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Senior Program Officer – SUSTAINED

Yumbe | Uga

  • Organization: Mercy Corps
  • Location: Yumbe | Uga
  • Grade: Mid level - Mid level
  • Occupational Groups:
    • Project and Programme Management
  • Closing Date: 2025-02-17

Senior Program Officer- SUSTAINED

Position Description

Location: Yumbe, Uganda

Position Status: Full-time, Regular

Reports to: Program Manager

Salary Level: Level 6

This position is contingent on funding

 About Mercy Corps About Mercy Corps

Mercy Corps is an international development organization that works in over 40 countries to promote community-led and market-driven development. With a strategic focus on countries in transition, Mercy Corps takes a progressive approach to supporting communities, entrepreneurs, governments and the private sector from relief to long-term economic growth. With a network of over 3,700 experienced professionals around the world, we are uniquely positioned to respond to complex environments and the needs of local communities.

In Uganda, Mercy Corps has been in operating since 2006 in Karamoja specifically in Kotido, ,Abim, Amudat, Kaabong and Moroto; in Northern Region in Gulu; West Nile in Yumbe and Central region specifically Kampala district. Mercy Corps offers technical expertise in Market Development, Gender, Peace and Conflict Management, Economic Empowerment, Food Security Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning, Agriculture and Agribusiness.

 Mercy Corps has implemented and still implements multiple donor-funded projects within and outside the West Nile region with her major donors including but not limited to DANIDA (Danish Government Overseas Aid), Austrian Development Agency, Agence Française de Développement (AFD) and Private foundations among others.

Program Summary

The SUSTAINED consortium (Mercy Corps, CARE, and Oxfam) is a gender integrated intervention to increase access and use of quality, reliable, affordable, and clean energy sources for refugees and surrounding host communities. The SUSTAINED programme will adopt a Market Systems Development (MSD) approach, responding to the clear need for linkages to facilitate the entry of quality private sector actors into displacement settings, whilst ensuring that vulnerable populations can access quality products and services, in a safe, supportive environment. In this context, SUSTAINED will work with energy service companies (ESCOs), Financial Service Providers (FSPs), refugee and host communities, to address both demand and supply side barriers. The SUSTAINED programme will also take an ecosystem approach, supporting the development of an enabling environment required for a clean energy marketplace for refugees in Uganda.

 General Position Summary

Reporting to the SUSTAINED Team Lead, the Program Officer will work at the community level, in collaboration with local government and private sector structures, to support implementation of program activities. She/he will provide technical and operational support to the Program Assistants ensuring that activities are implemented according to scope and timeline. She/he will help to ensure the interventions are on time, on scope and on budget and identify opportunities to operationalize recommendations from ongoing context analyses.

Essential Job Responsibilities

Safeguarding Responsibilities

  • 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

Technical Responsibilities

Program Implementation

  • Provide leadership and daily oversight for planning and implementation of Pump-up Activities including mentorship, support supervision and managerial support to the program team in the respective two districts.
  • Support the program management team in the development of activity plans, budgeting and reporting formats
  • Support in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the program activities, in accordance with Pump-up objectives.
  • Supervise the activities and performance of Program Assistant; participate in routine team meetings, adhere to performance review timelines, troubleshoot challenges and standardize implementation approaches.
  • Identify and document best practices and failures in Pump-up Activity programming and provide timely feedback to the program team.
  • Assist with ensuring timely and consistent submission of project reports, success stories and other relevant data (i.e. weekly, monthly and quarterly reports).
  • Provide oversight to the program assistant regarding adhering to procurement, finance and security policy and procedures, ensuring proper documentation of processes.
  • Work closely with the overall program team to coordinate day to day operations and logistics to maximize use of resources and ensure complementary programming.

Monitoring and Evaluation

  • Provide ongoing mentorship to the Program team on data collection processes for completeness, accuracy and timely submission. And entry to regularly update the Activity Tracker.
  • Responsible for coordinating with the MEL team on data collection including gender and age disaggregated data, data validation, assuring quality control measures, timely data submission and communicating to MEL sector focal person.

Influence and Representation

  • Lead on the support and coordination of visits from district and sub-county government, regional and HQ based staff and external visitors, such as donors and media.
  • Support the program manager in coordination and communication of field activities with other NGO and local government partners to avoid duplication of services.
  • Establish and maintain a productive working relationship with the local Government and Sub Counties, working in unison to develop complementary joint monitoring, evaluation and adaptive management structures where possible.

Program Support Operations

  • Coordinate and with support of finance, operations and administration staff to ensure operational systems are in place to facilitate field activities including logistics (transport, warehousing and asset management), procurement, security, administration and human resources.

Knowledge and Experience

  • Bachelor’s degree in Social Studies Development Studies, Energy, Environmental Science, Engineering, Business Administration, Economics, or related degree.
  • At least 3 years of related professional experience. Work experience with NGOs with focus on market facilitation or private sector led approaches or interventions preferred.
  • A dynamic, “outside-the-box” attitude is required, with proven ability to think and act creatively in challenging environments.
  • Demonstrated skills in data collection, verification and documentation.
  • Excellent reporting, communication and representation skills
  • Proven skills in networking, team-building, community consultations and organizational development.
  • Ability to ride a motorcycle and he/she should be in possession of a valid driving/riding license or willing to obtain one.
  • Strong interpersonal, writing and oral presentation skills in English is required. Fluency in languages used by Refugees (Baari, Juba Arabic, Lugbara, and Ki) is preferred.

Supervisory Responsibility

The Senior Program Officer directly supervises the Program Assistant

Accountability

Reports Directly To: Program Manager

Works Directly With: Program Manager,  Senior MEL Officer, Program Assistants, Field Operations Team,P&C Team and y Finance Team

Accountability to Participants & Stakeholders

  • Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts towards accountability, specifically to our participants 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.
  • All Mercy Corps staff are expected to behave ethically and demonstrate the highest level of integrity in their professional and personal life. Mercy Corps has zero tolerance to any form of fraud, corruption, abuse, harassment or exploitation. Any breach of our policies or misconduct will lead to disciplinary action or may lead to termination

Success Factors

The successful Program Officer will be bright, energetic, hard-working and eager to learn.  S/he will take a deep personal interest in humanitarian and development assistance.  S/he will be attentive to detail and able to carry out assigned tasks in a timely manner and according to a very high standard of quality.  S/he will be creative and flexible, contributing to developing and encouraging new and innovative solutions, but at the same time will not have any difficulty in adhering to systems and procedures. S/he will strictly follow all protocols related to safety and security, and holds self-accountable for making decisions, managing resources efficiently, achieving and role modelling Mercy Corps’ values.

Living Conditions / Environmental Conditions

The position is not accompanied and is based in the West Nile region of Uganda with 60% travel to domestic sites. At times evening and weekend work may be required to meet deadlines and at times of shocks and stresses. 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.

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.

Safeguarding & Ethics

Risk levels assigned to all positions;

Level 3: Frequent contact with participants, direct contact with children, access to sensitive data , and/or high level of accountability.

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 and have signed on to the  Interagency Misconduct Disclosure Scheme. By applying for this role an applicant confirms that they have not previously violated an employer’s sexual misconduct, sexual exploitation and abuse, child safeguarding or trafficking policy. 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 Policies and values at all times. Team members are required to complete mandatory Code of Conduct e-learning courses upon hire and on an annual basis. As an applicant, if you witness or experience any form of sexual misconduct during the recruitment process, please report this to Mercy Corps Integrity Hotline (integrityhotline@mercycorps.org).

 

To Apply:

Interested applicants must submit their Cover Letter & CV saved in 1 document as a PDF of no more than 5 pages by 17th February 2025

Please note that any application submitted that does not follow the above instructions will be automatically discarded.

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

Locals with the required qualifications are encouraged to apply.

Mercy Corps does not charge any fees at any stage of the recruitment process.

 

We do our best to provide you the most accurate info, but closing dates may be wrong on our site. Please check on the recruiting organization's page for the exact info. Candidates are responsible for complying with deadlines and are encouraged to submit applications well ahead.
Before applying, please make sure that you have read the requirements for the position and that you qualify.
Applications from non-qualifying applicants will most likely be discarded by the recruiting manager.