Deputy Chief of Party - Yola at Mercy Corps

General Position Summary

The Deputy Chief of Party (DCOP) will support the Chief of Party (COP) in managing and leading the Rural Resilience Activity. The DCOP will assist the COP in program oversight and directly manage the technical, administrative, operational and logistical aspects of the program. The DCOP will work closely with the various Thematic Teams and support functions to ensure effective program coordination and implementation, monitoring and evaluation, quality assurance, and accountability. The DCOP will also work directly with partner agencies, both national and international, to achieve the objectives of the program.

Essential Job Responsibilities

STRATEGY AND VISION

• Provide technical leadership and strategic vision to the technical components of the program including work plan development, market analysis, partnership selection and management, and overall sector strategy.
• Monitor adherence to grant agreement, Mercy Corps policies and procedures and relevant external rules and regulations.
• Oversee the performance of consortium partners and sub-grantees.
• Recognize opportunities for innovative action and create an environment where alternative viewpoints are welcomed.
• Assist the Chief of Party with developing close-out plans.
• Contribute to program and country team-building efforts and communications support for field teams.

 PROGRAM MANAGEMENT

• Lead the development of detailed close-out plans flowing from annual strategic work plans, and ensure the delivery.
• Lead the socialization of the program with Government of Nigeria Stakeholders, ensuring necessary approvals and collaboration required.
• Ensure technical learning briefs are well documented and shared.
• Integrate community approaches, gender sensitivity and capacity building into all activities as appropriate.
• Provide managerial and programmatic oversight to Partners and Sub-grantee(s).
• Document processes and achievements to ensure best practices are captured and disseminated. This will include the continual re-evaluation of program activities and information, with resulting activity adjustments in keeping with new insights.
• Produce written reports on program activities, capturing the impacts of the activities.
• Oversee efforts to design effective M&E systems for the program, and linkages with internal M&E systems.
• Create and follow effective stakeholder management plans, ensuring sound and proactive communications with Mercy Corps Nigeria, partner organizations, Mercy Corps Headquarters, USAID, Government of Nigeria authorities, and colleague agencies.
• Conduct frequent field visits to all project sites – spend up to 50% of the time in the field.

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. 

Knowledge and Experience

• Master’s degree or higher degree in Economics, or Business Administration.
• Demonstrated expertise and a minimum of three (3) years of Deputy Chief of Party experience in managing large to medium (preferably $10 million and above) livelihood, agricultural development activities with knowledge of resilience programming and the African context preferred.
• At least three (3) years of field-based work in a conflict-prone and/or active insurgency environment.
• Strong technical experience in Market Systems Approach to development.
• Demonstrated ability to be collaborative across activities utilizing strong communication and interpersonal skills, with evidence of the ability to productively interact with a wide range and levels of organizations (government, private sector, other activities, NGOs).
• Strong written and verbal communication skills (proficiency in English).