Mercy Corps is recruiting for a Senior Advisor Youth Employment and Market System Development (in Corps Africa Country Location)

Application Deadline: Not Specified
Mercy Corps is recruiting for a Senior Advisor Youth Employment and Market System Development (in Corps Africa Country Location)
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, Mercy Corps partner to put bold solutions into action — helping people triumph over adversity and build stronger communities from within.
Program Summary
Mercy Corps works across more than 20 countries in East & Southern Africa (ESA) and West & Central Africa (WCA) to address the interrelated and compounding factors that drive vulnerability, responding to ongoing humanitarian needs while promoting good governance and conflict resolution, enhancing resilience, strengthening market systems, enhancing access to energy, finance and economic opportunities, and promoting youth employment and empowerment. Mercy Corps integrate programming across sectors, funding streams and geographies to tackle systemic barriers to resilience and prosperity. Mercy Corps looks to actively engage and partner with an ever-growing and innovative African private sector to achieve greater and sustained impact.
General Position Summary
Mercy Corps is seeking an experienced Senior Advisor Youth Employment and Market Systems Development – Africa to support and grow its regional capacity to design, deliver and learn from a portfolio of high quality and impactful Market Systems Development for Employment (MSD4E) programs across Africa, as well as provide support to its portfolio of Market Systems Development programs working on livestock and other agricultural livelihood sectors.
The Youth Employment team supports programming that facilitates more work, better work, or better access to work for young people, women and other marginalized people. This enables individuals, businesses and markets to become more resilient to conflict and climate related shocks and stresses. The Youth Employment team focuses on three major workstreams – Market System Development for Employment (MSD4E), Jobtech, and green jobs.
This Senior Advisor Youth Employment and Market System Development position will serve as the focal point for Mercy Corps’ MSD4E approach for teams within the two Africa regions, with guidance from the Regional TraQ Directors for each region as well as the Director of Youth Employment. This will involve providing technical support and guidance on the application of MSD to our livelihoods and economic opportunities work within the two regions with a particular focus on employment programming. Their work will cut across sectors where programs apply MSD principles, with an emphasis on sectors such as green jobs, employment, agriculture, and finance.
The Senior Advisor will spend 70-80% of their time providing technical support to existing MSD programs to enhance program quality across the program cycle, from concept note development and design through to close-out, evaluation and learning, providing training and supporting research, evaluation, monitoring and learning across the portfolio. Additionally, the Senior Advisor supports the design and development of new MSD programs, including the development of proposals and concept notes, and supports program, country and regional teams with strategy development related to MSD for employment and for other economic opportunity programs.
The Senior Advisor’s role also includes external engagement, including disseminating information, evidence and learning to external partners, representing Mercy Corps at key events, and building a network of key relationships with external partners. They will build out a wider system of global, regional and country-level support and expertise and employ a flexible, adaptive approach to the agency’s Market Systems work that builds on local capacities of teams, partners and communities, and applies the agency’s resilience lens.
The Senior Advisor will be an integral part of the Africa (ESA + WCA) Regional Technical Quality and Resources (TRaQ) unit and the global Market Systems TRaQ team. They will work seamlessly within agency matrixed teams to plan for and deliver the optimal level of support to field programs for increased quality and impact, using multiple sectoral entry points to achieve our desired short and long-term results. They will have a significant role in program support and implementation, representing the agency’s work in external fora, supporting new business development, and contributing to the agency’s efforts to understand lessons and share learning related to the agency’s MSD4E approach and supporting more resilient market systems.
Supervisory Responsibility
The position does not have supervisory responsibility, though there is a strong support role to program staff in collaboration with team leaders.
The person in this role will sit on both the East and Southern Africa TRaQ team and the global Youth Employment team. S/he will also liaise closely with the West and Central Africa TRaQ team and the global Markets team.
Accountability
Reports Directly To: TRaQ Director of East and Southern Africa, and Director of Youth Employment (dual management)
Works Directly With: West and Central Africa TRaQ team, the global Markets team, all other TraQ teams, HQ, Regional and Program teams, and external partners
Minimum Qualification & Transferable Skills
- 5+ years of experience of increasingly proficient management and/or technical support in MSD programming, with at least one job experience in a well-reputed MSD project.
- Proven experience assessing markets and working with private sector partners
- Experience working across different geographies, including Africa, and more specifically in fragile environments.
- Strong ability to understand and manage multiple stakeholders and complex relationships at multiple levels of the organization.
- Willingness and ability to travel frequently to Mercy Corps project sites, including traveling to insecure environments, is required. This position is expected to spend up to 30% time traveling to field programs and countries. A proven proactive approach to work and self-driven leadership.
- Fluency in English is required, with strong written and oral communication skills.
- Fluency in French is preferred
- Experience in or knowledge of youth employment programming and labor markets preferred.
- Experience of delivering capacity building support (training, coaching and/or other related processes) preferred
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