Program / Department Summary
The $41 million USAID Food for Peace Activity (Apolou) and the $5 million USAID Resilience Challenge Fund (RCF) Activity support agriculturalists, agro-pastoralists, and pastoralist households living across the districts of Amudat, Kotido, Kaabong, Karenga, and Moroto in Karamoja.
Apolou is implemented by a consortium of actors led by Mercy Corps, including Save the Children, Whave Solutions, four local partners (KAPDA, NARWOA and Riam Riam), TUNADO, FIDA Uganda, Strong Minds and Tufts University’s Feinstein International Centre (FIC). Apolou’s goal is to “improve the overall food and nutrition security of vulnerable households in Kaabong, Kotido, Moroto and Amudat districts within the Karamoja region,” and has major 4 objectives as follows:

• Adolescent girls, Pregnant and Lactating Women, and Children under 5 are nutritionally secure
• Reduced incidences of WASH related diseases
• Improved livelihoods and income support household food security
The RCF program works in the districts of Kaabong and Amudat, with the goal to “Improve the veterinary governance and increase public and private investment in disease prevention, surveillance, control and response systems to strengthen productive assets for improved resilience in Karamoja.” RCF has the following objectives:
• Increased domestic resource allocation into animal health services in Karamoja
• Central and local government develop animal health services capacity-strengthening plan for the Karamoja region
• Disease control plan for economically prioritized diseases (PPR and FMD) developed and implemented
• Private sector animal health development strategy developed and rolled out
General Position Summary
WASH Advisor will provide technical and strategic support to Apolou Purpose 3 WASH component, work directly with Apolou WASH partners to ensure that WASH activities are integrated into Apolou for greater impact, coordinated, well planned and monitored, implemented on time and scope. S/he will look at the sustainability of the approaches proposed by Apolou partners and provide feedback. In addition WASH Advisor will oversee capacity strengthening and building needs of WASH partners. WASH Advisor will be conducting regular monitoring of WASH sites and provide feedback on implementation to the Technical Director. S/he will participate in the development of WASH related SOPs, strategies and plans, monitor WASH performance indicators, ensure that all Apolou level planning and reporting tools for Purpose 3 are in place and kept updated. Position will not have direct supervision responsibilities but will work closely with key personnel. Position will require frequent travels to locations within Karamoja .

Essential Job Responsibilities
Strategy & Vision
• Work with the Apolou WASH Partners, Technical Director and Purpose Managers on WASH related strategies, ensuring that the interventions are adequately layered with other Apolou components and activities
• Participate in Apolou level technical and implementation strategies meetings and ensure Apolou partners comply with agreed ways forward.
• Ensure that Purpose 3 activities are not a stand alone component but integrated/layered into Apolou
• Whenever necessary, provide strategic support to partners to help them deliver their activities as per agreed work plan and achieve scale
• Advise on WASH interventions communication and advocacy strategy
• Participate in Apolou exit strategy discussions, lead discussions for WASH?
Program Implementation
• Identify, coordinate strategic training and capacity development opportunities for partners.
• Review workplans against Apolou targets, purpose 3 objectives and ensuring that activities are adequate coordinated and integrated into greater Apolou approach collaboration
• Monitor and provide technical expertise on all WASH Apolou activities, ensuring that those are layered and integrated into other Apolou purposes. Follow-up on agreed learnings and actions.
• Provide support in strengthening collaboration between WASH Partners and other purposes to enhance integration and coordination for greater overall impact
• Ensure social behavior change and gender initiatives are integrated into partners initiatives
• Ensure all Apolou level planning and reporting tools (DIP, WBS, AAT) are submitted by WASH partners on time and are maintained. Provide support in introducing the tools, participate in planning and review meetings, if necessary.
• Organising and conducting monthly monitoring visits, report on findings, capture lessons, provide recommendations for improvements and ensure partners follow.
• Ensure collaboration/layering plan is in place and followed
• Support Program Quality team in follow-up on feedback from internal audits or review processes; recommend actions and trainings if possible.
• Comply with PM@MC best practice in reporting, contributing to a culture of adaptive management and effective monitoring and evaluation, support Program Quality unit in maintaining the filing system.
Partners Coordination
• Promote accountability, communicate expectations and provide constructive feedback informally and formally via regular communication.
• Monitor WASH activities plans, ensuring that those are on scope, on time and on budget
• Create and sustain a work environment in a spirit of partnership where all WASH Partners strive to achieve excellence towards meeting Apolou overarching goal. That will also include collaboration with respect to Partners organisational autonomy, maintaining mutual trust and efficient communication channels between the Partners and within the broader Apolou team.
• Recognise needs of capacity strengthening and building in WASH sector, recommend actions and follow-up on those.
• Liaise with other Purpose Managers and Team Leaders to ensure WASH activities are integrated into Apolou interventions.
Gender and Youth Integration
• Ensure that WASH activities apply gender equity and youth empowerment principles, and are responsive to the varying needs of men and boys; women and girls; and other vulnerable groups
• Increase male participation in WASH related activities
Finance & Compliance Management
• Review and approve regular narrative reports as required in the subaward agreement. Share feedback with the partner on the contents of the report.
• Approve monthly workplans and budgets to inform monthly advance payments to the partners.
Influence & Representation
• Represent Mercy Corps’ Apolou approach at key government, coordination and advocacy platforms.
• Represent Apolou in WASH related fora
• Proactively collaborate with other USAID funded activities implementing WASH initiatives in the Karamoja region
Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning
• Participate in the program reviews, assessments, monitoring activities, learning and evaluations
• Ensure activity tracking tools as updated per Apolou reporting timelines
• Collaborate with the MEL team on the design and implementation of the Apolou CLA/Learning Agenda
• Coordinate with Apolou’s Environmental Compliance Officer to ensure WASH partners are compliant with USAID requirements in their implementation and reporting
Ethics and Integrity
• All Mercy Corps staff are expected to behave ethically and demonstrate highest integrity in their professional and personal life. Mercy Corps has zero tolerance to any form of fraud, corruption, abuse, harassment or exploitation. Any breach of our policies or misconduct will lead to disciplinary action or may lead to termination
Security
• Ensure data protection policies are adhered to, establishing security controls for software, hardware and archive beneficiary databases
• 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.
• Sensitise communities on Apolou’s CARM system and encourage them to share feedback through the promoted channels
Other:
• 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
• Other duties as assigned
Supervisory Responsibility: None
Accountability
Reports Directly to: Technical Director
Works Directly with: Purpose 3 partners, PQP team, NRM team (including Environmental Compliance), Sub-awards team, District Implementation Team and Technical Team, Gender and Youth Team, MEL and other Mercy Corps program, finance and operations staff

Knowledge and Experience
• Doctor of Veterinary Medicine with 2-3 years’ direct experience partnering with governments on animal health and disease surveillance systems, experience working with public health programs is an added advantage.
• Willingness to work in the field with agro-vet shops, Community animal health workers, kraal leaders and communities;
• Possess the ability to interact effectively with a wide range of partners; private sector, government and civil society
• Basic understanding of and experience of working with Resilience concepts
• Excellent analytical skills and experience working on livestock research
• Skills in team work, holding community consultations and organizational development;
• Excellent reporting, communication and representation skills
• Skills in networking, team-working, and community consultations
• Good spoken and written English. Fluency in Ngakarimojong and Pokot is an advantage

Success Factors
The success of the Livestock Officer will be based on the ability to work to Improve veterinary governance and increased public and private investment in disease prevention, surveillance, control and response systems to strengthen productive assets for improved resilience in Karamoja, the second will be the degree to which the person promotes and captures learning with her/his team, institutionalizing activity reviews, identifying and evaluating preconceptions and promoting a culture of inquisition. The third success factor will be the degree to which that person drives results, making critical decisions and producing scheduled outputs at deadline and to the expected quality.