Consultant – Resilience Technical Advisor and Curriculum Specialist – Remote and Washington DC

Background:

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.

Mercy Corps works in places characterized by fragility and crisis, where the impacts of shocks and stresses threaten people’s ability to thrive. Through shared analysis, learning and action, our resilience approach helps communities identify and address underlying vulnerabilities; minimize exposure to risks; and strengthen resilience capacities to achieve inclusive change.

Resilience thinking deepens our collective understanding of complex and dynamic systems. To navigate these systems, we use adaptive management and our five resilience questions. The Resilience Technical Support Unit partners closely with other teams, including the Food Security and Environment Technical Support Units and Research & Learning.

Purpose / Project Description:

Mercy Corps is advancing a Resilience Theory to Practice initiative which seeks to establish clear technical guidance for applying resilience at key points during the program cycle. Under this initiative, Mercy Corps has partnered with programs to develop iterations of resilience curriculum, building off the agency’s Resilience Foundations 1.0 curriculum. There is a need to take stock of these program-led curriculum iterations in light of Mercy Corps’ new Agency Strategy 2030 and anticipated needs for scalable materials/guidance. The Resilience Technical Support Unit seeks the support of an experienced resilience technical consultant with background in Mercy Corps’ Resilience Foundations and Theory to Practice Initiative to evaluate all aspects of currently available resilience curriculum, facilitate stakeholder deliberation on potential models to meet the agency’s needs for a minimum package of curriculum, and develop a strategic roadmap and actionable workplan for prioritized models and team activities.

Consultant Activities:

• Conduct an inventory of existing Resilience Foundations curriculum / materials, including those developed through programs in the Sahel, Somalia and Zimbabwe, and “collective impact/triple nexus” materials developed for strategy processes in Nigeria, Iraq and the DRC.
• Analyze and evaluate the benefits and drawbacks of existing materials/curriculum relative to Mercy Corps’ anticipated minimum package of technical guidance to support the operationalization of the Agency Strategy 2030.
• Review and consolidate basic program management and donor expectations for complex resilience programs, and “where we are” with resilience practices vis a vis those expectations. This may include light consultations with program teams.
• Lead design processes to clarify and prioritize user needs for curriculum models for key groups of Mercy Corps teams/stakeholders of resilience curriculum.
• Design and facilitate structured internal deliberations to come to decision points on priority agency-level resilience curriculum models, including resource implications for development and rollout. This may involve more than one prioritized model to best fit user needs of different Mercy Corps teams/stakeholders.
  • This will involve co-design and delivery of an in-person strategy session during the June Resilience Team Retreat in Washington, DC.
• Develop a high level plan (1-2 years) for executing on prioritized models for agency-level Resilience Foundations curriculum.
• Revise existing Theory to Practice workplan to reflect actionable steps in the next Fiscal Year.

Deliverables:

• Design and delivery of internal working sessions
• Synthesis of user needs and recommended curriculum and dissemination models
• High level plan for agency-level Resilience Foundations curriculum models and dissemination strategy
• Detailed workplan for next year

Timeframe: The work should be completed in an estimated maximum of 27 days from March 20 through June 30, 2022.

The Consultant will report to: Global Resilience Director

The Consultant will work closely with: The Global Resilience Team

Required Experience & Skills:

• 5-10 years of experience in resilience in development programming (technical advising or management) – required
• Proven experience designing and delivering adult-centered curriculum and capacity sharing models
• Proven experience developing resilience learning curriculum for the development field
• Prior knowledge of/experience with Mercy Corps’ Resilience Foundations course is required

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

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