Engagement of Enumerators (COMITAS Program in Adamawa and Taraba State) at Mercy Corps Nigeria

Mercy Corps is a leading global organization powered by the belief that a better world is possible. 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. Mercy Corps works in fragile and conflict-affected environments. While we recognize that these are difficult places to operate, we believe that transitional environments – countries affected by civil wars, economic and political crisis, or natural disasters – offer tremendous opportunities for positive change. Since the late 1990s, Mercy Corps has managed over 100 peacebuilding projects in over 30 countries and regions, making Mercy Corps a true leader in the field. Mercy Corps currently has 27 active peace and conflict programs in 15 countries.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Engagement of Enumerators for COMITAS Program in Adamawa and Taraba State

Location: Adamawa and Taraba
Employment Type: Contract

Project Description

• Mercy Corps has been present in Nigeria since 2012, focusing its interventions on humanitarian assistance, economic recovery and development, conflict mitigation and peacebuilding. Considering the protracted conflicts between farmer and herder communities in Adamawa State, Nigeria, competing claims to land, water and other natural resources are at the root of these growing tensions.
• Indeed, pressure on natural resources has increased due to demographic growth, expanding human settlements, overgrazing, erosion, privatization of land, year-round farming practices, environmental degradation, and climate change. In many instances, traditional conflict resolution mechanisms that play significant roles in mitigating these resource-based conflicts locally have become overwhelmed. Besides, low levels of trust in authorities by communities due to widespread inaction, impunity and perceived biases or reactive responses by the government to shared natural resource conflicts complicate the tensions further.
• Through funding from the EU, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), Search for Common Ground (Search), and Mercy Corps have designed a comprehensive and integrated approach (COMITAS) that builds on the comparative strengths of each organization to contribute to the mitigation of conflicts over natural resources between farmer and herder communities. This program is developed around 4 interconnected objectives:
  • Strengthen traditional conflict resolution.
  • Improve trust in authorities.
  • Enhance collaboration on natural resource management and
  • Improve intra and inter-communal perceptions.
• Mercy Corps is leading the implementation of objective 3, which focuses on enhancing collaboration on natural resource management. Mercy Corps aims to build the capacity of local government authorities in natural resource management (NRM) to facilitate their collaboration with communities towards sustaining concrete natural resource initiatives that communities will develop. The collaborations that the program is enabling between communities and authorities will improve communities’ trust and confidence in government, promote collaborative natural resource management and governance, enhance livelihoods, and improve social cohesion and conflict management between farmer and herder communities in Adamawa and Taraba states.

Project Location:

• Demsa, Numan, Lamurde, Girie, Shelleng, Guyuk and Mayo-Belwa LGAs in Adamawa state;Zing and Lau LGAs in Taraba state.

Position Objectives

• Mercy Corps COMITAS project seeks highly motivated individuals who believe deeply in Mercy Corps mission and can display a record of results and achievement of working closely with community/traditional leaders and institutions to support local peace building initiatives in various local contexts, especially in data collection.
• Enumerators will have the responsibility of conducting interviews and facilitating community-level information gathering to compile insight on conflict dynamics, mainly as they are related to resource-based violence.
• Different criteria include but not limited to experience working in the project locations and carrying out our relevant research activities, previous engagement with key stakeholders/gatekeepers of target communities as well as a contextual understanding of and familiarity with the local language of defined data collection area would be important for working as an enumerator for the COMITAS grant.
• Also, enumerators will support Mercy Corps COMITAS program data collection for reconnaissance surveys, Baseline, Midline, and end-line surveys, perception surveys, dispute and conflict tracking, and community-level conflict analysis workshops.

Role of the Enumerator
The field enumerators will be primarily responsible for collecting qualitative and quantitative field data, entering data using digital platforms (e.g. CommCare), and any other responsibilities for which he/she may be called upon to carry out. The data collection process may be carried out through one-on-one interviews, and focus group discussions (FDGs) using an electronic data collection tool designed by Mercy Corps.

• Enumerators will be expected at all times to follow sampling methods as directed by Mercy Corps.
• Compile, record, and code information derived from specified forms into a predefined form or database.
• Ensure that the supervisor is kept abreast of completed assignments and progress.
• Identify and report any issues that may arise while attempting to obtain valid data.
• Analyse the authenticity of the information provided by ensuring direct contact with each targeted study population (population of interest).
• Interpret interview questions to assist respondents in understanding them and providing eloquent answers.
• Double check information on survey forms or information pads to ensure the accuracy of information.
• Engage in data entry in cases where paper base options are used.
• Comply with quality and research ethics during field work (this includes data protection and information confidentiality of respondents or target project participants).
• Participate in debriefing sessions to share field experiences about the community and entire data collection.
• Enumerators are expected to be always respectful of the community and community leadership and membership.

Note: Enumerators would undergo training on the specific tools to be used for each assignment before deploying to the field. Different criteria, which range from skills, experience in research and data collection, availability, knowledge of program technical areas, contextual understanding, and familiarity with the local language of defined data collection area would be the criteria for the selection of enumerators for an assignment.

Organizational Support:

• The Enumerators will be managed by the Mercy Corps staff;
• Technical support for the enumerators will be provided by Mercy Corps.
• Devices will be provided by Mercy Corps to the enumerators when engaged in data collection. Enumerators will be expected to take good care of this equipment and will be required to return them in the same state as they are received.

Basic Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities Required

• A University Degree or HND in any field
• Recent (last two years) experience participating in conflict-related research activities
• Experience in conducting quantitative and qualitative research in the Northern part of Nigeria
• Experience working in the selected communities and a good understanding of the local dialects is preferred.
• Experience in data collection and analysis using participatory methodology with basic GIS skills.
• Possess a degree of flexibility to work and availability to respond to comments and questions promptly and appropriately.
• Strong command of English, Fulfulde, and Hausa, especially the ability to write high-quality, clear, and concise reports.
• High regard for cultural norms and traditions.
• Demonstrate patience and good leadership skills.

Deliverable(s):

• Share field notes and tools as they are available with the Mercy Corps Research team.
• Type field notes to Excel and share them daily.
• Interview summaries
• Pictures and summaries from workshops and interviews.

Reporting and Supervision:

• Reports directly to: Monitoring Evaluation and Learning Senior Officer, working closely with COMITAS Program Team.

Duration:

• Upto 45 days which may include weekends.

Application Closing Date
2nd June, 2023.

Method of Application
Interested and qualified candidates should send their Cover Letter and CV to: [email protected] using the Job Title as the subject of the mail.