About Mercy Corps
Mercy Corps is powered by the belief that a better world is possible. To do this, we know our teams do their best work when they are diverse, and every team member feels that they belong. We welcome diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and skills so that we can be stronger and have long term impact.
Program Summary
Mercy Corps’ Ukraine Response seeks to meet the humanitarian needs of vulnerable Ukrainians and other conflict-affected people where they are: displaced inside Ukraine, refugees in Poland, Romania, and Moldova, or trapped behind frontlines. We aim to reach 500,000 vulnerable people with multi-purpose cash assistance, in-kind humanitarian support, and protection services across four countries. Almost all our impact will be delivered in partnership: with Ukrainian, Polish, Romanian and Moldovan civil society organizations through a granting program that matches humanitarian action with capacity strengthening, and with peer international NGOs through a consortium in Ukraine. Mercy Corps is responding to the Ukraine crisis with large-scale consortium programming with a focus on Multi-Purpose Cash Assistance (MPCA). The Consortium is a partnership between four international humanitarian aid agencies to model and deliver innovative, effective cash and other humanitarian assistance programs to support people affected by the Ukraine crisis within Ukraine.
The Position
The Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Lead will head the 20+ member MEL Team of Mercy Corps’ Ukraine Response and is part of the Response Program Performance and Quality (PaQ) team. They lead and oversee the identification, development, and implementation of data systems to promote effective MEL and analytics of the Ukraine response. They are responsible for ensuring streamlining of data management platforms, standardization of data collection tools and automation of data workflows to ensure real time availability of data. They will ensure the quality of MEL activities writ large, by prioritizing the development and improvement of exceptional information management systems for all stages of data management and implement while overseeing data quality audits and assessments while defining and designing processes and guidelines for data validation, verification, and other quality standards as needed.
The MEL Lead is responsible for the capacity building and mentoring on themes related to M&E and learning, working closely with other PaQ and technical leads. They will initiate and oversee documentation of evidence and promote the use of program data for decision making in management meetings. Working closely with the PaQ and technical leads, the MEL Lead will be the primary change agent in promoting a culture of evidence-based decision-making within the Ukraine Response. Central to this approach will be the analysis and use of program data within the program for learning and adaptation of program activities.
Essential Responsibilities
TECHNICAL LEADERSHIP
INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
TEAM MANAGEMENT
LEARNING
CAPACITY BUILDING & TRAINING
INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL COORDINATION & REPRESENTATION
Accountability
Supervisory Responsibility: The MEL Response Lead will oversee a ‘Neighboring Countries’ MEL Manager (Poland, Romania, Moldova) a MEL Manager for Ukraine, and a MEL Advisor for Standards and Learning.
Reports Directly To: Program Performance & Quality Lead
Works Directly With: Data Management & Automation Team, Cash Teams in Ukraine and Poland, Partnerships Teams in Ukraine, Poland, Romania, and Moldova.
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.
Minimum Qualification & Transferable Skills:
Bachelor’s degree required. Master’s degree in development, research methods, statistics, economics, social sciences, monitoring and evaluation, project management or other relevant field is strongly preferred.
Strong understanding of emergency donor requirements for MEL preferred.
At least 5 years of hands-on experience in developing MEL plans/systems required.
Demonstrated experience in engaging cross-sectoral/response leadership in the use of data for performance measurement, decision-making, adaptive management, and advocacy.
A strong understanding of, and hands on experience in, overseeing and designing data systems.
Proven use of successfully integrating program technology into M&E functions required.
Experience with data management including the ability to structure and collate data sets for ease of analysis.
Demonstrated understanding of intermediate statistics and ability to summarize and make predictions from multiple data sets.
Excellent oral and written English skills required. Proficiency in Ukrainian, Russian, or Polish would be a strong asset but not required.
Experience with M&E for cash-based programming is preferred.
Familiarity with Core Humanitarian Standards (CHS) is preferred.
Experience with theoretical and practical background in M&E and skilled in participatory qualitative and quantitative M&E methodologies and techniques preferred.
Experience with designing and promoting learning activities, including after action reviews, program reviews, pause and reflections, etc.
Success Factors
An effective Response MEL Lead will be a process oriented, forward-thinking individual who is confident in the role that monitoring, evaluation and learning play in creating an evidence base to guide emergency response programming and implementation. They will be able to work closely and effectively with senior response management team and will understand how to represent best available data to inform decision making. They will be an excellent communicator with exceptional analytical skills, an adept multi-tasker - able to work in difficult and often stressful environments with less-than-ideal resources and data. The most successful Mercy Corps leadership 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.
Any skills you have gained through education, volunteer, work, or life experience that are relevant for the position will be considered. Be sure to fully explain transferable skills and success factors and how they apply to this position in your cover letter.
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 locations where 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 and have signed on to the Interagency Misconduct Disclosure Scheme. 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.
This vacancy is archived.