Mercy Corps Iraq Team

Mercy Corps has worked across Iraq’s 18 governorates since 2003. Mercy Corps Iraq has a whole-of-Iraq approach and operates across ten governorates: Anbar, Basra, Thi Qar, Duhok, Baghdad, Erbil, Kirkuk, Ninewa, Salah al-Din, and Sulaymaniyah with an experienced team of nearly 120 national and international staff. Through our extensive portfolio, Mercy Corps Iraq has formed strong relations with the communities and local authorities where we operate and has an in-depth understanding of the security and cultural context in the areas where we work. Mercy Corps Iraq has demonstrated a track record of working together with local stakeholders - from government directorates, as well as community leaders, women’s associations, local councils, Municipal Councils, Provincial Councils, Ninewa and Mosul Universities, and local and international NGOs. Mercy Corps has an especially strong background in designing and enacting social cohesion activities and peacebuilding with communities.

Mercy Corps’ approach within Iraq has allowed us to continue to provide critical assistance to some of the country’s most vulnerable populations during a period of tremendous upheaval, while expanding early recovery and development programs to support access to water, food, economic opportunities and peace and good governance for populations affected by years of conflict. Operational in Iraq since 2003 – and with a current annual budget of about USD $28 million from programs funded by USAID, DRL, Global Affairs Canada, GiZ, AFD, ECHO, CDCS, The Coca Cola Foundation, and others. With the launch of Mercy Corps’ Global Strategy, Pathway to Possibility, the country office is poised to operationalize an exciting three-year strategy with the vision to enhance the resilience of Iraqi communities to address the drivers of conflict, thrive in the face of climate change, and facilitate long term peace and prosperity. The resulting situation brings together a diversity of staff, technical expertise and program learning, along with a critical opportunity to influence policy makers and donor priorities moving forward.

General Position Summary

The Business Development and Awards Manager will be the main support role of the Deputy Country Director (DCD), overseeing development of new business, in close coordination with the Program Leadership Team (PLT), which includes the direct reports to the DCD, Heads of Portfolios, and Program Managers. The Business Development and Awards Manager will assist in securing new programs by coordinating or leading proposal development processes, including the generation of new programming to fully operationalize the humanitarian-development nexus. The Business Development and Awards Manager will be expected to advise program teams on donor rules and regulation to ensure all programs are compliant with our internal and donor regulations. The Business Development and Awards Manager will  also be responsible for timely submission of quality donor reports as well as communication pieces, working with his/her team.

Essential Job Responsibilities

STRATEGIC GROWTH OBJECTIVES

• Work closely with Deputy Country Director and Senior members of the Iraq Program to ensure Mercy Corps Global strategy (P2P) and the country office strategy guides decision making.
• Serve as a member of the Senior Management Team (SMT), Program Leadership team (PLT), and internal Technical Working Groups (TWG) to provide input and leadership around country-level policies and processes, including proactive problem solving and cross-department collaboration and building consensus around a common vision of what shared success in Iraq looks like.
• As a member of SMT, ensure an ambitious, realistic Country Strategy and follow through on the associated Implementation Plan(s).
• Support portfolio leads in developing sectorial strategies,
• Develop/ update capacity statements for respective outcome areas,
• Support DCD and portfolio leads in exploring possibilities of forming partnerships, expanding/ transitioning to partner led implementation, and forming new consortiums,

PREPOSITIONING AND DONOR ENGAGEMENT

• Participate in key donor meetings and consultations, support donor contacts, when necessary, to foster long-term collaboration, engagement, and strategic prepositioning.
• In partnership with the DCD and Heads of Portfolio, help build strategic relationships with key stakeholders, peer agencies and donors that lead towards funding opportunities.
• With the DCD and Heads of Portfolio, help build relationships with potential partners, including international and national NGOs to pre-position for future funding opportunities.
• Maintain the system for tracking potential and current donors, and upcoming strategic funding opportunities.
• Interface with Mercy Corps headquarters and the regional office to keep abreast of donor strategic priorities, specific requirements and deadlines.
• Lead the strategic evaluation process for new funding opportunities and provide strategic advice to DCD and CD to make go no go decisions.
• Liaising with the Subawards team to map existing implementing partners and other donor projects across a variety of technical sectors including market systems development, livelihoods, natural resource management, social cohesion, governance and education.

PROPOSAL DEVELOPMENT

• Lead proposal development processes for small, medium, and mid-level opportunities, with a focus on nexus and development programming, including drafting and producing high quality concept notes and proposals that support Mercy Corps Iraq’s strategic programming goals. This involves developing, managing and sharing the proposal development calendar/timeline in- country and with headquarters, ensuring high quality funding proposals are submitted in a timely manner.
• Support work on larger strategic proposals including for complex programs, multi-country opportunities and/or contracts led by the Regional New Initiatives team.
• Liaise with and coordinate the Programs, Finance, QEL, Security, and Operations Teams in the development of budgets of funding proposals.
• Ensuring Mercy Corps’ and donors’ Safeguarding minimum standards are incorporated into funding proposals in collaboration with the country and regional Safeguarding teams.

PROGRAM PERFORMANCE AND RECORD RETENTION

• Maintain an online grant filing system, ensuring compliance with PM@MC minimum standards and facilitating tracking of basic program performance (on time, on scope, on budget).
• Play a leading role in grant kick-off and close-out meetings to ensure that all grant information, including deadlines, donor priorities and requirements, are communicated and understood by the team, and grants are closed in compliance with donor regulations.
• Maintain effective communications with headquarters staff, providing timely updates on grants and flagging potential issues promptly.
• Support to monitor progress of all programs and proactively raise issues to ensure program quality.
• Coordinate with Quality, Evidence, and Learning (QEL) team to develop an evidence base and learning pieces to improve program quality and ensure these learnings are incorporated into new program design. Work with the QEL team to ensure that donor and program related learnings are incorporated into Mercy Corps Iraq’s Learning Center online platform.
• In collaboration with Program, QEL, Finance, and Compliance Teams, ensure compliance with donor and Mercy Corps regulations, including PM@MC minimum standards.

REPORTING AND COMMUNICATIONS

• With the Grants Management Officers, oversee reporting workflows and processes between Program Teams, senior leadership, and HQ to ensure the timely and quality development, review and submission of reports and other communication products.
• With the Grants Management Officers, maintain a reporting tracker and share regularly with Program and MEL Teams.
• Collaborate with the DCD and Senior QEL Manager on the development of strategies, position papers, thought leadership pieces, and other related initiatives leveraging evidence from programs.
• Provide timely, thorough responses to information requests from internal and external sources.
• Develop strategic communication materials, such as sector profiles, impact reports, program briefings, leadership and positioning pieces, key messages, talking points, and other relevant pieces.
• Ensure high-quality information sharing among internal and external audiences.
• Represent Mercy Corps in external coordination forums, as requested.
• Ensure Safe Communications standards are incorporated into the relevant workstreams (e.g.: success story collection and storage of personal data) of program and grants team members in collaboration with the country and regional Safeguarding teams.
• Participate in the Regional Community of Practice for Communications as a member and bring in regional learnings to country programming and communications processes.
• Ensure that programs, projects, initiatives, and studies are visible and recognized at the national level. Coordinate efforts to showcase Mercy Corps Iraq’s work through social media, scientific articles, blogs, websites, and other platforms.

TEAM MANAGEMENT

• Oversee the work of Grants team members and ensure the team members successfully manage key grants management and internal coordination workflows
• Develop the capacity of the Grants team members, deepen understanding of their roles and assist with career development.
• Assist team members with information, tools and resources to improve performance and reach objectives, including developing/updating relevant process documents when relevant.
• Promote accountability, communicate expectations and provide constructive feedback informally and formally via regular one on ones and performance reviews.
• Create and sustain a work environment of mutual respect where team members strive to achieve excellence.
• Hire, orient and lead team members as necessary.

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.

Supervisory Responsibility: Grants Management Officers

Accountability

Reports Directly To: Deputy Country Director

Works Directly With: PLT, Heads of Portfolio, Program Managers, Quality, Evidence and Learning (QEL) team including MEL, Gender Equality and Social Inclusion, and Accountability Units, HQ desk team, Finance, Operations, HQ/Region Technical Resources and Quality (TRaQ) team members, Country Director

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

• Exceptional English writing skills, including experience leading proposal development processes for nexus programming. Development proposal writing experience preferred.
• Strong analytical writing skills, required.
• 3 to 5 years of progressive work experience, with demonstrated strengths in program or portfolio management, grants management, proposal development, external relations, and donor reporting.
• Familiarity with US, EU and other donor regulations for grants and contracts related to reporting requirements and ability to understand and adjust to the donor contractual requirements preferred.
• Excellent planning, management and coordination skills, with the ability to organize a workload comprised of varying and changing tasks and responsibilities.
• Excellent representation skills required.
• Experience in staff management, supervision and capacity building.
• Demonstrated experience in working in a multi-cultural and high-stress environment.
• BA degree in relevant field and MA preferred.
• Arabic and/or Kurdish language skills are a plus.
• Previous work experience in conflict and/or post-conflict environments, particularly in the Middle East, preferred.

Success Factors

The successful candidate will be eager to learn through doing and will not shy away from tough challenges. This position has a critical function in ensuring grant management systems and processes are successfully implemented across the life of a grant and key controls are in place to support effective management of the funding portfolio and compliance with the donor requirements. As such this person will be very closely working with the different departments.

The successful candidate is passionate about humanitarian and development work and is committed to the delivery of high quality products while respecting deadlines. S/he will be patient and flexible, and is able to improvise and remain responsive and communicate clearly and effectively under pressure. S/he will master the art of prioritizing and organizing processes and is detail-oriented. S/he will have a passion for writing. 

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 and 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. By applying for this role an applicant confirms that they have not previously violated an employer’s sexual misconduct, sexual exploitation and abuse, child safeguarding or trafficking policy. 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. 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 (integrityhotline@mercycorps.org).

QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCES:

Successful candidates should meet the education and experience requirements in the position descriptions for the vacant positions. S/he must be self- motivated, creative, tolerant, and able to work in difficult, stressful environments and follow Mercy Corps procedures. S/he must respect diversity and gender equality at the workplace.

Interested candidates should submit their CVs to the email address iq-mchrrecruitment@mercycorps.org before the deadline indicated below.

Please indicate on the subject of the email the title of the position you are applying for.

ALL APPLICATIONS/ CVs SHOULD BE RECEIVED BY October 8^th , 2024

Potential candidates for the post will be contacted for an interview and processed according to Mercy Corps Human Resources policies and procedures. As soon as qualified candidates are identified the positions will be closed automatically. Please note that only shortlisted applicants will be contacted for potential interview.

Any documents submitted will remain with Mercy Corps and will not be returned to candidates.

Mercy Corps is an equal opportunity employer. Females are highly encouraged to apply.

Female Candidates are encouraged to apply for This Position. Mercy Corps is an equal opportunity employer. We actively seek out diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and skills so that we can be collectively stronger and have sustained global Impact.

Mercy Corps Iraq offers a variety of arrangements that enable women to excel in their careers. Mercy Corps Iraq ensures a safe and inclusive working environment for women and men through field security training and measures to provide secure working arrangements on-site and in the office.