Country: Democratic Republic of the Congo
Closing date: 19 Mar 2017
This position is contingent on funding.
About Mercy Corps
Mercy Corps is a leading global organization powered by the belief that a better world is possible.
In disaster, in hardship, in more than 40 countries around the world, we partner to put bold solutions
into action — helping people triumph over adversity and build stronger communities from within.
Now, and for the future.
Program / Department Summary
Mercy Corps has been operating in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) since August 2007, with a staff of around 200 people working in North and South Kivu, with the overall country goal to support vulnerable communities through crises, while fostering programs that build resilience and promote long-term change. Mercy Corps' national office is in Goma with sub-field offices in Mweso (North Kivu) and Bukavu (South Kivu). Mercy Corps' key programming areas include a combination of longer-term development and immediate humanitarian response programs in order to: 1) Improve water service delivery and ensuring equitable access to Water, Sanitation and Hygiene services, in urban and rural areas; 2) Improve food security and nutrition; 3) Promote diversified livelihoods, economic recovery and development. Mercy Corps DRC's humanitarian programs aim specifically to assist populations affected by the conflict and crisis in Eastern Congo. With funding from humanitarian donors including OFDA and UN-donors, the humanitarian portfolio continues to expand in order to provide multi-purpose cash assistance and emergency WASH to displaced and host populations. Mercy Corps plans to scale up and expand its humanitarian response to reach more beneficiaries with additional and varied assistance in a wider geographic area. All Mercy Corps interventions in DRC are implemented in a conflict and gender sensitive manner.
General Position Summary
The RRMP Director will provide overall leadership, management and strategic vision to the implementation of a multi-million dollar UNICEF-funded Réponse Rapide aux Mouvement de Populations (RRMP). The RRMP Consortium is a partnership of three international humanitarian aid agencies to model and deliver innovative, effective and efficient humanitarian assistance to conflict-affected communities in North Kivu. The RRMP Consortium needs a strong leadership and coordination function in order to operate effectively and deliver on its intended impact. The Director serves as a strong team leader for the consortium as a whole, represents the interests of the partnership, and ensures it is working effectively and efficiently across member agencies.
S/he is detail oriented with excellent planning skills. S/he will also be experienced in networking and donor representation. S/he will be an effective communicator with exceptional team building and coordination skills. S/he is responsible for managing the relationship between three International NGO partners implementing multisector-based response to the humanitarian crisis in North Kivu. S/he is detail oriented with excellent planning skills. S/he will also be experienced in networking and donor representation. The Director will provide operational leadership to the consortium. S/he will manage the contractual relationship between the different partners and the current primary donors (notably UNICEF); coordinate the delivery of high quality programming; report on the activities implemented based on donor regulations and build relationships between the consortium and the donors, UN and UN coordination structures and the government where needed. S/he will be the primary program representative to donors, cluster system, relevant government entities, partners, other implementers and external stakeholders.
Essential Job Responsibilities
Strategy & Vision
Set direction by prioritizing and organizing actions and resources to achieve objectives.
Maintain strategic vision and provide the operational leadership for the Consortium.
Recognize opportunities for innovative action and explore implementation possibilities with the Consortium.
Maintain implementation momentum by consolidating implementation strategies and plans.
Develop and organize activities to secure resources for humanitarian response and convince stakeholders to provide support.
Develop and manage a clear system for tracking and reporting against deliverables.
Maintain strong and transparent communication with consortium partners.
Recognize and act on opportunities for innovative action and create an environment where alternative viewpoints are welcomed.
Program Management
- Oversee program start-up and ongoing program operations management and administration of teams across various field locations, ensuring mechanisms for effective adaptive management are in place and utilized regularly.
- Lead the development of detailed implementation plans, maintaining rapid response capacity, and ensure the delivery of the same.
- Ensure that beneficiaries are effectively targeted according to established vulnerability criteria.
- Integrate community participation, Do No Harm and capacity building approaches and gender sensitivity, into all activities as appropriate.
- Provide managerial and programmatic oversight to partners and technical leads.
- 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 activities.
- Oversee efforts to design effective M&E systems for the program, and linkages with internal M&E systems.
Representation and Coordination
Create and follow effective stakeholder management plans, ensuring sound and proactive communications with Mercy Corps DRC, partner organizations, Mercy Corps headquarters, UNICEF, Government of DRC authorities, and colleague agencies.
Participate in external representation of the consortium with various groups including donors and government.
Represent consortium progress to UNICEF, the COPIL, Cluster system and donors.
Share learnings from the consortium with the greater humanitarian community within DRC.
Team Management
- Create and sustain a work environment of mutual respect where team members strive to achieve excellence.
- Set a team culture valuing learning and adaptive management in support of an ongoing resilience approach in programming
- Promote accountability, communicate expectations and provide constructive feedback via regular performance reviews.
- Contribute to country team-building efforts, help team members identify problem solving options and ensure the integration of all team members into relevant decision-making processes.
- Supervise and manage all program staff to ensure day-to-day activities are implemented in a coordinated fashion according to schedule, budget and quality.
- Supervise and manage all program partnerships to ensure sound coordination in the context of an overall program strategic and resilience-building framework.
- Manage and help with the recruitment, orientation, professional development and ongoing training of RRMP staff to ensure they are of the quality and technical capacity necessary to ensure the successful implementation of activities.
Finance & Compliance Management
- In collaboration with the country program's operations and finance departments, ensure proper financial management, procurement, administration, human resources and logistics (including transport, warehousing and asset management) needs of the program are conducted within Mercy Corps' policy and with the maximum benefit to the program.
- Monitor adherence to grant agreement, Mercy Corps' policies and procedures and relevant external rules and regulations, including those of the government of DRC.
Security
- Ensure compliance with security procedures and policies as determined by country
- Proactively ensure that team members operate in a secure environment and are aware of policies.
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 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.
Supervisory Responsibility
National and international team members working on the program, as well as partnerships with international and national program partners. The number of direct and indirect reports is to be determined.
Accountability
Reports Directly To: Deputy Country Director – Programs
Works Directly With: Consortium Partner Sector Leads, M&E staff, Finance Director, Operations Staff, HQ Regional Program Team, Technical Support Unit and partner organizations, Consortium Steering Committee
Knowledge and Experience
- BA/S or equivalent experience in international development, management, humanitarian response or other relevant field; MA/S preferred.
- 5-7 years of international relief and development program management experience, in emergency and recovery program management, with progressively greater responsibility.
- At least 2 years in a senior management role is required with experience in managing humanitarian assistance projects of a similar size and scope in developing countries; experience managing multi-sectoral projects including cash, health, WASH, non-food items (NFI), education, or protection, preferably in insecure settings.
- Previous experience in managing consortiums or international sub-grantees preferred.
- Combination of direct and remote management experience preferred.
- Demonstrated ability to build and maintain relationships with host governments, donors, other donor-funded projects and stakeholders, local organizations, and partners.
- Experience managing programmatic and financial reporting requirements. Experience with UNICEF rules, regulations and requirements is preferred.
- Experience working in West or sub-Saharan Africa is preferred.
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills in English and French required; other languages a plus.
- Demonstrated flexibility and creativity in planning and problem solving.
- Effective verbal and written communication, multi-tasking, organizational and prioritization skills.
- Strong computer literacy with a full knowledge of office applications.
- Ability to work effectively with an ethnically diverse team in a sensitive environment.
Success Factors
The successful Director will combine exceptional management skills and experience in building and maintaining donor and partner relationships. S/he will possess high level of adaptability and be able to adjust to the constantly changing working environment. S/he will have previous experience in implementing large scale emergency programs in insecure and conflict context. S/he will have an ability to approach complex humanitarian challenges through a systems-thinking lens and have an ability to think creatively about humanitarian response across the Health, WASH, Cash, NFI, Education and Protection sectors. The Director will have proven experience with cross-cultural team and capacity building, individual staff development and strong mentoring skills. S/he will be passionate about learning and adaptive management techniques as fundamental strategies to improve program impact. Multi-tasking, prioritizing, problem solving and simultaneous attention to detail as well as strategic vision are essential. The most successful Mercy Corps staff members have a strong commitment to teamwork and accountability, thrive in evolving and changing environments and make effective written and verbal communication a priority in all situations. The successful Director must be comfortable operating and traveling in a sometimes volatile security environment and therefore, changing plans and program tactics accordingly.
Living Conditions / Environmental Conditions
This position is an unaccompanied position. Shared housing will be provided in Goma according to Mercy Corps DRC housing policy. Goma is a provincial capital of over 700,000 inhabitants. Travel may be required up to 25% of the time to program areas within North Kivu. Living in Goma is comfortable, although water and electricity can be unstable. Outside Goma, travel can be dangerous and unpredictable due to armed forces and rebel activity.
While conditions in the country are improving, and security is quite stable in Goma, there are still pockets of violence and insecurity. Mercy Corps' sub-offices experience variable levels of insecurity, with the situation closely monitored by UN peacekeepers. Air travel is necessary to get from one end of the country to the other. Mobile phones and cellular service are widely available. Internet is available in all Mercy Corps offices. Travel to field sites will be required where living conditions are clean and secure, but basic. There are a number of health services available with evacuation options for serious illnesses. There is reasonable access to most consumer goods, although they can be expensive.
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 MC's policies, procedures, and values at all times and in all in-country venues.
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