Back Director of Program Development & Quality - Bamako, Mali

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.

COUNTRY SUMMARY

Mercy Corps has been working in Mali since 2013 supporting Malian women and men - including young women and men - to cope with food insecurity and conflict-induced shocks and stresses, restore peace and stability, and address humanitarian and development structural challenges. Throughout our work, Mercy Corps seeks to support strong, inclusive, and resilient communities by i.) providing conflict-sensitive humanitarian assistance, ii.) addressing the root causes of conflict through improved and holistic conflict prevention and management mechanisms and iii.) promoting sustainable economic development through market systems strengthening and employment opportunities for women and young women and men. Mercy Corps’ work addresses issues related to natural resource management and climate change adaptation within Mali and across the borders with neighboring Central Sahel countries, Niger, and Burkina Faso. With a current portfolio of approximately 30 M USD funded by FCDO, USAID/BHA, Sweden, the European Union, and private foundations, over the past 18 months Mercy Corps reached over 100,000 persons in Mopti, Segou, Koulikouro, Kayes, Sikasso, Koutiala.

General Position Summary

This position will be primarily responsible for identifying and leading development of new initiatives, donor pre-positioning, including leading design and lead writing concept notes and proposals, and

will oversee and guide the Program Performance & Quality (PAQ) department in developing and ensuring that Mercy Corps is compliant with the Mercy Corps Global Program and Quality SOPs and develop same SOPs for the country level systems to ensure development of consistent standards organization-wide. The position will work closely with the Director of Programs Implementation, Country Director, Finance & Compliance Manager, Operations Manager & HR Specialist and in close coordination with the MC HQ Technical Support Unit (TSU) and the global and regional PAQ Teams.

The Program Development & Quality Director plays a key role in helping build an environment of evidence-based programming, decision making and adaptive management at all levels, while at the same time providing support to create a culture of training, coaching, and integrating effective tools and techniques to improve program quality. Furthermore s/he is responsible for supporting the PAQ team to develop program quality tools and processes, effective monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) processes, supporting all efforts to manage and share information and learnings across programming, ensuring reflection on research and assessments and incorporation into current and future program design; promoting a culture of quality program management, ensuring cross-program collaboration and technical rigor; leading on gender, diversity and social inclusion approaches across the portfolio; coordination of key functions such as timely and quality program reporting (internal and external); application of best practices across the program portfolio, including community accountability mechanisms, and communication towards internal and external audiences. The Director of Program Development & Quality must be highly motivated, self-driven and able to support Mercy Corps Mali portfolio. The Director of Program Implementation is part of the Senior Management Team (SMT) with supervisory and managerial responsibilities.

ESSENTIAL JOB RESPONSIBILITIES

STRATEGY & PLANNING

● Identify opportunities for strategic growth and portfolio expansion through new business development and present to the SMT.

● Represent Mercy Corps in cultivating relationships with key donors and partner organizations in terms of New Initiatives and Grant reporting.

● Support the development/updating of the Country Strategies by leading the development and integration of data analytics derived from programs among all portfolios, ensuring the Mali mission is driven by an evidence-based strategy.

● Informed by the agency’s vision 2030 and Mercy Corps Mali’s strategic priorities, lead the design and integration of a PaQ strategy.

NEW INITIATIVE DEVELOPMENT

• Lead on the development of concept notes and funding proposals (including budgets).
• Ensure proposals are developed in coordination and consultation with Director of Programs Implementation, Country Director, Finance & Compliance Manager, Program Managers, Operations and HR teams and that necessary support is adequately budgeted.
• Ensure the PaQ team effectively contributes to proposal development processes, ensuring the incorporation of lessons learned and technical excellence to program design
• Work closely with Regional Program Teams in MC Support Offices in Edinburgh, Netherlands, and Portland to keep donor, grant and information tracking databases up to date with most current proposals, concept notes, partnership agreements and reports.
• Support in ensuring that proposals are written based on donors’ requirement for format and contents.

  PROGRAM PERFORMANCE & Quality

  • Lead on the roll-out of the program management policy 2.0 in-country and work with the Director of Field Implementation to ensure adherence to the standards.
  • Provide support to program teams at key moments including program start-up, kick-off meetings, inception meeting check-ins, quality audits and spot checks, and end of program transition meetings.
  • Lead in establishing or promoting adherence to systems, policies and approaches necessary to ensure and demonstrate the quality of programs through oversight of the MEL, Research and Learning, Reporting, CARM, GEDSI and other technical support functions.
  • Create and maintain systems to ensure efficient and transparent capture of program data for management decision-making and timely and informative internal and external reporting.
  • Provide technical oversight and support to Program Managers/Directors and focal points to develop program filing and archiving systems and to ensure programs’ documentation is filed, in compliance with [email protected], donors’ regulations and good practice.
  • Build capacity of program teams with information, tools, and resources to improve performance and reach objectives, and review programmatic tools (implementation and follow-up of PAC processes, development and/or revision of SOPs, etc.).

    Monitoring, Evaluation, Research, LEARNING & Communication

    ● Support the design of a country-wide Monitoring, Learning and Evaluation system supporting managers and their teams to establish real time information that can steer program implementation and maximize Mercy Corps’ ability to analyze and represent impact at a program and portfolio level to donors, government, colleague agencies, and communities themselves

    ● Ensure effective collaboration between MEL staff, technical advisors, and thematic specialists in the development of sector log frames, indicators, implementation plans, and monitoring and evaluation frameworks and related tools

    ● Contribute to the understanding and application of new DM&E approaches to emerging themes like resilience, systems thinking, and complex humanitarian crises.

    ● Promote and monitor adherence to Mercy Corps’ standards, including the use of standardized indicators, Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E), program and adaptive management approaches, and country-level learning and strategic objectives.

    ● Support Programs managers/directors and the MEL Manager in the development of an adaptive management culture at country-level, providing training and guidance in adaptive management techniques and decision-making.

    ● Ensure high quality evaluations are conducted to demonstrate outcomes and impact and accountability mechanisms are in place for all projects with a focus on knowledge management.

    ● Lead the development of processes to support the program implementation team in capturing and integrating cross-program learning and ensure that lessons learned are used to inform adaptation of activities, future program design and thought leadership.

    ● Support systems to ensure regular collection of impact stories and evidence from the implementation teams on a regular basis.

    ● Ensure the development and implementation of a program research and learning agenda to build evidence and support the production of robust thought leadership and advocacy efforts.