This position is pending funding
Estimated start date early February
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 over 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.
General Position Summary
The country-level Quality & Learning Officer with Mercy Corps DRC will play a central role in advancing ongoing learning across the mission and ensuring that all teams within the Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) department are implementing effective and high-quality data quality mechanisms that also enable adaptive program learning. He/she will focus on promoting and contributing to secure, accurate information management systems, while also leading Mercy Corps DRC’s capacity building and mentoring strategy for members of the MEL department. These responsibilities will be absorbed by the MEL coordination team at the end of one year and will therefore require an exceptionally strong commitment to capacity-building and ongoing coaching and mentorship.
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Essential Job Responsibilities
quality control
- Lead regular data quality audits on all programs’ MEL systems (frequency to vary by specific program and donor requirements).
- Conduct data collection supportive supervision (DCSS) visits, accompanying data collection teams in the field to observe practices and make recommendations for improvement.
- Collaborate with Internal Control to migrate quality assurance charter tools to Podio.
- Monitor MEL teams’ compliance with PM@MC standards and make recommendations for necessary changes.
- Build on existing mission documentation to provide clear guidelines on secure, GDPR-compliant data storage and sharing practices.
Provide interim and ad-hoc support for management of highly sensitive datasets
strategy
- Support the MEL Director in the elaboration of a mission-wide information management strategy.
- Contribute to the elaboration of the mission-wide MEL strategy and assist with the preparation and facilitation of strategy sessions.
- Identify and advocate for appropriate technology solutions to common MEL challenges encountered by mission teams.
- Support the T4D team in the elaboration of a GIS strategy and a T4D strategy to compose separate chapters of the broader mission-wide MEL strategy.
- Search for and act on opportunities to heighten Mercy Corps’ DRC’s MEL visibility beyond the mission.
learning
- Lead Mercy Corps DRC’s capacity-building incubator for MEL personnel, RENFORCE, in conjunction with the T4D Coordinator and ensure mission-wide staff engagement through an adaptive approach to community of practice facilitation.
- Develop a “Lessons Learned” strategy for capturing program learning (exploring integration options such as Podio) and create the related tools and reference materials for mission-wide roll-out.
- Identify effective strategies for embedding Mercy Corps DRC’s mission-wide learning series, Bon Apprentissage, within the RENFORCE approach.
- Develop a RENFORCE facilitation manual, including modules aligned to the six project cycles and related tools laid out by the PMD Pro guide.
- Support the T4D Coordinator to establish a management system for the LinkedIn Learning drop-in learning lab.
INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
- Support MEL teams migrating from ODK to CommCare and from Excel to MySQL and Tableau, facilitating integration and harmonization of currently disparate information management systems.
- Provide training and ongoing coaching to ensure the successful transfer of ownership of Mercy Corps DRC’s mission-wide dashboard to the T4D Coordinator.
- Train T4D Coordinator on Tola to enable successful monitoring and reporting on Tola uptake and lessons learned within the mission.
- Conduct T4D capacity-building sessions to ensure that MEL teams have the necessary information management skills to conduct their work effectively.
- Draft MEL budget recommendations for project proposals to ensure adequate resourcing for information management systems
Team Management
- Supervise a Quality & Learning team of four national staff, conduct weekly check-ins with direct reports, and ensure direct reports conduct weekly check-ins with their own reports.
- Foster a culture of reflective learning and constructive self-awareness and adaptability within the Quality & Learning team/
- Prioritize and manage requests for team support time made by mission programs.
- Coach direct reports to be effective and supportive managers by providing ongoing, constructive feedback on their strengths, opportunities for improvement, and specific strategies for addressing those improvement areas.
cross sector engagement
- Leverage existing capacity-building initiatives managed by this post to strengthen departmental awareness of MEL’s role in integrating gender equitable approaches and protection best practices with their activities.
- Work with the mission-wide Gender and Protection Manager to develop mission-wide MEL/Protection tools to improve the MEL department’s protection mainstreaming practices.
- Contribute to proposal development (MEL components) as requested.
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
T4D Coordinator; Quality & Learning Coordinator
Accountability
Reports Directly To: MEL Director
Works Directly With: M&E teams within Mercy Corps and their corresponding programs colleagues
Knowledge and Experience
- MA/S or equivalent in social science, management, or international development preferred.
- 1-2 years’ experience managing M&E operations, with a preference for field experience in rural sub-Saharan Africa.
- Experience with theoretical and practical background in research or MEL and knowledge of qualitative and quantitative methodologies and techniques required.
- Experience with community participation in mapping and other M&E processes.
- Successful experience with the adoption of mobile data collections tools like Open Data Kit and Ona including XLSForm authoring, and GIS systems.
- Knowledge of major aspects of program development, implementation and documentation and excellent verbal and written communication skills required.
- Excellent quantitative skills and experience with Excel, Access, and statistical packages including Stata, R and GIS tools like QGIS, ArcGIS, and Google Earth Engine.
- Experience with and commitment to capacity building required.
- Demonstrated attention to detail, ability to follow procedures, meet deadlines and work independently and cooperatively with team members is required;
- Fluent written and oral communication in English is required; proficient French required. Familiarity with Swahili is a plus.
SUCCESS FACTORS:
A successful candidate will have a demonstrated ability to lead a team and communicate effectively with team members and colleagues of varied work styles and cultures, follow procedures, and meet deadlines with flexibility and creativity in planning and problem solving. S/he will have a proven ability to learn quickly, multi-task, prioritize, take initiative, and be accountable for results, understand the larger picture while remaining focused on the details, problem solving, work within a complex and sensitive setting and to follow laws and security protocols. The most successful Mercy Corps team 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. In DRC, patience, diplomacy, tenacity, compassion, determination and a sense of humor are all success factors.
Living Conditions / Environmental Conditions
This position is an unaccompanied position. Shared accommodation will be provided in Goma according to Mercy Corps DRC housing policy. Goma is a provincial capital of over 700,000 inhabitants, with travel to Bunia, Bukavu, and Kinshasa. 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’s 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.
More Information
- Job City Goma
