
Senior Program Officer at Mercy Corps
Job Role Insights
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Date posted
2025-02-03
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Closing date
2025-02-03
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Hiring location
Kigoma
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Career level
Senior
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Qualification
Associate Degree Bachelor Degree Degree
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Experience
3 - 5 Years
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Quantity
1 person
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Gender
both
Job Description
The Senior Program Officer will manage the successful implementation of the GIRL project in Tanzania, ensuring positive impact for all participants and driving innovation and learning to refine replicable and evidence-based programming.
As a result, the Program Officer is responsible for leading GIRL intervention, including program start up, implementation, adaptation and close out. In conjunction with GIRL-H Program Manager and Country Leadership, the Senior Program Officer will develop a clear vision and strategy for the program in Tanzania to ensure that the program activities are impactful and remain on budget and schedule.
Essential Responsibilities
- Collaborate with program leadership in the development of a clear vision and strategy for the program in Tanzania and ensure it is shared with all relevant program team members and key stakeholders.
- Collaborate with other related Mercy Corps programs to create synergies wherever possible
- Ensure that program implementation is responsive to communities and partners and aligned with Mercy Corps’ principles and values.
- Engage support services and risk management resources to enable the program team to execute their respective strategic priorities
- Collaborate with relevant team members regarding the measurement and analysis of key program performance and quality indicators and metrics to inform strategic decision making
TEAM MANAGEMENT
- Develop the capacity of the team, deepen understanding of their roles and assist with career development
- Assist team members with information, tools and resources to improve performance & reach objectives
- Promote accountability, communicate expectations and provide constructive feedback informally and formally via regular one on ones and performance reviews
- Create and sustain a work environment of mutual respect where team members strive to achieve excellence
- Oversee program staff and partner performance and quality of program implementation and if security context allows, conduct frequent field visits to all program sites
FINANCE & COMPLIANCE MANAGEMENT
- Monitor adherence to the donor grant agreement as well as Mercy Corps’ and donor’s policies and procedures for procurement and compliance
- Create and maintain systems to ensure effective and transparent use of financial resources for timely and informative reporting in line with program, donor and Mercy Corps’ needs
- Work closely with financial and operational management to optimize resources through sound budgets, consistent financial tracking, and timely submission of reports to the donor
HUMAN RESOURCES, SAFEGUARDING AND DIVERSITY
- Support Mercy Corps global and regional initiatives for human resources, including safeguarding and diversity, and talent development
- Collaborate with the people team to promote staff access to high quality learning opportunities, with a special emphasis on national team member development
- Assist with the on-boarding of senior team members, ensuring they are set up for success and familiar with agency systems, procedures, and protocols
COMMUNITY ACCOUNTABILITY
- Ensure Mercy Corps’ Community Accountability Reporting Mechanism (CARM) is operationalized, in line with the relevant CARM policy, within the programs.
- Identify a CARM focal point for each program s/he manages.
- Develop a CARM sensitization plan and ensure activities are incorporated into the program activity plan.
- Proactively inform all program stakeholders about the CARM feedback channels.
RISK MANAGEMENT
- Engage and support program areas across the country to ensure that adequate risk management systems are in place
- Collaborate with country and program leadership to support preparedness and response to major disruptive events
- Participate in the internal audit (IA) process to track findings and ensure program compliance with IA findings and recommendations
- Work closely with the country team security focal point to develop and maintain systems that promote the safety and security of all team members
- Ensure that programs are designed and implemented with a clear analysis and understanding of security
INFLUENCE & REPRESENTATION
- Represent Mercy Corps at government, donor, NGO and other relevant events, in close coordination with other program leads and teams
- Assist Mercy Corps Tanzania Country Coordinator in maintaining active and cooperative relationships with all key stakeholders, including government officials, project partners, other implementing agencies, and related institutions
- Coordinate activities with consortium partners, subgrantees, local government and other implementers, as well as with other Mercy Corps programs
SECURITY
- In collaboration with the security focal person monitor security developments and report to Mercy Corps Senior Management as per the Mercy Corps Tanzania security procedures and protocols.
- 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.
Supervisory Responsibility
- Mentors throughout the project’s duration. In-depth understanding of gender, age and other socio-cultural factors in the context of livelihoods programming.
- Ability to foster commitment and build capacity among project staff and in-country actors around gender and youth integration.
Accountability to Program Participants
Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts toward accountability, specifically to our program participants and to international standards guiding international relief and development work, while actively engaging participants’ communities as equal partners in the design, monitoring, and evaluation of our field activities.
The Senior Program Officer will ensure that Mercy Corps’ Community Feedback and Accountability Mechanism is clearly communicated to program participants and that the hotline numbers are visible to end participants throughout the program. S/He will ensure all activities are gender-sensitive and follow Mercy Corps’ Gender Equity Policy, apply Do No Harm standards to ensure activities do not have detrimental effects on vulnerable communities.
Influence and Representation
- Support and coordinate field learning visits to counties, communities, partners, and external visitors, such as donors and media, in collaboration with GIRL-H Program Manager and Country Coordinator.
- Support the GIRL-H Country Coordinator in coordination and communication of field activities with other non-governmental organizations, and government partners for effective synergy, thereby avoiding service duplication, but enhancing support for an enabling environment for GIRL-H program interventions.
- Establish and maintain a productive working relationship with the GIRL-H Program Manager and Country Coordinator, local implementing partners, and stakeholders, and work in unison to develop complementary joint monitoring, evaluation, and adaptive management structures where possible.
Ethics and Integrity
All Mercy Corps staff are expected to behave ethically and demonstrate the highest integrity in their professional and personal life. Mercy Corps has zero-tolerance for any form of fraud, corruption, abuse, harassment, or exploitation. Any breach of our policies or misconduct will lead to disciplinary action or may lead to termination.
Security
Ensure data protection policies are adhered to, establishing security controls for software, hardware, and archive beneficiary databases.
Organization 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.
Minimum Qualification & Transferable Skills
- Degree and equivalent experience in international development, political science, women’s studies, economics, sociology or another relevant field.
- 3-5 years’ experience in gender and youth development work including experience developing and conducting gender training, gender/youth mainstreaming and engaging in gender advocacy.
- Demonstrated ability to implement a program, manage a team and develop their capacities
- Demonstrated capacity to lead the collection, analysis and utilization of information from a broad range of sources to ensure effective integration of gender and youth concerns throughout
- Excellent reporting, communication and representation skills
- Strong public speaking and facilitation skills required.
- Proficiency with Microsoft Office.
- Fluency in written and spoken English required
- Fluency in written and spoken Kiswahili required
Success Factors
The successful program officer will be bright, energetic, hard-working and eager to learn. S/he will take a deep personal interest in humanitarian and development assistance. S/he will be attentive to detail and ability to carry out assigned tasks in a timely manner and according to a very high standard of quality. S/he will be creative and flexible, contributing to developing and encouraging new and innovative solutions, but at the same time will not have any difficulty in adhering to systems and procedures. S/he will strictly follow all protocols related to safety and security and holds self-accountable for making decisions, managing resources efficiently, achieving and role modeling Mercy Corps’ values.
An excellent team and interpersonal relationship skills, with demonstrated ability to work effectively in complex environments is key.
Living Conditions / Environmental Conditions
The position is based in Kigoma, Tanzania shall be supporting other counties thus this will involve regular travels to these counties.
Mercy Corps team members represent the agency both during and outside work hours when deployed. Team members are expected to conduct themselves professionally and respect local laws, customs, and Mercy Corps policies, procedures, and values always and in all in-country venues. Fostering a diverse and open workplace is an important part of Mercy Corps’ vision.
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 a sustained global impact.
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