Temporary Technical Director - Agriculture, NRM, Markets & Livelihoods - flexible multiple locations (preference US and UK per timezone coverage)

Description

Location:Remote. Open to multiple Mercy Corps locations. Preference US and UK locations. Must be willing to work primarily U.S. East Coast work hours

Position Status: Temporary, Full-time, 

Duration: Approx. 18 weeks, mid-June to mid-October 2026

Salary Level: hiring range US $90,000 - $114,000 - commensurate on professional experience 

Closing date: Please submit application by June 7

Risk Level:Level 3      Level 2 XLevel 1 

Level 1: Likely to have no contact with participants or sensitive data) 

About Mercy Corps

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.

The Program / Department / Team

PRO-WASH & SCALE is a capacity strengthening and learning award funded by the United States Department of State. It is implemented by Save the Children and Mercy Corps (under a subaward to Save). The purpose of PRO-WASH & SCALE (PWS) is to strengthen the design, implementation, and overall effectiveness of food security and nutrition programs, with a focus on emergency contexts. Mercy Corps leads activities related to agriculture, livelihoods, natural resources management and market systems through the Food Security/Agriculture Systems team of the Technical Support, Evidence and Program Quality (TEQ) Unit.

The Integrated Seed Sector Development in Africa (ISSD Africa) program is a four-year (2023-2027) award funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and led by Wageningen Social and Economic Research (WSER) institute. The ultimate goal of ISSD Africa is to enhance reliable access of male and female smallholder farmers to sufficient quantities of quality seed of desired varieties at an affordable price. Mercy Corps leads two of four distinct action learning projects under the program: 1) Humanitarian seed response in fragile and conflict-affected states (partnering with SeedSystem) and 2) Seed business development in fragile contexts.

The Position

The Technical Director for Agriculture, NRM, Markets & Livelihoods will oversee all Mercy Corps PWS and ISSD Africa program direction, including management of three full-time technical advisors.

Under the PWS Award, the Technical Director is responsible for liaising with Save the Children, U.S. Department of State, program implementers, and relevant stakeholders to ensure coordinated activities in PWS’ target sectors. While leading on the agriculture, NRM, livelihoods and market systems components, the director will collaborate with the wider PWS team and partners on cross-sectoralpriorities. The role spans multiple countries and agencies within the DoS portfolio, with a strong focus on emergency and fragile contexts. Core responsibilities include leading and supporting capacity strengthening, knowledge sharing, learning documentation, and technical guidance to improve the design and effectiveness of food and nutrition security interventions. As the current USAID-funded PRO-WASH & SCALE award will transition to a new DoS award by August 2026, the director will play a central role in ensuring a smooth award close-out and start-up process.

The Technical Director will also provide overall oversight of Mercy Corps’ work under the ISSD Africa Award, including supporting project strategy, partner engagement, technical implementation, reporting, and budgeting. They will help strengthen coordination and alignment between ISSD Africa and PWS activities, particularly around seed systems and market-based programming.

In addition, the director will representMercy Corps with Department of State counterparts, ISSD Africa partners, and broader industry networks. The position advances strategic partnerships with academic institutions, governments, and local organizations; monitors emerging trends and best practices; and works closely with Mercy Corps’ Technical Excellence and Quality (TEQ) team to disseminate learning and resources across the organization.

Essential Responsibilities | PRO-WASH & SCALE Award (90% LOE)

PROGRAM MANAGEMENT 

• Oversee the close-out of the current USAID-funded PWS Award and start-up of the new DoS-funded Award, including finalizing Mercy Corps’ subaward with Save the Children and establishing program management, coordination, and workplanning systems to ensure implementation is on time, on target, and on budget.
• Provide overall strategic and technical leadership for PWS’ agriculture, NRM, livelihoods, and market systems portfolio, ensuring activities remain responsive to DoS and implementers’ priorities and are closely coordinated with Save the Children
• Liaise across operational departments including Human Resources, Talent Acquisition, Finance, Global Procurement, Travel, TEQ, and Legal on relevant program management activities.
• Serve as point person for all matters related to subaward execution, coordination, and amendments.
• Fulfill Mercy Corps’ Program Management Minimum Standards based on the organization-wide guide.
• Lead the drafting and review of relevant sections of annual and semi-annual reports, briefing materials, and strategic documents.

STRATEGY AND PLANNING 

• Support the development and execution of a distinctive strategic vision for improved capacity strengthening, partner and stakeholder engagement, research and learning for DoS implementers as it relates to agriculture, NRM, livelihoods and market systems, and cross-sectoral themes around IWRM, climate change, DRR, SBC, GESI, etc.  

• Lead internal and external communications and coordination activities to implement strategy. 

• Recognize opportunities for innovative action and new initiatives, leveraging PWS work to pursue additional resources/funding.   

PROGRAM IMPLEMENTATION

In coordination with PWS team members, consultants and other partners:  

• Identify, adapt, develop, and disseminate best practices, tools, guidance, technical resources, and lessons learned related to agriculture, NRM, livelihoods, market systems in humanitarian programming
• Provide technical guidance and support to implementing partners and stakeholders.
  Contribute to the implementation of research studies and learning initiatives
• Lead online and in-person trainings, webinars, stakeholder consultations, and peer-to-peer learning events.
• Provide technical oversight and quality assurance of all PWS-led resources, tools, and activities.
• Collaborate with communications, knowledge management, CLA advisors, graphic designers, and adult learning specialists to strengthen learning products, reports, courses, and dissemination strategies. 

TEAM MANAGEMENT 

• Supervise and support three full-time technical advisors and consultants, as needed.
• Develop team capacity, deepen understanding of roles and responsibilities, and support professional growth and career development.
• Promote accountability, communicate expectations clearly, and provide regular coaching and constructive feedback through one-on-ones and performance reviews.

MONITORING, EVALUATION AND IMPACT MEASUREMENT 

• Develop/refine M&E plan (ToC, Results Framework, indicators, targets) with PWS team.
• Lead and support activities to assess and document the impact of PWS technical capacity strengthening, research and knowledge sharing interventions.  

• Contribute to quarterly pause and reflect sessions, using M&E data to inform decisions.
• Support the maintenance of Mercy Corps’ PWS M&E systems, ensuring data is accurately captured, organized and available for adaptive management and reporting.  

FINANCE & COMPLIANCE MANAGEMENT  

• Manage program budget across multiple fund codes, including tracking expenditures, reviewing BvAs, developing pipelines, approving expenses, supporting budget amendments, and coordinating financial reporting with Mercy Corps’ finance team and Save the Children.
• Oversee systems ensuring effective, transparent, and compliant management of financial resources.
• Ensure compliance with donor and Mercy Corps financial, operational, and administrative regulations and procedures.
• Draft and/or review scopes of work for consultants and vendors, including review of technical quality, deliverables, and budgets.

REPRESENTATION, THOUGHT LEADERSHIP, AND PARTNERSHIP DEVELOPMENT  

• Maintain close working relationship with Save the Children, as PWS co-lead/prime, ensuring smooth coordination across all aspects of the award.
• Build and manage strategic partnerships with DoS-funded programs, donors, academic institutions, practitioner networks, and other key stakeholders.
• Represent Mercy Corps through conferences, webinars, and other thought leadership activities.
• Maintain strong communication and relationships with DoS, partners, and other stakeholders to ensure alignment, collaboration, and donor compliance.
• Promote innovative approaches to knowledge sharing, communications, and stakeholder engagement, while strengthening internal collaboration across Mercy Corps teams. 

Essential Responsibilities | ISSDAfrica (10% LOE) 

• Provide overall program oversight of Mery Corps’ work under the ISSDAfricaAward, ensuring program implementation is on time, target and budget  
• Provide strategic and technical guidance on project strategy, partner management, technical implementation, reporting, budgeting, and learning activities.

• Contribute to and/or review and sign-off on all final deliverables, ensuring technical soundness and high-quality standards 

• Supervise the ISSDAfrica Senior Advisor – Seed Systems 

• Ensure effective coordination of activities and resources between ISSD-Africa and PRO-WASH & SCALE. 

Supervisory Responsibility

Senior Advisor – Seed Systems for ISSD-Africa and PRO-WASH & SCALE (100%); PWS Resilient Agriculture Senior Advisor (100%), Market Systems Advisor (100%), Short-Term Technical Assistance and consultants. 

Accountability

Reports Directly To: Senior Director, Food Security TEQ

Works Directly With: All PRO-WASH & SCALE and ISSD Africa team members; other Mercy Corps TEQ staff, particularly Food Security & Nutrition and Economic Growth teams; relevant country teams

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

• Advanced degree at Masters level or above (M.A., M.S., MPP, MEM, MPA, MBA, or Ph.D.) or at least 10 years of work experience. 
• A minimum of 8 years of experience in agriculture, livelihoods, markets and/or NRM activities (including capacity strengthening and knowledge sharing) for international development and emergency projects, preferably complementary to food security and food aid commodity programs.
• Additional expertise in any of the following is preferred: permaculture, market development, IWRM, agricultural research, adult learning and human centered design 
• Experience and knowledge of Mercy Corps systems, processes and ways of working preferred
• Experience with monitoring and evaluation of activities to improve data collection, analysis and reporting along with informing adaptive management is preferred. 
• Previous experience managing multi-million-dollar donor-funded programs across multiple agencies and countries. 
• Proven success managing team members dispersed across countries and time zones, in remote working environments. 
• Demonstrated ability developing implementation tools and leading capacity strengthening or knowledge sharing events for multiple end users.
• Demonstrated ability of managing inter-organizational coordination, functioning productively within a consortium environment, and working with multiple stakeholders.
• Experience working directly with USAID or U.S. DoS at HQ and field level. 

Success Factors

The successful applicant will balance in-depth technical expertise in the agriculture, NRM, markets and livelihoods sectors with management of a global knowledge-sharing program for USG implementers. This requires strong networking, communication and negotiations skills as well as the leadership and confidence to make technical decisions. They will be self-motivated and able to think creatively about achieving capacity strengthening objectives for a global, multi-organizational target audience. The most successful Mercy Corps staff members have a strong commitment to teamwork and accountability, thrive in evolving and changing environments and make effective written and verbal communication a priority in all situations. 

Living Conditions / Environmental Conditions

This is a remote, temporary position that is open to any country in which Mercy Corps is operating.Must be willing to work primarily U.S. East Coast work hours

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

Team Engagement and Effectiveness 

Achieving our mission starts with how we build our team and collaborate. By bringing together individuals with a variety of experiences, backgrounds, and perspectives, we strengthen our ability to solve complex challenges and drive innovation. We foster a culture of trust and respect, where every team member is valued for their contributions, empowered to reach their full potential, and motivated to do their best work.

We recognize that building a strong and effective team is an ongoing process, and we remain committed to learning, improving, and growing together.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Mercy Corps is an equal opportunity employer committed to providing equal employment opportunities to all employees and qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, color, sex, sexual orientation, religion or belief, national origin, age, disability, marital status, veteran status, or any other characteristics protected under applicable law.

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 Interagency Misconduct Disclosure Scheme. 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 elearning 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 ([email protected]).