Mercy Corps is Recruiting for a Senior Advisor, Evidence Use in Several Locations
Closing Date: 29 August 2024
About Mercy Corps
Mercy Corps is powered by the belief that a better world is possible. To do this, Mercy Corps know its teams do their best work when they are diverse and every team member feels that they belong. Mercy Corps welcome diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and skills so that it can be stronger and have long term impact.
The Position
The position can be based in any Mercy Corps HQ or regional office, or remotely from their home base in countries where candidates are legally eligible to work and Mercy Corps is registered as an employer. The role may require occasional travel to support collaboration on prioritized evidence use projects with other global, regional, country, and program teams.
Mercy Corps is searching for a Senior Advisor for Evidence Use to serve as the first full-time team member for the new Evidence Use Team. The Advisor will collaborate directly with the lead for the Evidence Use Team — the Senior Managing Director for Research, Evidence, and Learning — to finalize the strategy for Evidence Use at Mercy Corps and to begin advancing that strategy by leading several prioritized projects identified in the design process for the Evidence Use Team. To help ensure that the Evidence Use Strategy and implementation plan are aligned with the needs and resources of stakeholders across the organization, the Senior Advisor and Senior Managing Director will convene and consult with an Advisory Group made up of a diverse set evidence producers and evidence users across the organization.
The Advisor will work across three of the functional areas that Mercy Corps have identified as critical for supporting effective evidence use at Mercy Corps: 1) leading and supporting evidence synthesis and curation to enhance its teams’ abilities to learn from and act on the insights from a wide array of relevant evidence sources inside and outside of Mercy Corps, 2) designing and socializing tools and platforms that support effective evidence use and knowledge management, and 3) cultivating the skills and culture for effective evidence use and organizational learning across Mercy Corps.
While specific projects within these functional areas will evolve over time, for the next year, the Advisor’s efforts will focus on several prioritized workstreams that correspond to strategic priorities for the Evidence & Learning Unit and Mercy Corps as a whole.
In particular, the Advisor will lead and support efforts to map and curate the evidence being generated under the Evidence and Learning Agendas for each of its four P2P outcomes. They will also contribute to Mercy Corps organizational learning by supporting efforts to synthesize and share this body of evidence in a variety of planned products and platforms. These planned products and platforms include the “Evidence Digest” (a biannual internal newsletter curating and summarizing what we’re learning), the “Mercy Corps Learning Center” (a searchable global database that helps team members easily access our up-to-date evidence and learning), and “Organizational Outcome Measurement” (reports assessing our results within each outcome using an analysis of key indicators along with thematic syntheses of broader evidence products). The Advisor will also contribute to building a culture of evidence use across the organization by helping the to compile and share concise, engaging content highlighting cases of successful evidence use at Mercy Corps and in our broader sector.
Beyond leading and actively contributing to these key strategic initiatives, the Senior Advisor will help to support evidence use across Mercy Corps by connecting and guiding the broader set of team members playing evidence use, knowledge management, research, and applied learning roles. These efforts will include identifying and convening a network of evidence use practitioners throughout the organization and helping to build the technical and soft skills of this cohort through peer learning and targeted guidance, trainings, and job aids.
Accountability
Reports Directly To: Senior Managing Director- Research, Evidence and Learning
Works Directly With: Relevant Evidence and Learning Unit Teams and Team Members (including Research and Learning, MEL, Global Crisis Analysis, Evidence Use Advisory Group Members, and their broader units/ teams, including program teams Technical Resources and Quality (TraQ), Policy and Advocacy team, Regional and Country Teams, Media and Communications Team.
Accountability to Participants and Stakeholders
Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts toward accountability, specifically to its program participants, community partners, other stakeholders, and to international standards guiding international relief and development work. Mercy Corps is committed to actively engaging communities as equal partners in the design, monitoring and evaluation of its programs and research.
Minimum Qualifications & Transferable Skills
The ideal candidate will possess many, though perhaps not all, of the following qualifications and characteristics:
- Bachelor’s or Advanced degree in international development, public administration, knowledge management, applied statistics, or other relevant field of study.
- Experience supporting evidence use, knowledge management, and/or organizational learning in nonprofit organizations.
- Candidates with a Bachelor’s Degree should have 5+ years of experience (with at least 3 years spent working for humanitarian or development nonprofits, government organizations, or academic organizations/think tanks).
- Candidates with an advanced degree should have a minimum of 4 years experience (with at least 2 years spent working for humanitarian or development nonprofits, government organizations, or academic organizations/think tanks.
- Expertise in at least one of the following types of approaches/tools and interest in/ familiarity with the other two. Preference for candidates with expertise in all three types of method.
- Cutting edge methods for evidence synthesis including systematic review, rapid reviews, and evidence mapping/gap mapping.
- Technical tools that support evidence use and knowledge management, especially Generative AI and Microsoft 365 (especially Sharepoint and Power BI).
- Participatory and inclusive approaches to applied learning, including Collaborating, Learning, and Adapting (CLA), adult learning, sensemaking, human-centered design, and/or communities of practice.
- Training and/or expertise in at least one core technical area related to Mercy Corps’ Pathway to Possibility Strategy (Economic Opportunities, Peace and Good Governance, Food Security, or Water Security).
- Preference for candidates with training and/or expertise in Food Security or Water Security and/or candidates with training and/or expertise in multiple sectors.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including demonstrated ability to convey and tailor the takeaways from evidence their implications to multiple audiences, including senior policy makers and executives, practitioners and program managers, and the general public.
- Strong networks, relationships, and profile with experts and organizations working on the cutting edge of evidence use, knowledge management, and/or organizational learning.
- Willingness and ability to travel to Mercy Corps regional and country offices and/or project sites, including potentially traveling to insecure environments.
- Fluency in English is required.
- Preference for candidates with proficiency in French, Spanish, and/or Arabic in addition to fluency in English.
Success Factors
The Senior Advisor must have strong teamwork and communication skills and must be familiar with and interested in the wide range of technical and soft skills needed to foster effective evidence use within a humanitarian and development organization and our broader sector. The successful candidate will be a self-starter, demonstrating initiative in executing strategic priorities and managing complex, multi-stakeholder projects. They will show passion for the role that implementing INGOs can play in using evidence to drive program quality and influence policy.
They will demonstrate flexibility in a non-hierarchical environment and an outstanding ability to communicate effectively with team members of varied cultural backgrounds and work styles to foster inclusion, collaboration, and curiosity. They will have experience in building solid working relationships with other teams and departments. They are multi-tasker with the proven ability to organize and prioritize competing priorities and demonstrated flexibility and creativity in planning and problem solving. They have the proven ability to learn quickly, take initiative, be accountable for results and understand the larger picture while remaining focused on the details. The individual must be able to travel and work successfully in austere environments and maintain poise in stressful situations.
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