Location: Jumla with technical support to all 6-program districts

Position Status: Full-time, Regular

Salary Level: M1

Current Team Member: N/A

 Program / Department Summary

Mercy Corps has launched the “Building Hope Along the Karnali River Basin” (BHAKARI) program to enhance food and nutrition security, reduce future humanitarian caseload and improve the resilience of communities to recurrent shocks in the Karnali Province in Nepal. The program will be a Multi-Year Emergency Food Security Activity funded by USAID's Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA) and implemented in 6 districts (Mugu, Jumla, Kalikot, Surkhet, Achham, and Dailekh, with cluster hubs in Surkhet and Jumla) in the Karnali River Basin area. BHAKARI builds upon many of the successes of the Nepal team’s previous Food for Peace program which ended in January 2020, the PAHAL program, but with some new districts and a much heavier emphasis on emergency response through cash transfer programming. Parallel to the emergency cash programming are emergency-prevention components of agriculture and market systems, disaster risk reduction, water for productive use, natural resources management, and a large emphasis on a gender and social inclusion approach, all with a highly integrated multi-sectoral approach.

General Position Summary 

The Emergency Response Coordinator (ER Coordinator), under the leadership of Emergency Response Senior Manager (ERSM), is primarily responsible for technical oversight and support implementing partners in the districts to ensure emergency response and recovery plans are implemented according to the humanitarian principles and standards. They will ensure that partners have adequate skills and capacities for timely and quality implementation of BHAKARI response and recovery interventions. They will work closely with the ER Cash Advisor and the district team to suggest and make informed decisions for the most relevant response and/or recovery interventions by undertaking post disaster assessments, early warning information to anticipate shocks and stresses. The position is based in Jumla with frequent travel to all BHAKARI working locations. 

The ER Coordinator will work closely with Cluster Coordinators, District Coordinators and Project Coordinators including Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) and Community Accountability and Reporting Mechanism (CARM) focal points. Moreover, as gender equality and social inclusion (GESI), child mercycorps.org safeguarding, and environmental sensitivity are cross-cutting and core components of the all MC programs, the ER Coordinator is required to ensure these components are integrated into the response interventions. 

Essential Job Responsibilities 

The specific duties and responsibilities of ER Coordinator include, but are not limited to the following:

Program Implementation and Management 

• Support to ensure that project activities are implemented and managed in accordance with quality 
• standards, compliance with internal and donor guidelines and policies, and contractual obligations.
• Support development of detailed implementation plans and guidelines to implement quality response and ensure its reflection in monthly and quarterly plans.
• Development of response plans and liaise with finance and operations as required to ensure required supplies are delivered on time and are of good quality.
• Timely preparation of Supply and Payment Requests ensuring expenditure is aligned with project document and requirements.
• Support on budget monitoring and variance; and support for revising as necessary. 
• Keep abreast of humanitarian situations and gaps keeping BHAKARI team fully up-to-date, and make sound recommendations to support emergency response. 
• Support BHAKARI district team and partners to coordinate with the District Disaster Management Committee (DDMC) and Local Disaster Management Committee (LDMC) when required.
• Support district team for development and preparation of MoUs with the Community Disaster Management Committee in collaboration with ER Cash Advisor. 
• Coordinate with and advise implementing partners following a disaster on response interventions in respective locations. 
• Provides regular program updates and alerts to inform coordination and decision-making.

Technical support and capacity building

• Support on strengthening capacity of the implementing partners by identifying capacity gaps and development needs. 
• Lead with appropriate capacity building interventions such as training, workshop, mentoring and supervision of implementing partners on humanitarian response. 
• Contribute to drafting scope of work or concept note for undertaking emergency response activities for strengthening emergency response and onboarding technical consultants as required.
• Develop required tools such as undertaking assessments, emergency training modules and Standard 
• Operating Procedure (SOP), implementation guidelines as required by the program. 
• Supports layering, sequencing and integration, and actively foster synergies between BHAKARI program components. 
• Provides technical guidance and support partners for quality assurance and compliance to all humanitarian commitments on accountability such as; Core Humanitarian Standards (CHS), Sphere standards and Safeguarding.

Monitoring and Reporting 

• Gather and disseminate early warning information to BHAKARI Program to inform for readiness and potential response 
• Lead on setting up community level shocks and stress monitoring systemmercycorps.org
• Support partners to ensure that the humanitarian context at the community level is regularly monitored and timely reported
• Sharing of weekly highlights to the ER Senior Manager, support on preparation of Sitreps when required and timely submission of 3W matrixes to the relevant clusters as required
• Ensure development and monitoring of response plans to benchmark progress and challenges and provides feedback for improvements
• Work closely with the MEL team and ensure collection of required information against the indicators through appropriate tools such as post distribution monitoring etc. 
• Provide support on preparation of progress and completion of response intervention aligned with the compliance and template 
• Undertakes regular visits to the project areas and timely report the findings and recommendations 
• Supports on setting up community accountability and reporting mechanisms to promote downward accountability and ensure meaningful participation of communities 
• Ensure minimum standards of humanitarian assistance are maintained in accordance with the Sphere and Core Humanitarian Standard on Accountability and Quality
• Support on program learning and documentation and supports to develop strong case studies to generate evidence of the response intervention 

Finance and Compliance Management

• Ensure all internal control procedures are adhered to and that necessary measures are put in place to ensure high standards of accountability and compliance
• Work closely with finance/compliance to mitigate fraud, conflict of interest and legal ramifications of Mercy Corps activities
• Support and orient on MC Code of Ethics and uphold Mercy Corps’ Zero tolerance of corruption policy Security
• Work closely with relevant field management staff to develop and maintain systems that ensure the safety and security of operating teams when implementing emergency response activities.
• Ensure compliance with security procedures and policies as determined by country leadership.
• Proactively ensure that team members and community operate in a secure environment and are aware of policies.

Influence & Representation

• Support ongoing coordination and representation with relevant agencies, such as government officials, humanitarian clusters, INGOs, UN Agencies as appropriate at the cluster and district level. 
• Maintain internal coordination and works closely with BHAKARI sectoral team and wider team members and support integration within programs
• Support/lead on organizing appropriate staff meetings, workshops, planning sessions as required.

Security

• Ensure compliance with security procedures and policies as determined by country leadership. 
• Proactively ensure that team members and community operate in a secure environment and are aware of policies.

Accountability to Program Participants

• Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts toward accountability, specifically to our program participants and to international standards guiding international relief and mercycorps.orgdevelopment work, while actively engaging participating communities as equal partners in the design, monitoring and evaluation of our field projects.
• 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.

Others 

• Mercy Corps as a humanitarian agency is expected to respond as and when crisis and humanitarian situation engulfs. As an MC employee all staff are expected to be part of humanitarian and emergency response in addition to their regular roles and responsibilities.
• Create and sustain a work environment of mutual respect where team members strive to achieve excellence.
• Conduct themselves both professionally and personally in such a manner as to bring credit to Mercy Corps and not to jeopardize its humanitarian mission.
• Other duties as assigned by their supervisor, Chief of Party, and/or Country Director.

Supervisory Responsibility: N/A

Accountability

Reports Directly to: Emergency Response Senior Manager

Works Directly with: ER Cash Advisor and work closely with BHAKARI team, implementation partners, Mercy Corps Nepal’s operations, HR, finance and other project teams. 

Knowledge and Experience 

• Position is open to female applicants only.
• At least Bachelor degree in social sciences, engineering, development Studies/Management, DRR or any related discipline. A Master's Degree is preferred. 
• At least 5 years’ experience of humanitarian/emergency response program implementation with strong background on capacity building of implementing partners.
• Experiences working in partnerships, coordination among different stakeholders and organizations at district/province/national level is required. Prior experience working on USAID funded programs highly preferred. 
• Thorough understanding of humanitarian contexts in Karnali.
• In-depth knowledge and significant experience implementing cash based emergency response and recovery program 
• Experience of emergency preparedness and a clear understanding of the emergency preparedness process.
• Experience of the humanitarian coordination system, humanitarian standards and principles, and humanitarian accountability initiatives.
• Work experiences and understanding on short-term emergency response and long term emergency assistance, M&E, cash and voucher programming, social protection, and SBCC will be an added advantage. 
• Demonstrated ability to work in complex environments under tight deadlines. 
• Strong coordination skills, including capacity to coordinate with teams remotely.mercycorps.org
• Strong organizational and logistical skills with demonstrated experience in strategic planning and ability to work independently are required. 
• Good writing and computer skills, including preliminary research and information gathering from the internet, MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint preparation are required. 
• Fluency in written and spoken English and Nepali required. 
• Effective writing skills to prepare reports, complete analyses and make presentations. 
• Negotiation, networking, advocacy, coordination and representation skills with key local actors is preferred 
• Ability to work effectively with an ethnically diverse team in a sensitive environment. 
• Proven ability to learn quickly, facilitate program implementation to achieve stated results and objectives;

Success Factors 

A successful Emergency Response Coordinator will have the ability to live and work closely in Jumla, a remote district with fewer amenities and entertainment options, with a diverse team of individuals in a highly intense and fluid work and security environment with a capacity to spark innovative approaches to programming and inspire groups to collaborate closely to implement high-quality programs. They will have proven ability to learn quickly, take initiative, and be accountable for results, with an ability and willingness to remain mobile for short-term and/or long-term as necessary within the region, based on programmatic needs. An ability to work independently and as part of a team, with curiosity about and sensitivity to new cultures, a desire and ability to learn and grow, both personally and professionally, and a great sense of humor.

The most successful Mercy Corps staff members have a strong commitment to teamwork and accountability, thrive in evolving and changing environments and make effective written and verbal communication a priority in all situations. Mercy Corps Team members represent the agency both during and outside of work hours when deployed in a field posting or on a visit/TDY to a field posting. 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.mercycorps.org 

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. 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

Shortlisting will be done on the basis of your answers while applying, please answer the questions carefully. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted. Telephone enquiries will not be entertained.