Program Officer (Partner) at Mercy Corps

General Position Summary

The PARTNER Program Officer is tasked with overseeing the day-to-day execution of the program, ensuring that all program requirements and plans align with Mercy Corps and USAID standards and are delivered on schedule. Their responsibilities include ensuring the timely and effective implementation of Peacebuilding, Social Cohesion, and Early Warning and Early Response (EWER) activities in all designated areas. They will also provide support for activities related to capacity building for farmers, herders, religious leaders, and other relevant stakeholders, as well as delivering capacity-building assistance and training to local partners within the consortium on Peacebuilding, Social Cohesion, and EWER tools and approaches.

Monitoring the progress of Peacebuilding, Social Cohesion, and EWER activities in all PARTNER target locations, the Program Officer will also engage with local district authorities to ensure the appropriate and timely implementation of PARTNER activities. Additionally, they will support the facilitation and implementation of EWER-related activities and assist with all other activities related to the strengthening of the PARTNER Early Warning and Early Response system in Nigeria.

 In their role, the Program Officer will maintain regular communication with implementing partners, community members, conflict stakeholders, and religious leaders, while representing Mercy Corps at pertinent meetings. They will collaborate closely with the EWER Technical Manager, MEL Advisor, MEL Officer, CARM Officer, and Operations staff to ensure that activities are executed according to schedule, budget, and required quality.

Essential Job Responsibilities

• Support technical aspects of the peacebuilding and conflict management program by assisting with the development of activities/agendas/curricula as appropriate.
• Support the facilitation and co-facilitation of community meetings, events, and training as required.
• Ensure implementation of activities is on time, target, and budget.
• Liaise with PARTNER’s partner organizations and potential resource persons as needed.
• Support the Program Manager in overseeing the performance of project implementation by partners and conduct frequent field visits to program sites.
• In collaboration with M&E staff, coordinate the implementation of relevant surveys, needs assessments, data, and information collection for ongoing monitoring.
• Develop activity work plans and manage day-to-day activity implementation.
• Ensure that program implementation is responsive to community needs, meets targets, and is carried out in line with best practices.
• Establish and maintain effective program reporting monitoring and evaluation systems (to track, analyze, and report on results) for both internal and external use.
• Integrate community approaches, protection mainstreaming, gender sensitivity, and capacity building into all activities as appropriate.
• Ensure effective community engagement to create an enabling environment and ownership.
• Submit weekly program updates including success stories to the supervisor.
• Update Program Issue Log, Risk Register & and Incident Tracker as appropriate
• Ensure the program filing system is in place, adheres to internal and donor regulations and filing is regularly maintained.
• Liaising with individual contractors to design and produce PARTNER IEC materials following USAID branding requirements.
• Take photographs, edit, and document pictures from all PARTNER activities.
• Compile and submit PARTNER monthly communications input.
• Develop articles for PARTNER high-level activities for submission on Mercy Corps Global Hub.
• Adhere to all MC policies related to security, operations, and transport/ logistics information.

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.
• PARTNER Program Officer will support the development of the peacebuilding learning agenda across all partners during the inception phase of the project.
• S/he will monitor progress towards the learning agenda and support the compilation and creation of learning outputs from all partners.
• S/he will work closely with the PARTNER MEL Adviser/Officer to ensure all activities are implemented according to plan and that learning is captured and disseminated across all partners

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.

Additional Tasks:

Support with other tasks as needed.

Security:

• Ensure compliance with security procedures and policies as determined by country leadership.
• Proactively ensure that team members operate in a secure environment and are aware of policies.
• Report on any problems encountered in the field such as project participant complaints, local authority interference, and security threats to MC staff and activities. Coordinate with MC Security Officer and State Manager on any threats to MC staff and activities; follow up on incidents/security threats in areas of operation.

Supervisory Responsibility: None

Accountability:

Reports Directly to: EWER Technical Manager

Works Directly with: PARTNER Consortium members, Program Team.

Knowledge and Experience

• Bachelor’s degree or higher in Peace and Conflict Prevention, Governance, International Development, Humanities, Social Sciences, or a relevant field.
• Minimum of Three years of relevant professional experience in designing, implementing, and working on peacebuilding, social cohesion, early warning systems, or governance projects in Nigeria.
• Knowledge and understanding of local and national conflict dynamics in Nigeria especially working in rural areas in Nigeria, particularly in target states of PARTNER.
• Knowledge of context and conflict analysis and stakeholder analysis.
• Experience working in a multi-organizational team (international and national partners) is a plus.
• Strong communication skills with diverse groups of stakeholders with different levels of seniority and ability to develop and maintain relationships and key partnerships.
• Strong written and oral communication skills in English required, including report development, writing, and editing. Knowledge of Hausa is strongly preferred.
• Demonstrated attention to detail, ability to follow procedures, meet deadlines, and work independently and cooperatively with team members.
• Demonstrated ability to engage and partner with communities, civil society organizations, government representatives, donors, and other stakeholders.
• Experience engaging with State and Local Government authorities, religious leaders, and local partners.
• Experience managing community-based peacebuilding and conflict management interventions.
• Demonstrated innovation and success in staff capacity-building and in participatory, flexible, and gender-sensitive programming and implementation.
• Strong commitment to capacity building of national staff and civil society with the willingness to adopt a participatory and consultative approach.
• Demonstrated understanding of the conflict dynamics in the Middle Belt & and Northwest Nigeria.
• Demonstrated attention to detail, ability to follow procedures, meet deadlines, and work independently and cooperatively with team members.
• Demonstrate strong emotional intelligence.
• Excellent oral and written skills and computer skills.
• Fluency in English; fluency in local languages required.

Success Factors

• S/he will have a strong commitment to service, strong communications skills, the ability to be punctual and ensure timely reporting, proactive, a good team player, and the ability to work under difficult conditions in the field.
• S/he will be capable of multi-tasking, rapid decision-making, initiative, drive, and a lot of energy, as well as high emotional intelligence, constructive communication skills, and proven experience with capacity building.
• S/he will be committed to long-term program sustainability and the delivery of high-impact activities at the community level.
• Successful Mercy Corps team members have a strong commitment to teamwork and accountability, thrive in evolving and challenging environments, and make effective written and verbal communication a priority.

Living Conditions / Environmental Conditions

• The position is based in Abuja and requires travel to project states.
• Mercy Corps team members represent the agency both during and outside work hours when deployed in a field posting or on a visit/TDY to a field posting.
• Team members are expected to conduct themselves professionally and respect local laws, customs, and MC's policies, procedures, and values always and in all in-country venues.