aid and medications should be considered. Candidates must consider taking anti-malarials as a preventative measure and other measures to lower their risk of requiring medical services. Candidates with chronic health issues should consider disclosing and self-eliminating from this recruitment process. Currently there is an 11 pm curfew, which could change at anytime, and staff should expect some interruption of movement as the government manages the Ebola situation. Housing will either be at private residences as group housing or at nearby hotels. Traveling in and out of Liberia is increasingly complicated with many commercial airlines suspending service and many countries closing their borders (air, land and sea) to individuals coming from Liberia. Two commercial airlines continue to serve Liberia (Brussels Air and Air Maroc) and UNHAS is currently working to establish air service to Dakar, Senegal and Accra, Ghana.

Mercy Corps Team members represent the agency both during and outside of work hours when deployed in a field posting or on a visit/TDY to a field posting. Team members are expected to conduct themselves in a professional manner and respect local laws, customs and Mercy Corps’ policies, procedures, and values at all times and in all in-country venues.

How to apply:

Please apply directly at:
http://mercycorps.silkroad.com/epostings/submit.cfm?fuseaction=app.dspjo...