2 Fresher Diploma Jobs – Program Officers – Mercy Corps
Job Title: Program Officer (2 Fresher Job Opportunities)
Organization: Mercy Corps
Duty Station: Uganda
About US:
Mercy Corps has been present in Uganda since 2006, focusing its interventions on economic and agricultural development, maternal child health and nutrition, governance, conflict management and humanitarian response. In 2017, Mercy Corps had an impact on almost 1 million beneficiaries in Uganda through our work focusing on building resilience and enabling economic growth, improving opportunities to attain better health and nutrition, and improving governance and conflict management. Common themes include community engagement, inclusive development, gender, and working in partnership with local government, the private sector and civil society actors.
Job Summary: The primary focus of the Program Officer will be to support the community level team in adapting and scaling integrated activities in respective Districts in collaboration with local government and private sector structures. The Program Officer will be responsible for oversight of quality activities in the assigned District, supervising the Program Assistants. The Program Officer will ensure the day to day implementation of the diverse Apolou i.e. Governance, WASH, MCHN, Livelihoods, gender and SBCC in consultation with the District Team Leader, and working closely with the Technical Team. He/she will provide technical and operational support to the Program Assistants ensuring that activities are implemented according to scope and timeline.
Key Duties and Responsibilities:
Program Implementation
- Provide leadership and daily oversight for planning and implementation of Apolou Activities including; mentorship, support supervision and managerial support to program assistants in the respective District.
- Support the District Implementation Team Leader in the development of activity plans, budgeting and reporting format for the implementing team.
- Support the District Implementation Team Leader in advocacy and maintenance of partnership with the relevant departments of the Local Government at Sub County and District level.
- Support the District Implementation Team Leader in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the program activities, in accordance with Mercy Corps Apolou objectives.
- Contribute in the development of training curriculum, project tools, and IEC materials; facilitate nutrition related trainings for community level staff as well as support with staff capacity building process.
- Supervise the activities and performance of Program Assistants; conduct routine team meetings, adhere to performance reviews timelines, troubleshoot challenges and standardize implementation approaches.
- Identify and document best practices and failures in Apolou Activity programming and provide timely feedback to the District Implementation Team Leader.
- Collaborate with the MEL team
- Ensure timely and consistent submission of project reports, success stories and other relevant data to the District Implementation Team Leader (i.e. weekly, monthly and quarterly reports)
- Provide oversight to the program assistants in regards to adhering to procurement, finance and security policy and procedures, ensuring proper documentation of processes.
- Work closely with the implementation and technical overall teams to coordinate day to day operations and logistics to maximize use of resources and ensure complementary programming.
- Provide oversight trainings to governance structures under the different thematic areas e.g. RACs, LEGs, FEGs, Silk Agents, Natural Leaders, VHTs, lead mothers and ultimately, neighbor women to mitigate losses in the cascade of information and ensure quality control through clear documentation processes.
Gender and Youth Integration
- Ensure that program activities apply gender equity and youth empowerment principles, and meet the varying needs of men and boys; women and girls; and other vulnerable groups.
Monitoring and Evaluation
- Provide ongoing mentorship to Program Assistants on data collection processes for completeness, accuracy and timely submission.
- Oversee the Governance structures filling system in the assigned District/Sub-County and ensure that information is organized according to the reporting and auditing needs of the program.
- Responsible for the assigned District data collection including gender and age disaggregated data, data validation, assuring quality control measures, timely data submission and communicating to MEL sector focal person.
- Through the field staff, support and mentor community partners on data collection and use.
- Supervise the Program Assistants in data collection and entry to regularly update the Activity Tracker
Influence and Representation
- Support and coordinate visits from district and sub-county government, regional and HQ based staff and external visitors, such as donors and media, in collaboration with purpose leaders i.e. Governance, MCHN, WASH, Livelihoods, gender and Implementation Director.
- Support the District Implementation Team Leader in coordination and communication of field activities with other NGO and local government partners to avoid duplication of services and support an enabling environment for health promotion.
- 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.
Ethics and Integrity
- All Mercy Corps staff are expected to behave ethically and demonstrate highest 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.
Security
- Ensure data protection policies are adhered to, establishing security controls for software, hardware and archive beneficiary databases
- Ensure compliance with security procedures and policies as determined by country leadership
- Proactively ensure that team members operate in a secure environment and are aware of policies
Qualifications, Skills and Experience:
- The ideal candidate must hold a Diploma or Degree in a related field
- At least 3 years of related professional experience.
- Demonstrated skills in data collection, verification and documentation
- Proven skills in networking, team-building, community consultations and organizational development;
- Excellent reporting, communication and representation skills
- Willingness to consider new perspectives, promote gender equality and engage in advanced gender training.
- Ability to ride a motorcycle and he/she should be in possession of a valid driving/riding license.
- Proven knowledge and capacity in using computer basic applications MS word, Excel and internet.
- In-depth knowledge of the social, cultural and economic context of Karamoja a plus.
- Fluency in local languages prevalent within the operational district where assigned (highly desired).
- The ability to communicate effectively, respectfully and enthusiastically with community structures will be one of the position’s three success factors. The second will be the degree to which the Program Officer drives results, producing scheduled outputs at deadline and to expected quality. The third success factor will be the degree to which the officer effectively gathers activity monitoring and evaluation data and utilizes data to inform activity implementation and program learning.
How to Apply:
All suitably qualified candidates are encouraged to apply online at the link below
Deadline: 9th September 2020