About Mercy Corps
Mercy Corps is a leading global organization powered by the belief that a better world is possible. In disaster, in hardship, in more than 40 countries around the world, we partner to put bold solutions into action — helping people triumph over adversity and build stronger communities from within. Now, and for the future.
The Program / Department / Team
Nawiri is an eight-year Resilience Food Security Activity (RFSA) program implemented by a consortium of international and national partners led by Mercy Corps.
The goal of the program is to reduce persistent acute malnutrition in the two counties of Turkana and Samburu in northern Kenya. Nawiri has just started its sixth year of implementation which included two and half years of operational research which informed the design of the programs. Nawiri is a multi-sectoral program that integrates resilient livelihoods, access to improved water, health and sanitation services, strengthening community health systems, conflict and natural resource management, strengthening community and government institutions and systems amongst others.
The Mercy Corps’ NAWIRI consortium brings together the global leadership, research capacity, technical expertise, and implementation experience necessary to partner with local institutions to test, adapt, and scale evidence-based solutions.
Working as part of the Program Performance and Learning (PPL) team, the County Learning Coordinator will collaborate with the program’s research, M&E communications and implementation teams to ensure learnings from program implementation are being used to inform adaptive management at the county level.
The Position
The County Learning Coordinator plays a key role in ensuring Nawiri delivers responsive, well-informed, and high-quality programming in Samburu. As a key member of the Learning Team led by the Strategic Learning Lead, the Learning Coordinator is responsible for operationalizing Nawiri’s Evidence and Learning Agenda at the county level, ensuring the progressive integration of learning principles and practices into all activities. The Learning Coordinator plays a leadership role in embedding and supporting a culture of learning across Nawiri initiatives at the county level, including identifying and actioning opportunities to use evidence to adapt, improve and innovate programming. The Learning Coordinator must be able to champion and generate excitement and commitment to using data and evidence, with audiences and stakeholders who are not M&E or Learning experts. The Learning Coordinator will conduct activities to gather learning insights and work closely with the Strategic Learning Lead to package these for dissemination.
Essential Responsibilities
FACILITATION OF REGULAR REFLECTION AND REVIEW MEETINGS
- Organize regular data driven Learning activities including monthly and quarterly review meetings, and annual reviews.
- Work with technical leads to seek opportunities to integrate learning into work plans and strategic decision making.
- Facilitate and support learning collaborations with Nawiri teams, county government, partner organizations, and other key actors.
- Develop, oversee, and support systems for capturing field-based observations to integrate into adaptive learning cycles.
- Ensure quality documentation of regular sense-making and reflection activities and ad hoc reviews, incorporating contributions from county and community stakeholders.
- Establish feedback mechanisms and action trackers to ensure that the conversations are being actioned, and the events are responding to the needs of the team.
COLLABORATION WITH PROGRAM AND M&E TEAMS FOR DATA ANALYSIS
- Collaborate with M&E and program teams to create opportunities to analyze data and generate insights for improving activity design and delivery.
- Coordinate with Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) teams to align data collection with learning needs.
- Work with technical teams to ensure program adaptations are informed by evidence and learning, and documented clearly.
- Guide and support high-quality data gathering, management, and analysis to enhance decision-making.
- Collaborate with technical leads to implement the Evidence and Learning agenda to drive improvements in learning and program best practice.
- Collaborate with the Strategic Learning Lead to develop data visualization and storytelling approaches to make insights more accessible
CONDUCT QUALITATIVE INQUIRY AND RESEARCH
- Identify opportunities for qualitative inquiry, based on and complementing the M&E data, and in line with the Evidence and Learning Agenda.
- Conduct community research and development of learning products.
- Support the integration of community voices and indigenous knowledge into learning processes.
- Implement innovative mechanisms for learning with communities, enhancing community voice in program decisions.
CONTENT CREATION BASED ON LEARNINGS
- Document lessons learned, promising practices, and case studies to inform adaptive programming.
- Contribute to the development of user-friendly learning products (e.g., briefs, newsletters, community feedback, knowledge notes) for internal and external sharing.
- Work closely with communications teams to ensure learning materials reach relevant audiences.
- Collaborate with the Reporting Officer to ensure insights, lessons learned, and adaptations are documented and shared in relevant reports.
SECURITY
- 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.
SAFEGUARDING RESPONSIBILITIES
- Actively learns about safeguarding and integrates it into their work, including safeguarding risks and mitigations related to their area of work.
- Practices the values of Mercy Corps including respecting the dignity and well-being of participants and fellow team members.
- Encourages openness and communication in their team; encourages team members to submit reports if they have any concerns using reporting mechanisms e.g., Integrity Hotline and other options.
Supervisory Responsibility
The Learning Coordinator will supervise Nawiri’s Learning Officers at Samburu/Turkana county.
Accountability
Reports Directly To: County Field Director
Works Directly With: Strategic Learning Lead, Nawiri Technical Leads, Program Performance & Learning (PPL) Team, County program managers and consortium team members.
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
- Bachelor’s degree in the Social Sciences; Demography, Sociology, Statistics or MEAL-related field. A master’s degree is an added advantage.
- Minimum of five years of relevant work experience in learning, participatory development, or adult learning, ideally with an international NGO working with county governments, research institutes, other institutions/organizations.
- Strong cultural competency and familiarity with local languages and dynamics in the County is highly preferred.
- Proven ability to understand and interpret complex data and evidence sources, and translate this into actionable insights for team members and community stakeholders.
- Previous experience of having conducted data collection and analysis, qualitative enquiry, research and/or similar.
- Demonstrated understanding of participatory research methods, data collection and measurement standards, and other relevant technical aspects.
- Excellent communication and facilitation skills, with the ability to tease out complex thoughts and ideas, moderate dialogue and discussion among diverse groups and create safe spaces where people are free to reflect and share ideas.
- Previous experience in developing high quality written products in English, with close attention to details such as grammar and spelling.
- Experience in using mobile data collection and management software is a strong advantage.
- Experience using MS Windows and MS Office packages (Excel, Word, PowerPoint), Web Conferencing Applications, information management systems, and knowledge-sharing networks is required.
Success Factors
The Learning Coordinator role demands a dynamic individual who is flexible, inclusive, creative with insightful inputs to the program who can work independently with minimum supervision with ability to create a learning environment within the team. Success in this position requires good report writing skills for high quality reports and learning briefs.
Living Conditions / Environmental Conditions
The position is based in SAMBURU/TURKANA and it requires up to 60% travel to support Nawiri program activities at the subcounty level, which may include travel to insecure locations where freedom of movement is limited and areas where amenities are limited. Housing for this role is in individual housing and staff will have access to good medical services and the living situation is of a high standard.
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
Team Efficiency and Effectiveness
Achieving our mission starts with how we build our team and collaborate. By bringing together individuals with a variety of experiences, backgrounds, and perspectives, we strengthen our ability to solve complex challenges and drive innovation. We foster a culture of trust and respect, where every team member is valued for their contributions, empowered to reach their full potential, and motivated to do their best work.
We recognize that building a strong and effective team is an ongoing process, and we remain committed to learning, improving, and growing together.
Equal Employment Opportunity
Mercy Corps is an equal opportunity employer that does not tolerate discrimination on any basis. We actively seek out different 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.
As an applicant, if you witness or experience any form of sexual misconduct during the recruitment process, please report this to Mercy Corps Integrity Hotline ([email protected]).
Kindly indicate your preferred location on the subject of your cover letter.
