Mercy Corps Kenya Hiring 2026: Two Major Roles Open in Communications and AI-Driven Development
Mercy Corps Kenya has announced two significant job openings as part of its expanding development and innovation portfolio in East Africa.
The roles reflect the organization’s continued focus on strengthening resilient communities, improving humanitarian systems, and advancing technology-enabled development solutions.
The positions—Communications Specialist for the East Africa Land Border Programme and Technical Project/Product Manager for an AI-driven humanitarian innovation initiative offer opportunities for experienced professionals in communications, policy engagement, and digital transformation to contribute to high-impact international development work.
1. Communications Specialist – East Africa Land Border Programme (Nairobi, Kenya)
Mercy Corps is seeking a Communications Specialist to support an FCDO-funded East Africa Land Border Programme focused on addressing irregular migration, human trafficking, and smuggling networks across Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, and Somalia border regions.
The programme adopts a multi-layered approach combining prevention, protection, and enforcement strategies to reduce exploitation of vulnerable populations in transit.
Role Overview
The Communications Specialist will lead the development and implementation of a Stakeholder and Strategic Communications Strategy (SCS) for the programme. The role requires managing sensitive communications in politically complex environments while ensuring alignment with donor expectations and programme objectives.
Key responsibilities include:
- Designing and implementing strategic communications frameworks
- Developing messaging for government, donors, and consortium partners
- Producing policy briefs, media content, and storytelling outputs
- Coordinating survivor-informed communications and ethical storytelling
- Managing external communications, press engagement, and risk-aware visibility
- Supporting donor reporting and programme learning documentation
- Organizing events, workshops, and policy dialogues
The role also involves ensuring safeguarding standards are maintained, particularly when documenting sensitive case studies involving vulnerable populations.
Required Experience
Applicants are expected to have:
- A degree in communications or a related field (Master’s preferred)
- At least 6 years of experience in communications or public relations
- Experience working on sensitive, political, or humanitarian programmes
- Strong writing, editing, and content development skills
- Experience producing communications products such as reports, blogs, and policy briefs
- Ability to manage stakeholder engagement across multiple sectors
Experience in multimedia production, including video and photography, is considered an advantage.
Working Environment
The position is based in Nairobi, with travel to border regions and neighbouring countries including Uganda, Ethiopia, and Somalia. The role requires strong ethical judgment, discretion, and the ability to manage communications in high-risk operational environments.
2. Technical Project / Product Manager – AI and Humanitarian Innovation (Kenya or Colombia)
Mercy Corps is also recruiting a Technical Project/Product Manager to lead a cutting-edge AI and data innovation initiative under its Technology for Development (T4D) department. The role is part of a collaborative “Impact Alliance” involving Mercy Corps, CARE, and Save the Children.
The project, known as Codename Compass, aims to develop ambient voice capture technology that enables field workers to collect community feedback through natural conversations. The system automatically transcribes and structures responses for humanitarian data use.
Role Overview
This position combines project management, product development, and technical oversight responsibilities. The selected candidate will manage a 12-month Minimum Viable Product (MVP) development cycle focused on improving humanitarian data collection and enabling ethical AI dataset creation in low-resource languages such as Swahili, Hausa, and Tigrinya.
Key responsibilities include:
- Managing end-to-end project delivery across multiple phases
- Coordinating consortium partners and technical vendors
- Defining product requirements and user stories
- Overseeing integration with tools such as CommCare, KoBoToolbox, and OpenFn
- Managing MVP development and technical implementation
- Designing data ethics and community consent frameworks
- Ensuring responsible AI and data governance standards
- Producing learning outputs, datasets, and scaling roadmaps
The role also involves supervising development teams and contributing to thought leadership in humanitarian AI systems.
Required Experience
Candidates are expected to have:
- A Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Data Science, or related fields (Master’s preferred)
- At least 5 years of experience managing complex technology projects
- Experience with AI, speech-to-text systems, or natural language processing (NLP)
- Experience working in humanitarian or low-resource environments
- Knowledge of data ethics and responsible AI frameworks
- Strong project management, budgeting, and reporting skills
- Ability to communicate technical concepts to non-technical audiences
Fluency in English is required, while knowledge of African or low-resource languages such as Swahili, Hausa, or Tigrinya is considered a strong advantage.
Working Environment
The role is remote-based with up to 20% travel to field locations, including potentially fragile or insecure contexts. The position requires strong adaptability and experience working in multi-stakeholder international environments.
Apply Now
These two Mercy Corps Kenya opportunities reflect the organization’s dual focus on humanitarian communications and digital innovation in development programming. While the Communications Specialist role emphasizes storytelling, policy engagement, and stakeholder communication in sensitive migration contexts, the Technical Project Manager position focuses on leveraging artificial intelligence and voice technology to improve humanitarian data systems.
Together, these roles highlight a growing shift in the sector toward integrating ethical communication practices, data-driven decision-making, and emerging technologies to address complex global development challenges.
Applicants interested in international development, humanitarian systems, and innovation-led programming are encouraged to apply before the respective deadlines.
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Disclaimer: Global South Opportunities (GSO) is not the organization offering this opportunity. For any inquiries, please contact the official organization directly. Please do not send your applications & CVs to GSO, as we are unable to process them. Due to the high volume of emails, we receive daily, we may not be able to respond to all inquiries. Thank you for your understanding.
