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Consultancy - Development of Guideline for Safe programming in Partnerships
Mercy CorpsUnited States, United Statesfull_timeVerifiedPosted 3 Mar 2026
About the role
Project Location(s): Remote Background: Mercy Corps Safe, Diverse and Inclusive (SDI) commitment is a shared pledge to promote safety, diversity and inclusion across its programs and operations. The commitment urges the integration of an essential lens for the delivery of safe and inclusive programs, and it promotes and nurtures an inclusive culture and operating environment that upholds safety, diversity and accountability to both staff members and those in the communities that we serve particularly those most marginalized. For there to be a thriving SDI ecosystem that contributes to inclusive and resilient communities, Mercy Corps envisions accountable leadership and governance, inclusive teams and operations, equitable partnerships, and safe and inclusive programs. Each of these initiatives is crucial, and it is important to build a wide and coherent understanding of how each of these initiatives can be sustainably implemented and embedded within existing practice. To take action on this, the East & Southern Africa Region has identified the need to explore Safe and Inclusive Programs as an area of focus for the ACT for Impact grant. To affirm this prioritization, rapid consultations were held with some countries in the region to understand the gaps and learning needs around safe programming, and there was an inclination towards providing clarity on how to practically implement safe and inclusive programs through partnerships.The ESA region represents the largest portfolio within Mercy Corps, reaching thousands of community members through integrated humanitarian and development programming. However, despite this scale of engagement, many countries in the region continue to experience compounding natural and human-made crises, including in Sudan, South Sudan, Kenya and Ethiopia. These overlapping shocks underscore the critical importance of working in close partnership with local community-based, civil society, and private-sector led organizations as core actors in program implementation that go beyond technical or benefit-focused approaches. Instead, they should aim for meaningful and sustainable collaboration that is inclusive, participatory, responsive to diverse community needs, and intentionally assesses and mitigates risks of harm, exploitation, and abuse. Local partners bring essential contextual knowledge, trusted community relationships, and adaptive capacity that is vital for timely, effect, and conflict-sensitive responses in complex operating environments. The region is therefore committed to systematically embedding safe programming components including GESI, Safeguarding, Protection, and Community Accountability and Reporting mechanisms (CARM) - throughout the partnership management process, from partner identification and capacity strengthening to joint implementation, monitoring, and learning. By doing so, Mercy Corps aims to strengthen inclusive partnerships across the region that are not only operationally effective but also accountable, ethical, and protective of communities and staff. This approach is firmly grounded in Mercy Corps’ ten-year Pathway to Possibility (P2P) global strategy and its institutional commitment to Safe, Diverse, and Inclusive (SDI) programming across its strategic outcomes. Purpose / Project Description: Recognizing the wide and varied nature of partnerships across the region, the grant will specifically prioritize partnerships within Market Systems Development programming. In crisis-affected and fragile contexts, MSD partnerships with private-sector actors, community-based organizations, and other local system-influencers enable more adaptive, locally owned solutions that remain sustainable beyond project timeframes. This project will therefore focus on developing a practical guideline to integrate safe programming into private sector actors’ partnership involved in implementing MSD-based programs. The proposed guideline will operationalize the region’s SDI commitments, strengthen the application of technical expertise, and enable standardized, high-quality integration of safe programming elements across current and future partnerships, starting from program design up to the achievement of meaningful partnerships, community reach, and sustainable outcomes.The guideline is intended to serve as a standard reference document for all ESA countries when planning partnerships with private sector actors specifically in MSD programs. The development of the guideline will involve co-creation with a sample of implementing partners working in fragile markets and contexts across the above-mentioned countries, to ensure the document is relevant and feasibl
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