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
Mercy Corps’ has developed a Crisis Analytics function to support our programming in the most complex contexts, including Syria, Libya, Democratic Republic of Congo and others. The Humanitarian Access Team, Syria (HAT) supports Mercy Corps’ in-country programming as well as the wider humanitarian response in the region through the provision of quality, timely and relevant analytical products.
Mercy Corps’ crisis analytics teams aggregate and analyze data to improve decision making and access in complex crises. The teams directly contribute to data-driven decision making by layering information from primary sources, open sources and responders’ programmatic data, where it is analysed by subject matter experts and data scientists. This analysis is grounded in Mercy Corps’ status as an operational NGO, keeping our products constructive and relevant for humanitarian responders and donors within a given crisis. The HAT also serves as a real-time information hub; vets potential partners; assesses programmatic, partner, and operational risk; identifies and maps stakeholders; and works with internal partners to better enable data-driven decision making.
Written HAT products range from daily updates during high-intensity periods, to regular weekly Whole-of-Syria summaries, to in-depth thematic reports and scenario planning.
The Position
The Lead Quantitative Analyst is a pivotal position within the team. They are expected to bring and maintain a comprehensive knowledge of the dynamics of the Syrian conflict while also developing new methodologies for analysis on the Syrian context. The Lead Quantitative Analyst works with the Director and other regional program teams and represents HAT to external stakeholders and forums to present professionally and distil the ongoing analytical outputs.
They will utilize their understanding of new predicitive methods, quantitative models and Anticipatory Action frameworks, to identify trends and issues for the team to monitor and explore and assist programs plan and design humanitarian response. These outputs will improve the ability of Mercy Corps and the humanitarian community to alleviate suffering.
The Lead Quantitative Analyst will work closely with the HAT Director to maintain a high level of analytical rigor within the team, and provide context to the humanitarian response.
New methodologies developed by the Lead Quantitative analyst may also be used by other regional HAT teams, consequently there will also be regular communication with Mercy Corps regional analytical teams to implement unified analytical approaches across the organization.
Essential Responsibilities
OVERALL
- Represent the Syria HAT and present its outputs externally with key stakeholders.
- Ensure high analytical rigor and contextual accuracy in the development of the team’s products
- Identify, track and investigate new or emerging issues of relevance to the humanitarian responders in Syria and the wider region.
- Manage quantitative projects within the larger analytical team, as well as working independently on their own products.
- Liaises with Mercy Corps country-team management as well as regional management to ensure the relevance of HAT products and sharing of methodological approaches.
- Build the contextual understand of all members of the team.
- Build networks with analytical partners.
ANALYSIS
- Develop and maintain quantitative models, forecasting models within but not limited to the themes of economics, climate and security.
- Commission studies and analyses on the Syrian context across a range of thematic topics.
- Develop research proposals improving Mercy Corps’ and the humanitarian communities’ ability to respond within the Syrian and regional context.
STRATEGY AND PLANNING
- Work with the regional senior leadership team to develop and support the regional strategy.
- Mobilize support services and risk management resources to enable country and regional leadership teams to execute their respective strategic priorities.
- Lead the development and administration of regional and country level reports on key finance, operations and human resources indicators.
- Lead the development of Anticipatory Action (AA) methodologies for regional and country teams
REGIONAL SYSTEMS AND SUPPORT FUNCTIONS
- Support regional Mercy Corps HAT teams to include quantitative models and AA methods within their analysis frameworks
- Provide dedicated support to country teams in the event of an emergency or start up of a complex program that requires additional resources.
HUMAN RESOURCES, SAFEGUARDING AND DIVERSITY
- Support Mercy Corps global and regional initiatives for human resources, including safeguarding and diversity, and talent development;
- Collaborate with the people team to promote staff access to high quality learning opportunities, with a special emphasis on national team member development;
- Assist with the on-boarding of senior team members, ensuring they are set up for success and familiar with agency systems, procedures, and protocols.
RISK MANAGEMENT
- Engage and support countries across the region to ensure that adequate risk management systems are in place;
- Collaborate with country leadership to support preparedness and response to major disruptive events;
- Engage with country teams on the internal audit process to track findings and ensure country team compliance with IA findings and recommendations;
- Engage with country level Ethics and Assurance managers as well as the global Ethics and Assurance department to track and analyze trends and needs across countries;
Supervisory Responsibility
Line manager to two quantitative analysts/consultants.
Accountability
Reports Directly To: HAT Director
Works Directly With: Program teams and HAT team.
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
- Excellent written English.
- Analytical experience within a think-tank, UN, or NGO experience; experience analyzing the Syrian conflict is a plus.
- Primary and secondary research/academic experience in political science, sociology, economics, or conflict analysis.
- Extensive experience living/working in MENA region is an asset.
- Masters in quantitative analysis or related field, Ph.D an asset.
- Expert knowledge of R, including developing scripts, models and other forms of quantitative analysis essential.
- Expert knowledge of GIS and Geospatial Analysis.
- Proven history of Academic publications.
- Experience in remote sensing analysis (image classification; multispectral index construction)
- Experience conducting mixed methods research, including tool creation and survey delivery in humanitarian field settings.
Success Factors
The successful candidate will work with the Director to foster an environment of excellence, curiosity and ambition. They will encourage innovation and risk-taking where it can improve humanitarian response in the region. Their expertise and nuanced knowledge of the Syrian context will be reflected in products produced by them and their team. The Lead Quantitative Analyst will be viewed by external stakeholders as a reliable, professional source of information.
Living Conditions / Environmental Conditions
The position is based in Amman, Jordan or other Middle East Mercy Corps locations and it requires up to 40% travel to support country programs, which may include travel to insecure locations where freedom of movement is limited and areas where amenities are limited.
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
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 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.**