West Sumatra program manager

Program summary

Mercy Corps has worked in Indonesia since 1999, addressing the root causes of poverty and improving the quality of life for urban and coastal communities affected not only by hazards and conflicts, but by ongoing and entrenched barriers to economic development. Mercy Corps has worked in West Sumatra since 2003 on a number of health, disaster risk reduction, and emergency response programs.

- DIPECHO – Disaster Preparedness European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid Department: Mercy Corps will continue the work in West Sumatra through the 'DIPECHO-funded Community-based Disaster Management and Local Government Capacity Building in West Sumatra'.  The program is aimed at raising the awareness of all community members in two districts (Padang City and Agam) in West Sumatra and building the capacity of communities and district and provincial government actors to plan for and mitigate natural disasters.  Program activities include capacity building and training of communities, schools, and government agencies, as well as vulnerability and capacity assessments, hazard mapping, and mobilization of community resources.

- AIFDR – Funded by AusAid, the 'Resilient Villages: Building Back Better' program seeks to build the disaster resilience of Indonesian communities.  The program focuses on earthquake-safe house construction, and intends to understand how best to turn information about safe construction into action. It further seeks to tie in microfinance institutions and provides incentives to those who successfully construct their new homes according to earthquake standards.

- Mentawai - In addition, Mercy Corps is responding to earthquake and tsunami relief needs in devastated areas of the Mentawai Islands of West Sumatra through a large, multiple donor response. The program is concluding its initial phase of providing emergency relief to earthquake and tsunami-affected people in Mentawai while laying the foundations for them to rebuild their lives.  With ECHO funding, the focus of Mercy Corps’ response is now on rebuilding and strengthening water and sanitation options for IDPs in their temporary accommodations.  The Program Manager will also research and actively seek additional funding for Mentawai programming, particularly in the DRR sector.

General position summary

The West Sumatra Program Manager will be based in Padang, in the province of West Sumatra and will be directly responsible for program planning and oversight. S/he will supervise national managers of other programs operating in West Sumatra and act as Head of Office in Padang.

Responsibilities include:
- Rigorous planning, design, monitoring and evaluation, staff supervision, budget management, donor relations, report writing and staff management.
- Close engagement, partnership and capacity building with government, private sector, and community partners are critical.
- Leadership and mentoring to the Padang and Mentawai teams and other program managers and will be responsible for staff development.
- Participation in the Mercy Corps Indonesia management team, strategic planning and proposal writing is also required.
- Oversee the general operations of the West Sumatra office, ensuring that finance and procurement, etc., are carried out in accordance with Mercy Corps and donor regulations.

Essential job functions

Vision, leadership and strategy

- Lead the program team in identifying program strategies and driving innovation; key player in defining overall strategic planning for the West Sumatra program.
- Ensure linkages between on-going West Sumatra programming and wider Indonesian programming.

Program implementation

- Responsible for ensuring programs are implemented in ways responsive to the communities’ and governments’ priorities, in line with Mercy Corps principles and values and following Mercy Corps compliance procedures.
- Directly supervises the DIPECHO and AIFDR program managers and oversees, along with a national program manager, the Mentawai response; provides strategic direction to work plans, ensures programs are coordinating and provides vehicle for strategic discussion from the field teams to management and vice versa on implementation issues.
- Sub-grant management. Responsible for managing the sub grants issued to international and national NGOs, this will include reporting and program activity monitoring.

Team-building and staffing

- Ensure program staff are communicating; provide vehicle for cross-fertilization of programming.
- Assist with recruiting of key national staff and play a strong mentoring role in building national staff for nationalization of expatriate positions.

Representation and diplomacy

- Develop and maintain internal and external relationship to ensure program success, including MC regional and country offices and staff, international and local NGOs, government and military officials, donor community officials, vendors, media and the general public.

Reporting, monitoring and evaluation

- Establish and maintain effective program reporting, monitoring and evaluation systems for both internal and external use in coordination with the M&E team and program staff.

Communications

- Nurture appropriate MC public relations, visitor/ donor and agency relationship; represent Mercy Corps to national and international media in coordination w/ Resource Development and Communications units of Mercy Corps Headquarters.
- Organizational Learning: As part of Mercy Corps’ agency-wide Organizational Learning Initiative, all team members are responsible for spending 5% of their work time in formal and/or non-formal professional learning activities.
- Accountability to Beneficiaries: Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts towards accountability, specifically to the beneficiaries and to international standards guiding international relief and development work while actively engaging beneficiary communities as equal partners in the design, monitoring and evaluation of the field projects.

Knowledge and experience

- BA/S required; higher degree in management, international development or other relevant field preferred.
- Minimum 3 - 5 years of field experience, in positions of increasing responsibility.
- Prior experience in DRR in rural and urban settings required.
- Demonstrable expertise managing ECHO grants desired.
- Experience with developmental programming, particularly in the areas of DRR, capacity building, and training.
- Effective time management and organization skills, including priority setting and responding to program needs.
- Previous experience working in Indonesia and/or knowledge of the region preferred; Bahasa Indonesian language skills a plus.
- Effective interpersonal communication skills including: problem-solving skills, being proactive and taking initiative.