Mercy Corps is a global humanitarian aid agency engaged in transitional environments that have experienced some sort of shock: natural disaster, economic collapse, or conflict.

The Position

The Programme Director will provide overall leadership, management, and strategic vision for the implementation of the programme, ensuring that the programme meets its targets and deliverables on time and within budget. Equivalent to a Chief of Party role on USAID funded programmes, the programme Director will supervise senior programme staff and ensure accountability to Mercy Corps policies as well as all donor rules and regulations. They will be the primary representative for the programme with the donor, government entities, and all other partners and stakeholders. The preferred location for this role is Isiolo, and Nairobi can also be an option.

Essential Responsibilities

STRATEGY AND PLANNING

• Lead continuous development of a vision and strategy for RANGE shared with Activity staff and stakeholders. Lead Annual planning and budgeting for the programme including support to partners in the consortium.
• Lead the consortium and partners under the programme ensuring alignment and common effort towards our goal.
• Leverage Mercy Corps’ existing market development and resilience programme and expertise to ensure technical quality and integration with complementary initiatives.
• Participate in Mercy Corps’ strategic discussions at the country and global level.

PROGRAMME MANAGEMENT

• Oversee programme management and administration. Ensure implementation is on time, target, and budget, using effective M&E systems to assess impact.
• Ensure that implementation is responsive to communities and partners and consistent with Mercy Corps’ relevant programme guidelines, principles, values, quality standards, and strategic plan.
• Develop partnership frameworks, partner agreements/Memorandum of Understandings, and oversee capacity building for partners.
• Integrate locally-driven approaches, gender sensitivity, and capacity building into all activities, as appropriate. Certify that all interventions adhere to Mercy Corps’ Gender Policy, Do No Harm principles, and programme participant accountability standards.
• Design and oversee market systems analysis for selected systems, including working with consultants
• With the RANGE programme team, select and design a portfolio of MSD interventions to drive transformational change in priority systems
• Spearhead the RANGE private sector partnership strategy for MSD interventions, meet private sector partnerships, and broker successful partnerships working closely with the RANGE team.
• Ensure programme strategies and activities represent global good practice for market development and resilience programming.
• Coordinate with procurement, logistics, security, administration, and human resources teams to ensure operational systems support field activities.
• Fulfill Mercy Corps’ programme Management Minimum Standards based on the organization-wide guide.

TEAM MANAGEMENT

• Develop the capacity of the existing team and new team members, deepen understanding of staff roles, and assist with career development.
• Provide team members with information, tools, and resources to improve performance & reach objectives.
• Provide MSD training for the RANGE team, including on-going mentoring and skills development.
• Promote staff accountability, communicate expectations, and provide constructive feedback informally and formally via regular one-on-one meetings and performance reviews.
• Create and sustain a work environment of mutual respect where team members strive to achieve excellence.
• Support Mercy Corps global and regional initiatives for human resources, including safeguarding and diversity, and talent development.

 FINANCE & COMPLIANCE

• Ensure compliance with donor and Mercy Corps’ regulations.
• Create and maintain systems to ensure effective and transparent use of financial resources for timely and informative reporting in line with programmeme, donor, and Mercy Corps’ needs.
• Ensure sound financial management, including programmatic budgeting, spending projections, and monitoring of payments in compliance with donor and Mercy Corps standards.

INFLUENCE & REPRESENTATION

• Represent Mercy Corps at government, donor, NGO, and other relevant events, in close coordination with the Director of Programmes and Country Director.
• Coordinate activities with consortium partners, subgrantees, local government, and other implementers, as well as with other Mercy Corps programmes.

RISK MANAGEMENT

• Collaborate with country leadership to support preparedness and response to major disruptive events.
• Own and keep updated the programme risk register and log.
• Work closely with the country team’s security focal point to develop and maintain systems that promote the safety and security of all team members.
• Ensure that programmes are designed and implemented with a clear analysis and understanding of security.

SAFEGUARDING

• Actively learns about safeguarding and integrates it into their work, including safeguarding risks and mitigations related to their area of work
• Practices the values of Mercy Corps including respecting the dignity and well-being of participants and fellow team members
• Encourages openness and communication in their team; encourages team members to submit reports if they have any concerns using reporting mechanisms e.g., Integrity Hotline and other options

Supervisory Responsibility

Supervise the RANGE programmes team, including line management of the senior programme manager, senior programmes, finance, technical and MEL leads. Exact line management will be confirmed at a later date.

Accountability

Reports Directly To: Director of Programmes, MC Kenya

Works Directly With: Regional Directors, Country Directors, other programme Directors or Chiefs Of Party, Mercy Corps programmes in East Africa, finance and operations teams, HQ Regional programmes Team, and HQ Technical Support Unit

Accountability to Participants and Stakeholders

Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts toward accountability, specifically to our programme 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

• Master’s Degree or equivalent in natural resource management, agriculture, economics, rural development, or similar field.
• Minimum 5+ years of Chief-of-Party or Programme Director level  experience managing large (preferably $10 million and above) market systems development (MSD), natural resource management, agricultural development, and/or livelihoods programmes with a market-orientation, preferably in Africa.
• Proven technical expertise in market systems development and in one or more of the following programme areas: natural resource management, resilience, agricultural value chain development, income & livelihoods diversification.
• Experience in Kenya preferred, especially in ASAL regions.
• Strong skills and track record in leading diverse teams, inspiring staff, and developing a shared vision with staff and stakeholders.
• Demonstrated ability to build and maintain partnerships with diverse stakeholders including national and subnational government, donors, donor-funded programme, private sector actors, and civil society organizations.
• Proficient English with excellent verbal and written communication skills.