Program / Department Summary

General Position Summary

Essential Job Responsibilities

Strategy & Vision

• Lead the development of a vision and strategy for the program shared with program team and key stakeholders.
• Provide overall technical and administrative leadership and expertise. Responsible for administering and managing the implementation of the activity with the overall responsibility for assuring that all assistance provided is technically sound and appropriate to meet activity objectives.
• Integrate and embrace all voices into shared strategies and foster an inclusive culture of systems thinking, collaboration, learning, and adaptation.

Program Management

• Oversee program management and administration of the activity. Ensure implementation is on time, target, and budget, using effective M&E systems to assess and reflect on progress and understand impact.
• Develop partnership frameworks, partner agreements/Memorandum of Understandings, and capacity strengthening for partners
• Provide strategic oversight of MEL systems, ensuring they are responsive to the program’s technical strategy and learning needs.
• Integrate cross-cutting approaches including locally driven, shock-responsive, climate-adaptive, social and gender inclusive, youth empowerment, and nutrition sensitive approaches.
• Ensure interventions adhere to Mercy Corps’ Gender Policy, Do No Harm principles, program participant accountability standards, and program management minimum standards.
• Ensure program strategies and activities are evidence-driven and represent global good practice in livelihood, climate-resilient agricultural development, market systems development, resilience, and food security and nutrition programming.
• Coordinate with procurement, logistics, security, administration, and human resources teams to ensure operational systems support field activities.

Team Management

• Oversee recruitment and onboarding of the Activity staff and consultants.
• Create and sustain a work environment of mutual respect and learning where team members strive to achieve excellence.
• Provide team members with information, tools, and resources to improve performance, enhance technical and partnership management skills, and reach objectives.
• Promote staff accountability, communicate expectations, and provide constructive feedback informally and formally via regular one-on-one meetings and performance reviews.
• Promote a team culture of evidence-based decision-making and regular use of diverse data sources for continual learning and adaptation.

Representation

• Liaise with and represent the Activity to USAID.
• Ensure collaboration between the Activity and complementary activities to scale influence, enhance learning, and drive collective impact.
• Establish and maintain strong relationships between the Activity and the Jamaican Government, ensuring implementation drives development gains in line with key policies

Finance & Compliance Management

• Ensure compliance with USAID 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 program, donor and Mercy Corps’ needs.
• Ensure sound financial management, including programmatic budgeting, spending projections, and monitoring of payments in compliance with USAID standards.

Security

• 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 programs are designed and implemented with a clear analysis and understanding of security.

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

Accountability

Knowledge and Experience

• Advanced degree in social science, management, international development or other relevant field.
• A minimum of 10 years of international experience in management positions including in a program manager role for a program of similar size and scope (preferably $10 million and above).
• Demonstrated experience in climate adaptation, collaborating with local CSO networks, working with government ministries/entities, climate-related disaster risk reduction, and/or resilience.
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills, and a proven ability to network and maintain effective working relationships with diverse actors.
• Experience managing diverse teams including inspiring staff and developing a shared vision with staff and stakeholders.
• Experience in and knowledge of the Caribbean context preferred.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills in English.
• Familiarity with USAID rules and regulations required.

Success Factors

Living Conditions / Environmental Conditions