About Mercy Corps
Mercy Corps is powered by the belief that a better world is possible. To do this, we know our teams do their best
work when they are diverse and every team member feels that they belong. We welcome diverse backgrounds,
perspectives, and skills so that we can be stronger and have long term impact.
The Program / Department / Team
USAID Informal Livelihoods Advancement Activity (Iqlaa) is a five-year USAID-funded program that aims to
support Jordan's home-based businesses (HBBs) and Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs) to grow, transform, and become resilient to future shocks. HBBs and MSEs are essential drivers of employment and economic stability in Jordan. Micro and small enterprises represent 98 percent of all businesses in Jordan and compose half of the country’s private sector employment. Therefore, the Iqlaa approach places formal and informal Jordanian HBBs and MSEs on a path to recovery, stabilization, and growth, focusing on four critical sectors: agriculture, tourism, manufacturing, and services, with special attention to technology development and implementation. Iqlaa works to implement best practices in crisis response, enterprise strengthening, inclusive job creation, and financial sector development within a market-systems development (MSD) framework and leveraging innovative behavioral change methodologies to facilitate long-term, sustainable changes in the behaviors or stakeholders and beneficiaries that align better with the current needs of Jordan’s MSEs. Iqlaa will offer bundled support through technical assistance and grants. The program will work with market sector actors to offer five main grants: formalization, start-up funding, business Growth, innovation & Scale, and technology Integration.
General Position Summary
The Senior Research and Adaptive Management Officer will play a crucial role in supporting effective collaboration, learning, and adaptation efforts within our organization. The incumbent will work closelywith different teams within the organization with a focus on expanding and enriching collaborations,
documenting lessons learned and sharing knowledge to guide decision-making processes and adapting the
program’s implementation strategies and approaches based on learning.
S/he will work closely with the implementation and technical teams, partners, and other stakeholders to co-design, implement and manage learning activities. The Senior Research and Adaptive Management Officer will be actively involved in qualitative research methods, intervention quality monitoring, evidence-based communications and organizing and leading reflection meetings with relevant stakeholders. S/he will be responsible for disseminating findings and recommendations to influence stakeholders and to inform decision making and new initiatives.
Essential Responsibilities
Collaboration, Learning and Adapting:
• Work closely with relevant stakeholders to plan, coordinate and implement effective Collaboration, Learning, and Adaptation (CLA) activities.
• Conduct scheduled and ad-hoc reflection meetings with technical sector leads, implementation team leads, partners, and any relevant stakeholders to promote the use of evidence and application of adaptive management.
• Lead the development, coordination, and implementation of learning agendas and ensure their integration into program design and implementation.
• Implement a systematic plan for the learning agendas and support the periodic review of the learning agendas and the amendment processes, if necessary.
• Support extraction of learning, lessons, and insights from different systematic sources into actionable recommendations for program improvements to inform program design and implementation.
• Collect evidence-based data through various methods such as interviews, FGDs, and field observation.
• Work closely with program teams to identify and document lessons learned, best practices, and innovations from program implementation to inform programmatic decision-making and improve overall program quality.
• Establish and maintain effective working relationships with partners and stakeholders to promote collaboration, trust and improve sharing of knowledge and experience.
• Ability to synthesize program performance data and produce analytical reports to inform strategic decision-making.
• Proposing changes to program approaches based on learnings and research findings.
• Support the coordination of systematic integration of CLA approach across the program cycle, applying the relevant tools and resources.
• Develop action plans for adaptations in collaboration with technical team members and partners.
• Closely follow-up with technical team members regards the implementation of the agreed
adaptations.
• Collaborating with technical teams and implementing partners to develop tools and checklists that facilitate evidence-based activity management and oversight, particularly for data quality analysis, documentation of activity monitoring visits, and presentation of feedback to partners.
• Conduct program reviews, pause and reflect sessions, workshops, and any other learning activities.
• Perform literature reviews as required.
•Conduct research and stay informed about emerging best practices and innovations in the field of CLA and propose their integration into programmatic approaches.
• Any other duties as may be assigned.
Communication, Documentation and Report Writing:
• Maintain a knowledge management system and/or knowledge management electronic platform to improve access, sharing and application of program knowledge, lessons learned, and best practices.
• Support the formulation of program reports in a timely manner while ensuring the quality, accuracy, and consistency of information, which may include case studies, stories of change, success stories, learning briefs, or other written materials.
• Draft learning briefs and other reporting materials for both internal and external recipients utilizing primary and secondary data.
• Support the implementation of effective CLA strategies to help improve development effectiveness.
• Organizing meetings, workshops, and other events to facilitate the sharing of knowledge and lessons learned as requested by the CLA Manager.
• Disseminate learnings and recommendations to team members, partners, and other relevant stakeholders.
• Create presentations showcasing key lessons learned, best practices, and recommendations derived from implementation or research efforts.
• Engage stakeholders on findings from assessments, monitoring, and learning activities for group analysis, interpretation, dialogue, and a holistic perspective.
Support in analyzing, reporting and interpretation of adaptive management workflows.
• Develop and facilitate training on CLA tools and methodologies for staff and partners to promote evidence-based, knowledge-driven adaptive practices.
• Support the CLA collaboration with other USAID activities and Mercy Corps’ projects.
• Actively participating in the monthly partners MEL meetings.
• Provide guidance [if needed] to partners and other stakeholders on effective CLA activities and approaches.
• Any other duties as may be assigned.
Performance Monitoring and Evaluation
• Develop or update monitoring and evaluation data collection tools to capture learnings.
• Support collecting monitoring and evaluation data when needed.
• Analyzes monitoring and evaluation findings to capture and document lessons learned and ensure that these findings are communicated effectively to program staff and partners.
• Extract recommendations based on key findings from evaluations and assessments.
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
Supervision of other staff is not contemplated.
Accountability
Reports Directly To: The Collaboration, Learning, and Adaptation (CLA) Manager.
Works Directly With: The PQL Director, Senior MEL and IM Coordinator, MEL Coordinator, MEL Assistants, MEL officers, Senior IM Officer, IM Assistants, program team members, and partners.
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
• A bachelor’s degree in social sciences or a relevant field.
• At least 5 years of experience working in development, with at least two years with supporting adaptive management and cyclical project learning with program teams.
• Experience facilitating CLA activities and developing knowledge products.
• Familiarity with USAID’s CLA Framework.
• Experience working on USAID programs preferred.
• Strong analytical skills and problem-solving skills, including a demonstrated ability to effectively communicate strategies or plans to stakeholders and co-workers.