Regional Program Performance, Quality Advisor – Middle East

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 exists to alleviate poverty, suffering, and oppression and works to build secure, productive, and just communities. Mercy Corps Middle East portfolio currently includes six countries: Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, and Yemen. Mercy Corps’ country programs in the Middle East operate in fragile and conflict-affected areas, displacement settings, emergency responses, as well as more stable developed settings.

The Program Performance and Quality (PaQ) Unit supports effective, efficient and equitable program performance through a culture of quality management, to achieve greater impact for those that matter most — our program participants. PaQ enables the delivery of high-quality programs by establishing and maintaining standards, championing an evidence-based practice to improve program performance and generate learning and leverage our programs’ impact across the region both internally and externally. The Program Performance and Quality (PaQ) Unit is a newly integrated team in the Middle East consisting of monitoring, evaluation and learning functions, program management policy and integrated program standards, including Community Accountability Reporting Mechanisms (CARM), and Research to strengthen and expand further the Middle East Evidence-Driven framework. The team’s approach supports both foundational and innovative approaches to program management, with design, monitoring, evaluation and learning, CARM and research functions as key processes and benchmarks to ensure evidence-based decision making for quality program implementation. The Advisor acts as a key liaison between headquarters, the regional team and country teams, and fully support country teams, to effectively promote program performance and quality and evidence generation, in a highly coordinated manner and in line with Mercy Corps new global strategy ‘’Pathway to Possibility’’.,

General Position Summary

The Regional Advisor for Program Performance, Quality for the Middle East is a senior leader providing significant programmatic quality support and enabling evidence systems to Mercy Corps six country programs across the region. They work closely with the Deputy Regional Director (DRD), and other regional team members to ensure transformational change occurs through the combination of: programmatic impact in our communities; the ability to influence change makers at local and global levels; and a restlessness to innovate in search of better solutions while promoting accountability in all the work Mercy Corps do. The Advisor will collaborate with the DRD to build and sustain a cohesive regional program performance, quality and evidence team ensuring the Middle East portfolio is positioned for excellence in all programmatic functions across country teams. The Advisor coordinates with PaQ and program departments at the country, regional and headquarters levels to ensure that our program portfolio is of the highest quality and standards and that programs receive the support that they need. The Advisor will champion and provide tangible technical support and guidance around Mercy Corps’ Program Management Policy and its associated minimum standards and the agency’s quality standards to ensure that the teams are driving transformational impact in the region through executing programs that are of the highest quality while leading and coordinating on evidence generation and learning across programs and practice areas and its usage across the region for internal decision-making and external influence.

Essential Job Responsibilities

STRATEGY & PLANNING

• Work with the regional Senior Leadership Team to articulate an ambitious and compelling regional strategy for Mercy Corps in the Middle East, reflecting country strategies and aligned with Mercy Corps’ global strategy. Develop and lead key PaQ and learning strategic objectives of the regional strategy in coordination with regional and country teams.
• Act as key partner for the DRD to achieve an effective regional management, support, technical and quality team that delivers programmatic excellence and significant impact and influence in the region and the broader organization.
• Work with country, regional and HQ-based teams to develop and drive a relevant and impactful Middle East PaQ and Evidence Strategy deriving from our country strategies and in line with MC global strategy and priorities.
• Support the Regional MEL and Research Advisors in working with country, regional and HQ-based teams to develop regional research and learning priorities that are connected to regional and global strategic objectives.
• Serve as a member of “PaQPlus,” or the group of regional program performance and quality counterparts who work with the PaQ Unit at HQ to design and advance shared program quality processes and systems to make sure the priorities of the Middle East region are advocated for and integrated.

TEAM MANAGEMENT & COORDINATION

• Supervise the Regional Program Quality team and provide operational support, technical guidance and strategic orientations to Country teams.
• Ensure that members of the Regional PaQ team have a deep understanding of their roles, coordinate closely in their work, actively engage with and support country teams in the region, are connected to relevant stakeholders across the agency to inform and promote agency strategies and best practices related to performance and program quality.
• Promote accountability, communicate expectations and provide constructive feedback informally and formally via regular one on one meetings and performance reviews to direct reports.
• Encourage a climate of idea generation, open discourse, and honest communication, creating a trusting, inclusive team.
• Promote staff access in all countries of the region to high quality learning opportunities, with a special emphasis on national team member development in collaboration with the country PaQ Leads and leadership.
• Participate in the recruitment, selection, orientation and training of key Mercy Corps staff in the region.
• Encourage a climate of idea generation, open discourse, and honest communication, creating a trusting, inclusive team.
• Lead and strengthen the Middle East PaQ Community of Practice in a systematic manner and based on an identification of gaps and opportunities in respective country programs to ensure cross-country learning and collaboration to capitalize on each country’s strength and build and promote an efficient and effective program quality culture in the region.
• Serve as a strong, efficient and effective coordinator amongst PaQ team members across the region, by leveraging HQ support, guidance and resources while supporting country level-needs and driving a strong and collaborative regional PaQ Community of Practice.
• Design and oversee coherent mechanisms to reach, train, collaborate, and build consensus with key program quality teams and other relevant counterparts in programs and portfolios in the Middle East region – for example Program Managers/ Chiefs of Party, Directors of Programs, Directors of PaQ, MEL Leads, CARM Leads or Focal Point, Infrastructure Leads, and generalist PaQ Leads where these exist.
• Working with regional leadership and PaQ HQ, advise portfolio and program teams on optimal performance and quality position definitions and staffing structures, ensuring consistency to help advance a shared understanding of these roles and their purposes.
• Devise and oversee effective onboarding mechanisms for team members joining in performance and quality roles at the program, portfolio, and country levels throughout the region.

PROGRAM PERFORMANCE & QUALITY (Program Management Support, CARM, and MEL)

• Analyze needs through an in-depth diagnostic of all countries’ PaQ teams and develop systems to ensure that all programs and country teams in the region receive support and have the necessary resources to achieve the highest possible impact and are in line with overall regional and global strategies.
• Work closely with headquarters support units to ensure continuous quality improvement of field programs, and that teams are working towards achieving excellence, especially during rapid growth and sudden changes and expected operational challenges (such as large program start-up and planning phases).
• Promote tools, guidance and the necessary organizational culture to encourage learning across programs on adaptive management best practices in each country in the region.
• Support Regional MEL and CARM advisors to ensure all countries in the region adopt and adhere to Mercy Corps’ program accountability and CARM policies, MEL policy and the use of TolaData.
• Support countries with the implementation of the PM@MC Policy, procedures and standards (inclusive of PM, CARM, MEL, GESI in Program Management, Cash Transfer Program/ GDP, and Infrastructure), overseeing efforts to conduct gap analysis, develop action plans, contextualize and continuously improve implementation, and coordinate and track participation in associated global or regional training programs. Serve as a key stakeholder in working with PaQ HQ to adapt and improve these policies over time in close consultation with country PAQ leads.
• Support country teams in using and triangulating a wide set of relevant data sources to assess PM Policy adherence and guide training and support plan, by serving as a focal point for quality assurance processes in the region (including but not limited to the MSR and TolaData) and following up as required based on data coming through these systems.
• Oversee efforts to ensure that all programs in the region adopt and use recommended program filing structures to improve record retention, documentation management, standards adherence, and information sharing; contribute to elaborating associated regional and global policies over time.

EVIDENCE GENERATION & LEARNING (MEL and, RESEARCH)

• Further develop, strengthen and lead on Mercy Corps Middle East Evidence-Driven framework by promoting the use of evidence to improve our programs, scale what works, find innovative solutions and influence others.
• Lead, promote and adapt as needed the Middle East Evidence and Learning Agenda and ensure that regional, country and program-level learning and research priorities feed into each other while aligning with MC Global priorities in this domain.
• Coordinate with Crisis Analytics Teams in the region to ensure they’re integrated into the broader Evidence and Learning Agenda when relevant and applicable.
• In coordination with HQ, develop an information and knowledge management and use system in the Middle East to ensure convergence across different practice areas in evidence generation and easy access and reference to our learning, research and broader evidence depository in the region.
• Support the regional and country-levels MEL and Research Advisors to strengthen research and impact learning processes, mapping and agendas in the various countries in the region while seeking support from HQ when needed.
• Coordinate with Crisis Analytics
• Promote an evidence-driven culture at the regional and country level that supports the increasing systematic use of data and evidence for both decision-making and showcasing our impact.

INFLUENCE & REPRESENTATION

• Develop and nurture strong external relationships and networks to support program success and identify new solutions, including the use of technologies whenever relevant and in line with Mercy Corps MEL Tech strategy.
• Identify and pursue areas for thought leadership, including building connections with donors, private sector partners, and other actors, promoting the Middle East region’s capabilities, expertise, innovation, strategic vision and values.
• Act as a key liaison between headquarters, the regional team and country teams to effectively promote program performance and quality and inform adaptations to global standards as necessary.
• Help to ensure timely and targeted communication and information flow that highlight Mercy Corps’ Middle East and global impact.
• Connect teams to ideas, partners and resources to drive creative solutions for greater program performance, quality and impact.
• Act as a solutions-oriented partner for country teams ensuring that their voices are heard and key challenges are responded to.

Supervisory Responsibility

Regional CARM, MEL and Research Advisors

Accountability

Reports Directly To: Deputy Regional Director, Middle East

Works Directly With: Crisis Analytics teams, Regional Country Teams and Leaders, Regional Technical Advisors, Country Senior Management Teams, Regional Program Team (RPT), and supplemental support teams based at HQ

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.

Knowledge and Experience

• BA/S in international development, social science, business administration or other relevant fields required, MA/S or equivalent years of experience strongly preferred;
• 8+ years of experience in senior management roles, involving team management, program execution, monitoring and evaluation, engagement with multiple actors internally and externally;
• Excellent coordination,, communication and interpersonal skills applicable to various set of stakeholders – both internal and external, including demonstrated ability to convey complex ideas and evidence to multiple audiences;
• Experience with applied research and evaluation of humanitarian and development programs preferred
• Strong networks, relationships, and profile with major external actors, including policy, donor, and research audiences;
• Excellent presentation and organizational skills to deliver high quality outputs and products to wide range of stakeholders essential;
• Demonstrated ability to think strategically and innovatively and solve complex problems at an organizational level;
• Significant experience in strategy development, program design/development and planning;
• Demonstrated experience at regional level or senior coordination in multi-layered structures and contexts (including remote management, coordination, and team building) is essential;
• Demonstrated understanding of the critical humanitarian and development issues in the Middle East and significant experience with the challenges of operating in the region;
• Internationally recognized qualification in project or program management or a commitment to obtain the qualification in the early months of work.
• Fluent in English required, Arabic strongly preferred

Success Factors
The successful Regional Advisor will apply a strong combination of program management, leadership, team management, coordination, and relationship-building skills with an outstanding ability to support innovative, impactful programs. With a high capacity to deliver results under tight deadlines with multiple priorities, the Regional Advisor will have the ability to think ahead and decide on a course of action, ensuring that the required resources to implement are available to achieve high-quality outcomes. Commitment, flexibility and openness to new practices, concepts, ideas and change for continuous improvement will serve the position and team well. Public relations skills are integral success factors in this position. Excellent negotiation and communication skills will foster the development of country team, donor and partner relationships. The role also requires a deep understanding of the region, its recent history, current trends and political environment. Being a team player, a positive attitude and a sense of humor are a must, along with strong interpersonal and cross-cultural communication skills and a commitment to the values and mission of Mercy Corps.

Living Conditions / Environmental Conditions
The position is based in Amman, Jordan and it requires up to 30% travel to support country programs, which may include travel to insecure locations where freedom of movement is limited and areas where amenities are limited.

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. 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 Policiesand values at all times.

Team members are required to complete mandatory Code of Conduct eLearning courses upon hire and on an annual basis