Program Manager -Girl H -Program Management Unit(PMU) at Mercy Corps

Program / Department Summary
Girls Improving Resilience through Livelihoods (GIRL) is a three-year, multi- country program being implemented in Kenya, Uganda, Haiti and currently expanding to Nigeria. The program seeks to improve the well-being of adolescent girls and young women by increasing their access to skills and knowledge, health resources, formal education, and economic opportunities. GIRL also fosters an enabling environment by working with communities to transform unhealthysocial norms and create opportunities for girls to access education and economic opportunity. Key to GIRL isa 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 sharedto elevate Mercy Corps’ influence in the adolescent girl space and to bolster fundraising efforts to scale the model. The Program Manager will support the successful implementation of the GIRL program across the three target countries, driving innovation and learning to refine a replicable and evidence-based GIRL programming model, and will play a critical role in leading regional and global expansionefforts 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 support program start-up and implementing, while building team members’ and partners’ capacity to integrate a gender and youth perspective into project activities. The PMU Manager will support country Program Managers (PMs) 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 Manager will support country offices integration of Safe Spaces into relevant programs. S/he is responsible for supporting the design and implementation of training modules and support 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

• Support the development of 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 and girls’ leadership country strategies based on Mercy
• Corps’ Country Strategy for Uganda, Haiti and Kenya;
• Promote gender strategies across the country portfolio, adapt, and improve them as needed;
• Lead the development of a resource mobilization and communication strategy for the program and support its operationalization at the country level.

PROGRAM MANAGEMENT

• Support 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;
• Collaborate with program, finance and administrative staff to ensure program systems comply with donor and Mercy Corps policies and procedures, including adherence to Mercy Corps program management minimum standards;
• Work with the PMs to 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 support and guidance in all aspects of program implementation, management and evaluation across the three target countries.

MONITORING, EVALUATION & LEARNING

• Ensure compliance with donor and Mercy Corps regulations related to gender, resilience, and safes spaces programming;
• 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.

REGIONAL SYSTEMS AND SUPPORT FUNCTIONS

• 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.

HUMAN RESOURCES, SAFEGUARDING AND DIVERSITY
Support Mercy Corps global and regional initiatives for human resources, including safeguarding and diversity.

RISK MANAGEMENT

• Engage and support GIRL Program across the region to ensure that adequate risk management systems are in place;
• Collaborate with GIRL Country PMs 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 Internal Audit findings and recommendations.

Supervisory Responsibility:
Program Intern
Accountability

Reports Directly To: GIRL-H Program Director

Works Directly With: Director of Research and Evidence and GIRL Program Managers in assigned Countries

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.

Knowledge and Experience

• Masters or equivalent experience in International Development, Political Science, women’s studies, Economics, Sociology or other relevant field.
• 5-7 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 program start up.
• 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 / livelihoods programming.
• Ability to foster commitment and build capacity among project staff and in-country actors around gender and youth integration.
• Experience in the Africa region is preferred
• Strong public speaking and facilitation skills required.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office

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 team and coordinate with program

personnel.

Living Conditions / Environmental Conditions
The position is based in Kenya, Uganda or Nigeria 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. This is a local position, candidates should have the right to work in any of the highlighted countries.

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 locationswhere we work.

Safeguarding & Ethics
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.