Mercy Corps is a global team of humanitarians working together on the front lines of today’s biggest crises to create a future of possibility, where everyone can prosper. In more than 40+ countries around the world, over 5,400+ team members work side by side with people living through poverty, disaster, violent conflict, and the acute impacts of climate change. We’re committed to creating global change through local impact — 84% of our team members are from the countries where they work.

We bring a comprehensive approach to every challenge, addressing problems from multiple angles. And we go beyond emergency aid, partnering with local governments, forward-thinking corporations, social entrepreneurs, and people living in fragile communities to develop bold solutions that make lasting change possible.

About Programs at Mercy Corps

The Program function at Mercy Corps supports its mission and works with program impact, innovation, and influence teams. The Program Function is composed of headquarters and regional departments which are guided by Mercy Corps’ global strategy: Pathway to Possibility (P2P) and works in close partnership with all other agency departments to deliver the highest quality programming and impactful results. The Program Team aligns closely with P2P, and works to deliver on increased accountability, alignment, and fair and transparent resource allocation, while acting with its Core Behaviors of collaboration, curiosity, inclusion, and integrity at the forefront. The Programs function is a key steward of Mercy Corps’ strategic commitments and the integration of these commitments into programming, including: Climate Smart, Locally Led, Evidence Driven, Innovative and Creative, and Safe, Diverse and Inclusive.

Mercy Corps implements a variety of programming throughout the MENA-E region in response to the diverse humanitarian and long-term development needs of the region. Mercy Corps has ongoing programs in Yemen, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine and Ukraine. Mercy Corps is committed to delivering high quality, high impact programming that reaches communities or individuals in need, wherever they are.

The Evidence & Learning function at Mercy Corps leads Mercy Corps’ efforts to use data, evidence, and analytics to improve programs, scale what works, and influence others. Evidence & Learning at Mercy Corps comprises Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning, Research and Learning, Crisis Analysis, and a developing Knowledge Management/Evidence Use team.

The Position

The Regional Evidence & Learning Senior Advisor leads the Regional Evidence and Learning Team, including setting and managing its strategy and staff. They drive and assure the quality of evidence-based practice areas within the region, working closely with global, country and program-level counterparts to ensure that these are staffed, skilled, and applied consistently across the portfolio. The Senior Advisor is a fully integrated team member of the Evidence & Learning Unit, and holds key functions to support and lead a regional portfolio, linking programs and countries to the systems, tools, training, guidance, and technical support needed to apply strong evidence and learning practices. The Senior Advisor’s role is to ensure that the region is increasingly and intentionally evidence-driven, and that teams use data, evidence, and analytics to drive impact, scale what works, and influence others.

Essential Responsibilities

STRATEGY AND VISION

●        Support the regional leadership team in developing an ambitious and compelling regional evidence and learning strategy by gathering and summarizing evidence to inform strategic directions, and by coordinating the development of regional evidence plans and priorities, in alignment with P2P framework, and lead its development and implementation with the highest level of quality.

●        Lead on the implementation, and revision to ensure it is responsive to changing contexts and priorities, of the Regional Evidence and Learning Agenda and build on ongoing socialization and operationalization processes, while supporting each country in the MENA-Europe region to be actively engaged in the process. Lea

●        Lead regional analyses and the development and tracking of indicators and other metrics to inform and assess progress against the regional strategy, coordinating closely with global data sources and models to maximize efficiencies.

●        Support country counterparts in:

• determining the need for, and conducting analyses as needed to inform country strategy development.
• determining and developing systems to track indicators and other metrics to assess progress against country strategies.
• developing their annual learning priorities
• promoting and improving the use of evidence-based approaches in program design and proposals

●        Work closely with global counterparts to:

• support the global initiative to Advancing Mercy Corps’ Evidence-Driven Commitment and participate actively in the evidence-driven commitment workstreams by contributing to the regional, global, and country-level evidence and learning agendas and other evidence-driven initiatives, such as strategy results measurements.
• develop the annual review of the Regional Evidence and Learning Agenda (ELA), ensuring alignment with other Global ELAs, and representation and collaboration across the agency.

TEAM MANAGEMENT and GUIDANCE

●        Establish and lead the newly created Regional Evidence and Learning Team, including setting up strong, inclusive and efficient ways of working.

●        Supervise regional evidence & learning personnel, including MEL Regional Advisor and Regional Research and Learning Advisor, and any other staff or entities as relevant, such as research firms, consultants, or regional project/ program teams engaged to advance these practice areas.

●        Work very closely with the Regional Crisis Analysis and Technical Teams to ensure they’re integrated into the broader Evidence and Learning workstreams, including the ELA whenever relevant and applicable.

●        Manage team member performance and monitor team member work plans, including ensuring alignment with priorities and workplans of other relevant global, regional and country teams.

●        Ensure that regional evidence and learning team members have a deep understanding of their roles and are connected to relevant stakeholders across the organization to inform and promote the effective use of tools and recommended practices. Where skills development is needed, coordinate access to professional development opportunities.

●        Advise and support country and program teams to feed into and understand regional learning priorities, including key donors’ evidence and learning approaches and priorities, with the support and in collaboration with the Evidence and Learning Unit at the global level, the new Institutional Fundraising team.

●        Advise and support country and program teams to determine the right team composition and roles for evidence functions.

●        Support country leadership in adhering to Mercy Corps and donors’ evidence and learning policies and procedures.

●        Work with global and country counterparts to understand team member learning and professional development needs, linking team members to relevant opportunities, including engaging through relevant communities of practice.

EVIDENCE PRACTICE, PROJECT, AND SYSTEMS SUPPORT

●        With the guidance of the Evidence and Learning Unit at the global level, and In collaboration with the Regional Evidence and Learning team members, implement processes to assess the status of programs and portfolios in the region as compared to evidence & learning requirements, best practices and standards, and work with team members to develop and implement action and improvement plans as a result of these diagnostics.

●        Where surge support for important programs is needed, provide or assign team members or support gap filling recruitment processes to provide temporary leadership support for program-level evidence functions.

●        Work closely with the Business Development Advisor/Team to ensure that all proposals are evidence-based, overseeing the integration of strong evidence principles and resourcing into program design, while supporting the development of evidence-based program concepts based on sound logic models and available internal and external evidence and learning. 

●        Work closely with the Technical Resource and Quality (TRaQ) team to ensure that technical approach development and technical assessments are well linked to available evidence and/ or the regional Evidence & Learning Agenda.

●        Lead or backstop the regional implementation of global evidence and learning-related policies, projects, and systems, working with global counterparts. Where necessary to supplement global policies and systems, develop and implement bespoke processes or systems for the region.

●        Coordinate closely with global counterparts to fill, vet, and address support requests from programs and countries within the region, ensuring that support is provided in a timely, accurate, and customer-oriented manner.

●        Participate in the conceptualization and development of standalone evidence projects or programs in the region (for example, regional research projects).

●        Oversee or coordinate regional Communities of Practice to share knowledge across the region.

INFLUENCE & REPRESENTATION

●        Coordinate the presentation of evidence from various sources to contribute to donor and host government-facing representation opportunities, ensuring timely and targeted communication to highlight Mercy Corps’ global and regional impact and learning

●        Growing the resource base for evidence and learning in the region, including contributing to strategic proposals for research, crisis analysis, and MEL that further the evidence-driven commitment and ELA priorities at a regional and country level.

●        Establish relationships with regionally based evidence and learning counterparts in donor organizations when/if relevant with the support and in collaboration with the Evidence and Learning Unit at the global level and, the new Institutional Fundraising team.

●        Represent Mercy Corps, and the region’s evidence and learning functions, in internal and external events.

●        Collaborate closely with policy and advocacy teams to ensure Mercy Corps' evidence is informing key messages and opportunities in line with regional influence priorities

●        Lead efforts to develop and resource strategic partnerships for evidence and learning, including connecting teams to regionally based evidence-related partners (e.g. research firms, analysis agencies, data processing organizations), with a focus on local and regional partners.

●        Develop and maintain strong relationships with the Evidence & Learning Unit at the global level, and other regional counterpart Units, functioning as an extended member of the Unit.

●        Act as a key liaison between the global, the regional and the country teams to effectively promote the evidence driven commitment framework and inform adaptations to global standards as necessary.

●        Contribute to promoting evidence driven culture, and a culture of learning and adaptive management, in the region.

Supervisory Responsibility

Regional MEL Advisors, Regional Research and Knowledge Management Advisor and close coordination and collaboration with Regional Crisis Analysis Team, Technical Support Team and Business Development Advisor

Accountability

Reports Directly To: Deputy Regional Director Programs, Barbara Bitton

Works Directly With: Directors of Programs, Regional Technical and Program Excellence advisors, Business Development team, Country-level MEL Leads, Program-level MEL leads, Research program or component leads, Crisis Analysis team leads, Information Technology, global Evidence & Learning Unit teams (MEL, Crisis Analysis, Research & Learning, Evidence Use/ Knowledge Management), and Strategy Realization Unit (SRU), Regional and Global Policy and Advocacy teams.

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.

Minimum Qualification & Transferable Skills

●        MA/MS or equivalent in a field related to MEL, economics, statistics, data science, research methods, political science, or a similarly relevant field.

●        At least 7 years’ field experience in evidence-related roles, including in both humanitarian and development contexts.

●        At least 5 years’ field experience in management roles.

●        Demonstrated ability to think strategically, and to solve complex problems.

●        Strong analytical, organizational, and communication skills.

●        Proven ability to design and facilitate training, workshops, and learning events.

●        Demonstrated proficiency and experience with US, UK, EU, UN and other public and private donors, government grant and financial management requirements.

●        Demonstrated understanding of the critical humanitarian and development issues in the MENA-E region, and significant experience with the challenges of operating in the region.

●        Fluency in written and spoken English required, and Arabic Language is preferred.

Success Factors

The successful candidate will be passionate about the role of evidence in designing, managing, and advocating for effective programming that delivers measurable change for participants. The Senior Advisor will lead on the newly designed regional evidence and learning structure while driving an impactful evidence and learning team, vision and strategy for the MENA/Europe region The Senior Advisor will have a customer service-oriented approach, ensuring that country and program-level counterparts receive the support they need, when they need it, in a clear and easily applicable way, including a willingness to step in and implement or provide this support directly where needed. The Senior Advisor will have the ability to build and maintain strong working relationships with counterparts at all levels and will be comfortable working as part of an extended global team. The most successful Mercy Corps team members have a solid commitment to teamwork and accountability, thrive in evolving and changing environments and make effective written and verbal communication a priority in all situations. They will maintain strong cooperative relationships with other departments and interact effectively with international and national personnel both in a managerial and training capacity while demonstrating the ability to multi-task, meet deadlines and process information in support of changing program activities.

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 and have signed on to the Interagency Misconduct Disclosure Scheme. 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 eLearning courses upon hire and on an annual basis.