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.
Program/Department Summary
Mercy Corps has worked in Palestine since 1986 and currently operates across Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. Mercy Corps works to empower Palestinians to meet their basic needs and overcome the effects of the humanitarian crises, as well as contribute to improving economic opportunities in the long term to become more self-sufficient and civically engaged, to live with greater dignity and create a brighter future. We believe women and youth are vital stakeholders in this vision and we prioritize programming that empowers and enables them to be leaders in their communities. The Palestine program currently has a total budget of USD $45 million, representing 10 active grants funded by USAID, BHA, ECHO, Global Affairs Canada, SIDA, and others. The country portfolio focuses on humanitarian response with a view to aligning with the nexus by integrating sustainable development and durable solutions approaches, as well as longer term development programs focusing on Palestinian youth to ensure lasting impact.
Mercy Corps is seeking a Senior Social and Behavior Change (SBC) Specialist to lead design and support social and behavior change communications approaches and execution for the five-year USAID-funded Pioneers-Raedat Activity. The proposed program will contribute to womenโs empowerment in the West Bank and Gaza by increasing women's access to leadership opportunities and enhancing the enabling environment to be more receptive for women's participation in civic, political, and economic decision making. This will be achieved through 1) enhancing womenโs representation and leadership capabilities; 2) improving equitable and safe enabling environments for women; and 3) increasing the adoption of inclusive social norms and workplace rights.
The Position
The Senior Social and Behavior Change (SBC) Specialist will lead the conceptualization, development, and implementation of social and behavior change (SBC) interventions focused on changing perceptions and behaviors to support womenโs empowerment and create transformational changes in gender relations at the family, community, and national levels and in different sectors of the economy, academia, social and political areas as well as in media. This will include working effectively and collaboratively with Activity team members to incorporate SBC approaches in work streams and objectives. They will identify evidence-based strategies to reduce social and behavioral factors that contribute to gender inequalities, including gender-based violence and norms that perpetuate inequalities. They will develop an SBC strategy and implementation plan and monitor the progress of activities. They will also support communications related to activities and learning.
Essential Job Responsibilities
TECHNICAL LEADERSHIP
- Responsible for leading the design of formative research to better understand current norms and behaviors. This may include knowledge, attitudes and practices assessments, barrier analyses, social media scans, and other studies.
- Lead SBC strategy development, including community engagement, social mobilization, and communications campaigns.
- Develop a communications and advocacy strategy to promote equitable social norms and address harmful norms that contribute to challenges faced by women leaders and decision makers.
- Provide technical guidance and coordination for participatory design processes and implementation.
PROGRAM MANAGEMENT
- Develop evidence-based and contextually appropriate SBC strategies and interventions that promote gender equality and the advancement of womenโs leadership and draw on proven approaches and results of studies, baseline data and formative research.
- Develop an implementation plan for the overall SBC and communications and advocacy strategy and work with the Activity team and partners to ensure that a focus on changing attitudes and behaviors, including those in virtual environments, is integrated into all activities.
- Advise on technical and operational issues related to SBC approaches and interventions. This includes adaptation, field testing, and use of approaches and tools.
- Ensure that SBC communication and advocacy strategies are tailored to diverse audiences and incorporate adolescent and adult learning methodologies.
MONITORING, EVALUATION, LEARNING, AND REPORTING
- Support the development of effective SBC M&E indicators and evaluation designs.
- Document SBC intervention and community mobilization approaches, successes, and challenges to support programmatic and sector-wide learning. This will include the continual re-evaluation of program activities and information, with resulting activity adjustments in keeping with new insights.
- Lead SBC learning activities and document learning; prepare reports, presentations, short articles for publication to disseminate learning. Ensure timely and quality completion of all relevant SBCC program deliverables and reporting.
- Make recommendations based on assessment findings and regular monitoring to inform program strategies to better meet the needs of the program participants.
PARTNERSHIP AND CAPACITY STRENGTHENING
- Develop capacity strengthening plans and strategies for staff and partners staff to advance knowledge and skills in SBC.
- Provide training, mentoring and technical guidance for the implementation of the SBC communications and advocacy strategy.
- Collaborate with staff and partners to identify opportunities for enhancing SBC strategies and their implementation.
COORDINATION, INFLUENCE, AND REPRESENTATION
- Develop relationships and linkages with organizations implementing other donor-funded programs focused on SBC in Palestine.
- Collect and share learnings and best practices from this program both internally and externally.
- Identify, build, and manage collaborative partnerships with consortium partners, donors, and other stakeholders.
- Communicate effectively to ensure overall project targets and donor obligations are met.
Supervisory ResponsibilityExpected to supervise direct reports. The number of direct and indirect reports is to be determined.
Accountability
Reports Directly To: Pioneers- Raedat Activity Chief of Party
Works Directly With: Activity Team, Program Managers, Program Performance and Quolity Unit, Partner Organizations, HQ Regional Program Teams, HQ and Regional Technical Support Unit.
Accountability to Participants and Stakeholders
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 development work, while actively engaging program participant communities as equal partners in the design, monitoring and evaluation of our field projects.
Minimum Qualification & Transferable Skills
- Bachelorโs degree in social sciences, communications, media, marketing, journalism, public relations or a related discipline.