Women and Girls Project Officer - Mali

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.

Program / Department Summary

Mercy Corps has operated in Mali since 2012, providing emergency assistance and supporting community recovery in the country's conflict-affected northern regions. Our programs in Mali have focused on three priority areas: resilient agricultural livelihoods, peacebuilding and inclusive governance, and social and economic empowerment of adolescents and youth. Since 2015, Mercy Corps has implemented the WISE program to empower women to more actively participate in peace and local governance initiatives, support women's active participation in civil society, and support adolescent girls to acquire life skills, leadership and entrepreneurship skills to set them on the course for future prosperity. Mercy Corps is partnering with the Women's Refugee Commission to develop and pilot a series of tools linked to the I'm Here approach, to enable real-time evaluation and monitoring of girls access to protective services, with the objective of providing timely solution to the protection and emergency needs of adolescent girls in Mali's north.

General Position Summary

The Women and Girls Project Officer will have responsibility for monitoring, evaluation, reporting and learning for Mercy Corps' US State Department-funded Africa- Women, Peace and Security program, and for the piloting of real-time monitoring tools linked to the I'm Here approach. The Project Officer will work closely with program team members to supporting program planning and learning, ensure effective internal and external communications, build linkages to other actors and services, and ensure the implementation of best practices from both internal and external sources. S/he will work closely with the program team to ensure effective implementation of program activities and to support effective program monitoring, evaluation and coordination. The Project Officer will also support the development of relevant proposals, will participate in relevant Cluster meetings and other coordination groups, and will provide input to the Mercy Corps women and girls' empowerment strategy in Mali.

Essential Job Responsibilities

INNOVATION AND LEARNING

• Oversee communications and planning for the adolescent girls real-time monitoring pilot, and lead collaboration with Women's Refugee Council and Red Rose for project planning and implementation.
• Work with the gender program team to analyze and review program data and develop concrete actions to attain maximum impact and ensure adherence to programmatic best practices.
• Work with team members to identify potential scale-up and coordination opportunities for Mercy Corps gender programs.
• Support proposal development by organizing rapid assessments and developing program activities to respond to women's and girls' needs.

Capacity Building

• Organize workshops and trainings around gender, women's and girls' empowerment, and the I'm Here Assessment Tools for program staff and partners.
• Support managers to conduct gender assessments within their programs in order to understand how they can adapt program logic to better account for women and girls' unique needs and capacities.

Information Management

• Oversee data collection for the I'm Here pilot, conduct data analysis and consolidate findings into Advocacy Briefs to advocate for funding to address the identified needs for adolescent girls.
• Ensure that women's empowerment field teams are equipped to document, analyze, and report on program trends by planning data collection processes and developing tools to ease the burden of data collection and reporting.
• Consolidate databases and archives for women's empowerment program in order to comply with donor regulations and Mercy Corps' program management minimum standards.

Influence & Representation

• Identify, build and nurture collaborative partnerships with consortium partners, sub-grantees, donors, local governments, peer organizations (through clusters) and other stakeholders.
• Communicate effectively to ensure overall project targets and donor obligations are met.

Organizational 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.

Accountability to Beneficiaries

• Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts toward accountability, specifically
  to our beneficiaries and to international standards guiding international relief and development work, while actively engaging beneficiary communities as equal partners in the design, monitoring and evaluation of our field projects.

Supervisory Responsibility

Not applicable.

Accountability

Reports Directly to: Youth Employment and Livelihoods Program Manager

Works Directly with: Women and adolescent girls program team, monitoring and evaluation team, conflict mitigation and management program team, operations, finance, human resources, Technical Support Units and other teams as relevant.

Knowledge and Experience

• Masters degree in gender, women's studies, social sciences, international relations or other relevant field preferred.
• Minimum 1 year relevant professional experience implementing gender, women's empowerment, or youth programs, preferably in insecure or transitional environments.
• Previous experience working on ICT projects for monitoring and evaluation.
• Strong verbal and written English and French skills are required.
• Strong facilitation and consensus-building skills.
• Experience working with and building the capacity of team members and partner organizations.
• Must be able to work independently while being a strong team player.

Success Factors

The successful candidate should be highly collaborative and able to work effectively within a diverse and geographically disbursed team. S/he should be have strong written and verbal communication skills and experience engaging with Cluster Groups or other coordination mechanisms to share program results and needs assessments, build partnerships and identify opportunities for collaboration. S/he will demonstrate strong interpersonal and corss-cultrual communication skills and be committed to the values and mission of Mercy Corps. S/he will take initiative and contribute to team efforts, as well as demonstrate an ability to communicate, assume leadership, and make solid decisions while working remotely from country leadership.

Living Conditions / Environmental Conditions

The position is based in Bamako, with possible travel to project areas, security permitting. Bamako is served by an international airport with daily flights to European and African destinations. Restaurants and shopping options are available but may be limited. Health care services exist but for more serious conditions, medevac to Dakar, Senegal or Europe may be required. As this is a temporary assignment, the project officer will live in a team house with basic amenities provided.

While the city has been mostly secure, recent attacks against foreigners underscore the fluidity of the situation and may require expatriate staff to adhere to security policies, such as restrictions on movement.

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 MC's policies, procedures, and values at all times and in all in-country venues.

PI96786127

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