Mercy Corps
Job
Vacancy: Gender,
Protection, Youth & Social Dynamics Leads –
Turkana / Samburu County
Job
Category: Programming
Requisition
Number: GENDE003106
Full-Time
Locations: Lodwar,
Maralal,
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.
The Program / Department / Team
USAID’s
Office of Food for Peace (FFP) awarded a Mercy Corps-led consortium of Kenyan
and international partners with a five-year Development Food Security Activity
(DFSA) in Turkana and Samburu Counties.
Through
a phased approach that emphasizes evidence gap analysis, as well as
partnership, learning, and co-creation with government, civil society,
communities, and the private sector, this program aims to drive sustained
reductions in acute malnutrition in both counties.
The
Mercy Corps’ NAWIRI consortium brings together the global leadership, research
capacity, technical expertise, and implementation experience necessary to
partner with local institutions to test, adapt, and scale evidence-based
solutions.
The
program requires a robust county-centered design with government leadership,
active engagement from communities, the private sector, and civil society.
Gender inequalities and social dynamics are some of the key drivers of food
insecurity and persistent acute malnutrition in the two counties and this
program will implement evidence-based interventions to address these.
Together
we will sustainably reduce persistent acute malnutrition for vulnerable populations
in Turkana and Samburu counties.
The
Position Summary
The
Gender, Protection, Youth & Social Dynamics (GPYSD) Lead will be
responsible for providing leadership and technical oversight to ensure the
gender, protection, and social dimensions (inclusive of such issues as age,
ethnicity, and relationships) of malnutrition, food security, and resilience
are effectively integrated across all programming.
S/he
will help define implementation strategies in coordination with the Deputy
Chief of Party, technical, research and learning leads.
The
position will train and influence staff, providing them with the necessary
technical support and ensuring that common strategies and approaches are
adapted and implemented with consistent quality.
S/he
will work across sectors of NAWIRI, with consortium team members as well as
counties to build capacity in gender, protection mainstreaming and youth
sensitive programming in ways that contribute to the quality design and
implementation of gender transformative and youth responsive initiatives.
The
GPYSD will be responsible for coordinating assessments, providing capacity
building to county government, ensuring contextually appropriate social
dynamics are incorporated into county policies, and making the appropriate
connections between Research, Learning and M&E to ensure gender responsive
results can be tracked, analyzed, and reported.
Essential
Job Responsibilities
VISION
AND STRATEGY
· Support
the Deputy Chief of Party (DCoP) to create a strong vision for NAWIRI’s
approach when it comes to the integration of gender, Protection, youth, and
social dynamics.
· Develop
and help operationalize NAWIRI’s Gender, Protection, Youth and Social Dynamics
Strategy to guide effective integration of GPYSD in key sectors such as
nutrition, health, water systems, and governance – throughout the program’s
cycle.
· Forge
strong, institutional linkages and maintain a productive working relationship
with USAID, Government of Kenya, the NAWIRI consortium, PREG Partners, and
other relevant partners in the youth & gender field; develop relationships
and linkages with organizations implementing other donor-funded programs
focused on GPYSD in Kenya
· Recognize
opportunities for innovative action and create an environment where alternative
viewpoints are welcomed; promote and model a culture of learning and adaptive
management.
· Ensure
that cross-cutting aspects of gender equality, social inclusion, and youth
responsiveness are included and well integrated into NAWIRI approach and
activities.
· Contribute
technical expertise that feeds into a dynamic community of practice of NAWIRI
staff and partners; sharing best practices across all NAWIRI areas and work
streams, while seeking opportunities to build NAWIRI staff’s motivation and
capabilities in GPYSD.
· Collaborate
with different program components including Research, Monitoring & Evaluation
(M&E) and learning to drive overall effectiveness and coherence of program
strategy.
· Represent
NAWIRI at all relevant GPYSD related meetings/workshops and other stakeholder
meetings as requested.
TECHNICAL
LEADERSHIP
· Lead
the execution of the NAWIRI Gender Analysis. Support with data collection,
analysis, and development of recommendations. Work closely with the NAWIRI team
on the Gender Analysis, while mainstreaming youth vulnerability analysis, to
ensure early level engagement and subsequent integration of findings into the
project’s work-plan.
· Conduct
a GBV risk analysis and ensure that recommendations for mitigation are
integrated in the GPYSD strategy and the project’s work-plan. Ensure that all
staff and partners are trained on safeguarding and understand their roles in
protecting program participants from sexual exploitation and abuse.
· Support
NAWIRI team, including partners, on GPYSD integration including conducting
capacity building activities such as training, learning-by-doing, reflection
process and field monitoring support.
· Contribute
to research conducted in the program to ensure that relevant issues on GPYSD
are well represented and applied across all sectors.
· Monitor
the implementation of the NAWIRI’s GPYSD strategy and other gender related
commitments in the project’s design and ensure that the project activities
align with USAID’s gender equity and female empowerment policy.
· Ensure
the integration of Positive Youth Development principles within NAWIRI.
· Work
with field teams to conduct regular community consultations to ensure
programming remains gender and age responsive and on-track. Support field teams
with ensuring that gender diversity principles inform processes of community
consultations.
· Provide
leadership and technical support to local partners in developing effective
gender and youth-focused project action plans that are in line with NAWIRI’s
GPYSD strategy.
· Assist
partner staff to communicate information from the field to the appropriate
decision-making forum on the gender integration in activities undertaken in all
components, processes, and impacts.
· Provide
support, coaching, mentoring and technical guidance on gender mainstreaming and
youth responsive interventions to county and partner GPYSD officers.
· Develop
and lead the integration of social dynamics into all capacity-building efforts
in support of Samburu and Turkana County governments.
· Routinely
collect and share learnings and best practices on gender, protection, youth
social inclusion with diverse project stakeholders.
· Share
learning and best practices on gender, youth, and social inclusion among Mercy
Corps’ global DFSA teams.
· Identify
relevant training and learning opportunities for Mercy Corps and partner staff
to advance knowledge and skills in gender mainstreaming and youth responsive
programming; manage a gender and youth capacity building in alignment with
NAWIRI Learning Agenda
PROTECTION
· Support
and give technical assistance for gender and protection mainstreaming efforts
within the organization’s programs/projects.
· Working
closely with various organizations projects and programs, to establish and
consolidate GBV coordination structure, including the provision of psychosocial
support for survivors of violence of GBV, and establishing a service referral
system.
· Develop
Standard Operating Procedures for GBV and facilitate their roll-out and
implementation in the field.
· Collaborate
with the organization safeguarding team, to prepare and conduct capacity
building trainings for the organizations staff in thematic topics and
implementation of minimum standards and various SOPs (internal and external
gender, gender-based violence and protection SOPs).
· Coordinate
and provide technical support to the Organization, County Governments, and
local implementing partners staffs on the implementation of protection
activities.
· Support
in the identification of resources to strengthen existing GBV prevention and
response programmes; particularly to address gaps in access to safe shelter,
psychosocial support, and income-generation projects for women at risk.
· Identify
emerging protection issues within the organizations projects/programs and
provide recommendations to organization projects/programs regarding strategies
and initiatives to enhance the policies aimed at combating violence against
women and children.
· Ensure
gender sensitive approaches, gender-sensitive accountability mechanism for
beneficiaries and the needs of women, girls, boys, and men have been clearly
considered and included in the design and during the whole organization’s
project/program cycle.
· Support
partners NGOs in maintaining a safe and confidential record keeping system and
making sure referral of cases are confidential, safe and in a timely manner.
· Ensuring
that individuals and groups with specific needs are identified; and incorporate
these approaches, policies and concerns into the design and implementation of
programme and protection activities.
MANAGEMENT
& COORDINATION
· Supervise
and mentor Gender and Youth Officers involved in NAWIRI through technical
visits, mentorship, and coaching sessions.
· Ensure
that program and country staff understand and adhere to Mercy Corps’ Gender
Minimum Standards.
· Liaise
with key external stakeholders to provide guidance on gender and youth
perspectives in all aspects of NAWIRI program activities.
· Ensure
that NAWIRI and partners are in compliance with gender and youth related
USAID/FFP requirements.
· Support
programming team to integrate gender and youth into programming and assist in
gender responsive participatory planning, resource allocation and support
implementation.
INFORMATION
MANAGEMENT & REPORTING
· Work
closely with the M&E team on GPYSD integration and provide technical
backstopping in the collection and use of sex and age disaggregated data,
gender indicators and gender sensitive data collection processes across
sectors.
· Make
recommendations based on regular monitoring to inform program strategies to
better meet the needs of the program participants.
· Ensure
NAWIRI is capturing required level of gender and youth disaggregated data and
specific success stories on gender transformation and youth empowerment.
· Lead
preparation of reports, issues-papers and case studies on gender and youth
perspectives to promote gender and youth integration. Support the review of
program reports and documents for gender and youth sensitive communication.
· Support
in the setting of indicators for assessing progress with gender and youth
integration, adapted to specific contexts of Samburu and Turkana.
· Work
with Strategic Learning Lead to disseminate information regarding gender,
Protection and youth achievements and impact.
· Represent
the program’s gender strategy with external stakeholders at workshops,
conferences, and annual learning events. Speak thoughtfully to the analysis,
research and learning that NAWIRI is conducting.
Security
Work
closely with the country team’s security focal point to promote and maintain
systems that promote the safety and security of all team members.
Ensure
that gender specific needs and interests of program staff in relation to safety
and security are identified and responded to appropriately.
Supervisory
Responsibility
No
direct supervisory responsibility. The GPYSD Advisor directly supports
NAWIRI-based gender staff and participates in the hiring and supervision either
directly or indirectly of future gender staff.
Additionally,
s/he will provide support in mentoring all gender-focused staff across the
consortium.
Accountability
Reports
Directly To: Deputy Chief of Party
Works
Directly With: Strategic Learning Lead, Research Design Lead,
Institutional Strengthening Lead, M&E team, partner agencies, local
government, USAID, and support departments (Finance, HR, and Operations).
Coordinates with HQ Program Performance team and the Technical Support Unit
(TSU)
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
Qualifications & Transferrable skills
· Master’s
degree in a relevant academic area – e.g., a social science discipline.
· Minimum
of five years of experience at the community level is required.
· Minimum
of five years of progressive management and technical responsibility, including
supervising and mentoring multi-sectorial teams, for humanitarian and
development assistance, preferably with an international NGO; preferred
experience in gender mainstreaming, youth workforce development, youth
entrepreneurship, or youth peacebuilding; USAID experience preferred.
· Must
have experience in leading the Gender Strategy of a large program and have
demonstrated technical experience leading gender responsive interventions and
youth integration into food security programming.
· Experience
in Kenya and an in-depth understanding of gender, age, and other locally
significant socio-cultural factors in the context of food security programming
preferred.
· Demonstrated
capacity to lead the collection, analysis, and utilization of information from
a broad range of sources.
· Experience
working with major donors, USAID/FFP preferred.
· In-depth
understanding of gender, age, and other locally significant socio-cultural
factors in food security context, and demonstrated capacity to lead the
collection, analysis, and utilization of information from a broad range of
sources to ensure effective integration of innovative and context specific
gender and youth concepts.
· Demonstrated
ability to foster commitment and build capacity among activity staff and
in-country stakeholders (including government) to gender and youth integration
and empowerment.
· Demonstrated
capacity to understand and advise on critical technical and operational issues
related to gender transformative and youth responsive programming: education,
job skills, employment creation, social cohesion, health, psycho-social
wellbeing.
· Ability
to self-manage and succeed in an integrated management model, with demonstrated
proactive and flexible nature in resolving problems and finding innovative
solutions.
· Demonstrated
attention to detail, ability to follow procedures, meet deadlines and work
independently and cooperatively with team members. Strong interpersonal and
communication skills and the ability to work effectively with groups to produce
high quality results.
· Cultural
sensitivity, patience, flexibility, and ability to work well in a
multi-sectoral and multi-cultural team and to work c
· Ability
to travel for field missions for 30-50% level of effort as needed.
Success
Factors
The
successful Gender, Protection, Youth & Social Dynamic (GPYSD) Lead will
have strong technical skills combined with strategic visioning and leadership.
S/he
will have an outstanding ability to inspire teams to deeply understand social
dynamics and integrate this understanding into activities that enhance program
impact and take the program to new levels.
S/he
will also have proven experience with cross-cultural teams and capacity
building, individual staff development, and strong mentoring skills.
S/he
will have demonstrated ability to follow procedures and meet deadlines with
flexibility and creativity in planning and problem solving.
The
GPYSD Lead will have proven ability to learn quickly, multi-task, prioritize,
take initiative and be accountable for results.
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.
Living
Conditions / Environmental Conditions
The position is
based in Turkana or Samburu County. This position requires frequent
travel by road and air to field offices in less secure environments.
This position
is not eligible for hardship and/or R&R benefits.
Mercy
Corps team members represent the agency both during and outside 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 Mercy Corps’ policies, procedures, and values
at all times and in all in-country venues.
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 on the basis of 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.
CLICK HERE to apply online.
Applications
will be reviewed on a rolling basis.
Only
shortlisted candidates will be contacted.
Female
candidates are highly encouraged to apply.
Mercy
Corps does not charge any fees at any stage of the recruitment process.