Jobs and Careers

Temporary Director, Caribbean Resilience Initiative (CRI) - remote various locations

Mercy Corps

United States, United StatesRemotefull_timeVerifiedPosted 18 Jun 2025

About the role

Closing date: Submit application by July 2

Duration: 5 months

Location: remote - requirement to arrange working within Atlantic hours

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.

Program / Department Summary

Climate change severely and disproportionately impacts Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in the Caribbean. Worsening environmental risks like rising and warming seas, lengthening dry seasons, shortening wet seasons mean that Caribbean SIDS bear the brunt of the impacts of climate change, even though their carbon footprint is small relative to the world’s largest carbon producers.Catastrophic hurricanes and flooding continue to intensify and occur more frequently, requiring new and highly localized approaches to traditional natural disaster response. Preparedness, response and recovery must move past treating these as unpredictable singular events, and instead build long-term resilience to these intensifying seasonal hazards.Caribbean SIDS like Saint Lucia and Jamaica, as well as territories like Puerto Rico and US Virgin Islands, economically depend on sectors vulnerable to climate patterns like fishing, agriculture and tourism. Natural resources like coral reefs, mangrove forests and fresh water systems critical to both the ecology of these islands as well as their economies are deteriorating. Without intervention, annual losses are estimated to reach $22 billion by 2050. Caribbean SIDS need resilience strategies that will enable these countries and their largely coastal communities to survive and thrive through the climate crisis.The Caribbean Basin Resilience Initiative identifies and scales successful strategies that improve resilience for vulnerable communities across the Caribbean SIDS and territories.

General Position Summary

The Acting Director for CRI will work with the Mercy Corps program team as well as our local partner organizations to oversee all operations and programming implemented under this multi-country initiative. This includes oversight and management of a remote and disparate team and coordination with regional and headquarters teams.

CRI activities are implemented across the region, including infrastructure programming in Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, St. Lucia, Jamaica, and St. Kitts and Nevis and remotely implemented livelihoods programming in Antigua & Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica , Dominican Republic, Grenada, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Trininad & Tobago, and the Bahamas

. The structure is remote/decentralized with a heavy emphasis on local partnership engagement.

During the assignment period, the primary ongoing activities under CRI include:Ongoing Programming

Startup of the Caribbean United/SCEG Economic Opportunities program (this is a US Department of State funded program)

Continue hiring/onboarding process for new team members hired under this structure
Early program implementation activities, including development of SOPs, development/revision of implementation plans, MEL plans, etc.
Support design and kick off of regional competitive RFP process, in compliance with Mercy Corps’ and USG subaward policies, which will provide up to 12 community-based organizations with subgrants under the USG program.

Oversight of ongoing implementation of the Takeda-funded PRIME program, in collaboration with PM, establishing resilient infrastructure across four vulnerable Caribbean jurisdictions (St Lucia, USVI, St Kitts and Nevis, and Jamaica). This four year program is in its second year, and critical activities ongoing during the STA period are: