Consultant - Program Management Curriculum - Washington DC/Remote

Project Location: Washington DC preferred / Remote negotiable
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Background:**

Mercy Corps alleviates poverty, suffering, and oppression and works to build secure, productive, and just communities in over 40 countries around the world. Our Operations Department supports field-led work that delivers measurable impact.

The Program Performance and Quality (“PaQ”) Department is a newly integrated team consisting of monitoring and evaluation functions, program management, gender integration, and a global data management software (called Tola), which is under development. The team’s approach supports both foundational and cutting edge adaptive management approaches to program management, with design, monitoring, evaluation and learning functions as key processes and benchmarks to ensuring evidenced-based decision making for quality program implementation. The team works across a wide spectrum of stakeholders both internal and external to Mercy Corps, as well as diverse technical program approaches and sectors.

Purpose / Project Description:

In order to best support our front line managers and teams to deliver impactful programs, we have invested in capacity building efforts, including face-to-face workshops, online courses, building communities of practice and embedded resource people. Over the past six years, we have developed a suite of internal training resources related to program management, monitoring & evaluation (M&E) and gender integration. Existing materials include a facilitator guide for program management and some M&E, two additional facilitator guides for gender integration, and powerpoint presentations and handouts corresponding to the facilitator guide(s). The next step in evolving these resources is to further refine the content, bring together different curricula under into one cohesive package, and build out sample agendas that can help field teams mix and match modules to facilitate with their teams. For example, teams could use the materials to facilitate program start-up meetings, data reflection meeting, end of program close-out workshops, or stakeholder engagement. The sustainability of this training package will depend on whether field managers can efficiently and effectively access and use the curriculum to enhance their team’s on-the-job learning.

Consultant Objectives:

The consultant will revise and bring together existing curricula into one cohesive training package, including facilitator guide, presentations, handouts, resources and sample agendas. They must ensure these training materials are in a format easily editable and also accessible for our field team members. The goal is for this training package to be as user-friendly and accessible as possible.

Consultant Activities:

The Consultant will:

• Compile and carry-out revisions on existing curriculum, in coordination with content experts;
• Merge separate curricula into one cohesive training package, including all supporting materials (facilitator guide, handouts, presentations, sample agendas etc.);
• Build out training package to include sample agendas and other guidance for teams to easily use the modules;
• Ensure all materials are in a form easily accessible to field teams;
• Manage review process of revised training package, and finalize all training materials;
• The consultant may also help manage translations of the training package.

Consultant Deliverables:

The Consultant will:

• Produce a finalized facilitator guide, with all merged curriculum related to program management, M&E and gender that is editable and easily accessible for field teams.
• Produce a finalized presentation(s) corresponding to curriculum
• Produce finalized handouts and resources corresponding to curriculum
• Produce finalized sample agendas corresponding to curriculum

Timeframe / Schedule:

The consultancy should start by January 2018. The estimated breakdown of work is as follows:

• Compile and carry-out revisions on existing curriculum, in coordination with content experts (10-12 days);
• Merge separate curricula into one cohesive training package, including all supporting materials such as facilitator guide, handouts, presentations, sample agendas etc. (5 days);
• Build out training package to include sample agendas and other guidance for teams to easily use the modules (2 days);
• Manage review process of revised training package, and finalize all training material (8 days).

The Consultant will report to: Senior Program Management Advisor

The Consultant will work closely with: PaQ team, Senior Global Gender Advisor, internal facilitators, and field teams.

Required Experience & Skills:

The ideal consultant will have the following experience and skills:

• 5 years or more of experience designing, writing, delivering and/or coaching facilitators to deliver training;
• Successful experience in developing learning and capacity building tools for participants from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds;
• Either direct experience or experience training others in one or more of the following fields - program management, monitoring and evaluation, gender integration;
• Experience designing and delivering trainings or workshops, either in person or remote using technology based platforms;
• Experience working in the humanitarian or development sector preferred
• Ability to work in diverse and multicultural environments;
• English fluency required; French, Spanish or Arabic language skills are an advantage.

To Apply: http://app.jobvite.com/m?32gz9jwO

In addition to your CV, please submit a brief cover letter which includes a list of relevant projects/experience, expected fees/daily rate, and availability. Applications will be considered on a rolling basis for a target start date before the end of January 2018.