Gender & Protection Program Assistant at Mercy Corps

Locations: Ngala and Dikwa, Borno
Supervisory Responsibility: None
Reports Directly To: Gender & Protection Senior Program Officer
Works Directly With: Finance, Program, MEL, and Operation Teams.

Program/Department Summary

• Mercy Corps Nigeria’s humanitarian program aims to provide assistance to populations affected by the crisis in Northeast Nigeria.
• With funding from humanitarian donors including OFDA, FFP, EU, and ECHO the humanitarian programs engage in several interventions including but not limited to food assistance, non-food items, protection, livelihoods, WASH and capacity building of humanitarian response actors.
• Mercy Corps is scaling-up and expanding its humanitarian response in Northeast Nigeria to reach more beneficiaries with additional assistance in a wider geographic area.

General Position Summary

• The Gender and Protection Program assistant is responsible for assisting in the implementation of Protection sector activities including the mobilization of women’s groups, supporting the training on topics such as psychological first aid, and sexual and gender based violence (SGBV), supporting the master trainers in communities in ensuring referrals are done in a coordinated and appropriate ways.
• With the support of the Senior Program Officer, s/he will also advise and build capacity of other sector teams on gender and protection mainstreaming and best practices.
• S/he will report directly to the Protection & Gender Senior Program Officer and will work closely with other sectors in the respective filed offices

Essential Job Functions

• Support the implementation of protection activities and ensured adequate gender mainstreaming across program field locations;
• With support from the Protection SPO ensure that program implementation mainstreams gender and protection in coordination with other sectors in line with best practices;
• Supporting sector teams in the field locations to ensure beneficiaries are effectively targeted according to vulnerability criteria;
• Lead where necessary community meetings to identify gender related priorities and protection concerns.
• Establish and maintain effective program reporting, and monitoring and evaluation systems (to track, analyze and report on results) for both internal and external use;
• Support the SPO in Integrating community approaches, protection mainstreaming, gender sensitivity and capacity building into all activities as appropriate;
• Ensure program filing system is in place, adheres to internal and donor regulation and filing is regularly maintained;
• Supporting master trainers as key focal field protection lead person and report on any problems encountered in the field such as project participant complaints, local authority interference,
• Support SPO in conducting baselines and research discussion and reports
• Conduct himself/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.

Finance & Compliance Management:

• Ensure compliance with donor and Mercy Corps regulations related to emergency programming.
• Ensure compliance with all Mercy Corps finance regulation in carrying out activities as a Driver

Influence & Representation

• Identify, build and manage collaborative partnerships with consortium partners, sub-grantees, donors, local governments and other stakeholders.
• Communicate effectively to ensure overall project targets and donor obligations are met.

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.

Knowledge and Experience

• Diploma in Social Sciences in relevant field required;
• 1 year of experience working on the development, implementation, administration and compliance of a field-based international development or humanitarian program; general gender and protection mainstreaming experience & knowledge required.
• Experience working with multiple stakeholders to identify beneficiaries according to criteria required.
• Committed to humanitarian work and principles
• Willingness to conduct gender analysis, protection assessments, monitoring and evaluation and other learning efforts required.
• Experience representing the organization and its interests to a diverse range of local and in local civil society organizations.
• Commitment to renewing and maintaining knowledge of best practices
• Demonstrated strengths in analytical skills, monitoring and evaluation, and report writing
• Strong interpersonal, intercultural and communication skills
• Excellent oral and written skills and computer skills
• Fluency in English; fluency in Hausa and Kanuri is required.

Success Factors

• The successful candidate will have a can-do attitude. Ideally s/he will be very committed and willingness to learn and work in remote locations
• S/he is a problem solver, an effective community mobilizer who is adept in successfully dealing with issues of complexity. S/he is an active listener and contributor, working to create a strong team share ideas and learn.