GESI and Safeguarding Advisor

GESI and Safeguarding Advisor

Location: Kathmandu

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, we partner to put bold solutions into action – helping people triumph over adversity and build stronger communities from within. Now, and for the future. Mercy Corps has been operating in Nepal since 2005, implementing programs in food security, agriculture, market development, financial services, youth engagement, climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction. We take a systems-based approach in our programming, with the aim of improving the lives and potential of vulnerable individuals and communities across Nepal.

General Position Summary

The GESI and Safeguarding Advisor (‘Advisor’) will spearhead the Gender, Equity, and Social Inclusion (GESI) initiatives within the Mercy Corps Nepal (MCN) country office and program portfolio. Additionally, the Advisor will contribute to advancing the organization’s Safe, Diverse, and Inclusive (SDI) workplan and approach, which integrates interconnected areas such as Safeguarding and GDI (Gender, Diversity, and Inclusion), aligning with Mercy Corp’s global Pathway to Possibility strategy.

The Advisor will be responsible for tracking workplan progress, moving strategic objectives and activities forward, and critically, engaging a wide range of team members in this work – including leadership, relevant technical leads, and focal points and working groups – while also continuing to build engagement and ownership across the country office. The Advisor will ensure an adaptive and participatory approach to their work overall that responds to team member feedback, the evolving needs of the country office, and learnings. The Advisor will also work with regional and global colleagues to share progress and learnings, incorporate best practices and guidance, and contribute to thought leadership efforts as well as the development of tools and resources.

Essential Job Responsibilities

The specific duties and responsibilities of the GESI and Safeguarding Advisor include, but are not limited to, the following

Strategy and Country Level Safeguarding and GESI Workplan

• Establish, Lead, manage and follow up on country level GESI and safeguarding workplan informed by Country level/program level GESI and Safeguarding analysis, reflecting progress minimum standards implementation through collaboration with program leads and heads of departments.
• Act as a resource to senior management teams to ensure they fulfil their responsibilities and obligations under Mercy Corps’ GESI &safeguarding policies
• Facilitate the integration of GESI and Safeguarding measures into country level and program level strategic and annual planning efforts.
• Lead the GESI working group within the program, ensuring regular meetings to develop guidance, plan activities, share lessons learned, and incorporate learning into program activities.
• Ensure that the program team is aware of Mercy Corps’ GESI and Safeguarding Minimum Standards, and that these are adhered to, tracked, and documented.
• Representant GESI and safeguarding processes and workstreams at SMT meetings.
• Conduct/Lead/oversee the technical design and analysis process for GESI analysis, . Work closely with the programme team to integrate the findings from the GESI analysis into the Theory of change, program design, project’s implementation workplan and milestones.
• Provide technical backstopping to programs to implement Mercy Corps’ GESI minimum standards across programs, ensuring alignment with organizational strategies, and coordinating the mainstreaming of GESI action plans.
• Promote and centralize GESI in all project activities and management frameworks, including for project proposals, approach.
• Work closely with MEL team to incorporate GESI indicators into MEL frameworks developing GESI-sensitive frameworks to measure GESI outcomes. Support MEL to carry out gender, Safeguarding and power analysis; and conduct monitoring and evaluation activities using participatory methodologies that promote gender equality, social inclusion and mitigate safeguarding risks.
• Ensure GESI indicators are analyzed and reported on a regular basis, including during program review meetings, and make necessary programmatic adaptations to ensure Gender-responsive programming.
• Lead periodic GESI analysis of projects and country programme.
• Conduct GESI reflection sessions for program and project level on a regular basis on the GESI integration issue, challenges and successes for strengthening GESI and SDI workstream integration and capturing learning.
• Safe, Diverse, and Inclusive (SDI) and Gender, Diversity, and Inclusion GDI Lead SDI workplan, approach, and working group, including tracking workplan progress, adapting as necessary (including annual revision), ensuring regular report-outs as outlined in the approach, and convening the SDI working group regularly.
• Build strategic vision of MCN’s SDI work, identifying areas for improvement and growth, which may include increasing integration across GESI, CARM, Safeguarding, and GDI, impact measurement.
• Incorporating programmatic GESI work, strengthening shared priorities, engaging partners and increasing coordination with the localization strategy, and other items based on country office priorities and needs.
• Develop tools, resources, and guidance as necessary to support workstreams on SDI and GDI.
• Engage in relevant working groups and communities of practice at the country, regional, and global levels, as well as relevant groups and platforms in Nepal.
• Lead, document the document the learning and successes into knowledge products and thought leadership efforts and share it with country with country team, regional and global, (eg: communities of practices). Participate in business development efforts by integrating SDI-related best practices, global minimum standards, insights, and activities into program design. Contribute to design workshops, proposal reviews, feedback sessions, budget formulation, and other relevant discussions, as required based on the specific opportunity.
• Bring key principles to this work overall, including accountability, protection, safety and well-being, and do-no-harm.

Capacity Strengthening & Team Management

• Ensure relevant focal points (e.g. GESI Officers and safeguarding focal) and working groups are active, functional and receive adequate support; review and adapt structure as needed based on country office needs and staffing.
• Ensure onboarding materials are up-to-date and conduct orientations to new team members. SDI workstream areas.
• Strengthen capacity of MCN and partner organizations in GESI, and Safeguarding approaches and integration in programs/ operations.
• Work closely with Human Resources department to ensure SDI/GDI principles are incorporated in position descriptions and support HR with related workstreams including diversity and inclusion in recruitment, hiring, and retention.
• Support proposal development team and the program team to incorporate relevant Mercy Corps Minimum Standards in proposal development and program design as well as ongoing program implementation; work with teams on understanding and adoption of relevant standards by providing orientations, ongoing refreshers, and monitoring progress.

Others

• Conduct himself/herself both professionally and personally in such a manner as to bring credit to Mercy Corps and to not jeopardize its humanitarian mission.
• Mercy Corps as a humanitarian agency is expected to response as and when crisis and humanitarian situation engulfs. As an MC employee, all staff are expected to be part of humanitarian and emergency response in addition to their regular roles and responsibilities in such situations.
• Other duties as assigned by the direct Supervisor, Director of Programs and or the Country Director

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.

Organizational Learning

• As part of our commitment to organizational learning and in support of our understanding that learning organizations are more effective, efficient, and relevant to the communities they serve, we expect all team members to commit 5% of their time to learning activities that benefit Mercy Corps as well as themselves.

Accountability to Beneficiaries

• Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts toward accountability, specifically to our 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 our field projects.
• Team members are expected to conduct themselves in a professional manner and respect local laws, customs and MC’s policies, procedures, and values always and in all in-country venues.

Supervisory Responsibility

• Technical supervisory line to GESI and Safeguarding officers/ focal points

Accountability

• Reports Directly To: Country Director
• Works Directly With: Director of Programs, Program Managers, Leadership Team, Head of Operations, relevant focal points (Safeguarding, SDI/GDI, and GESI), HR Manager, Regional GESI, Safeguarding, and SDI/GDI Advisors

Knowledge and Experience

• Master’s degree in social sciences, Gender Studies, GBV, protection, or relevant field in social sector.
• Minimum 5 years of experience of working in gender and / or safeguarding/ PSEAH in programs with national or international NGOs.
• Experience designing and delivering GESI/ safeguarding training to diverse audiences, including subaward partners, senior management, community members and other stakeholders
• In-depth understanding of gender, age, caste, and other significant socio-cultural factors in the context of inclusion, safety, and accountability – both with programming and internal operations.
• Demonstrated ability to prioritize effectively, balancing time-sensitive tasks with longer-term strategic work, and to communicate these priorities to teams, colleagues, and leadership.
• Experience advocating for related issues with colleagues and leadership and creating buy-in and ownership.
• Proven expertise in leading the collection, analysis, and integration of information from diverse sources, utilizing participatory methods where applicable, and synthesizing insights into actionable outputs such as workplans, strategy documents, and comprehensive reports. Proficient facilitation skills with the ability to communicate confidently and deliver information or arguments in a clear, compelling, and persuasive manner.
• Capability to collaborate effectively within a diverse team, demonstrating sensitivity to the environment and cultural contexts.
• Proven attention to detail and a commitment to precision, coupled with the ability to work both independently and collaboratively with team members.
• Expertise in designing and delivering capacity-building sessions utilizing adult learning methodologies.
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills; ability to develop good relationships with government stakeholders, donors and a wide range of actors required.
• Effective writing and organizational skills for report development, identifies lessons learned, analysis and develop presentations.
• Proficiency in computer skills.

Success Factors

The successful GESI and Safeguarding Advisor will have a strong technical background combined with leadership skills, project management capacities, and strategic thinking. They will have an ability to engage colleagues at all levels – including leadership – in inclusion and accountability, facilitating conversations and thinking around challenging but important topics, and leading the process of turning reflections and learnings into action. They will have experience in working with diverse teams and capacity strengthening, including with team members they do not directly manage. Multi-tasking, prioritizing, problem solving, attention to detail, and strategic vision are essential. They will have an ability to think creatively about inclusion and accountability, and to take an evaluative approach to trying new things. The most successful Mercy Corps team members have a strong commitment to teamwork and accountability, thrive in changing environments, and make effective written and verbal communication a priority.

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 & 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 The Misconduct Disclosure Scheme (misconduct-disclosure-scheme.org). 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 Ethics policies and reporting misconduct | Mercy Corps and values at all times. Team members must complete mandatory Code of Conduct eLearning courses upon hire and annually.

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).