Program Manager I Partner Capacity Strengthening and Strategic Linkages 90 views0 applications

Internal/External Job Announcement (re-Advert)

About CRS

Catholic Relief Services is the official international humanitarian agency of the Catholic community in the United States. CRS works to save, protect, and transform lives in need in more than 100 countries, without regard to race, religion or nationality. CRS’ relief and development work is accomplished through programs of emergency response, HIV, health, agriculture, education, microfinance and peacebuilding.  For nearly 60 years, CRS has taken the lead in responding to natural and man-made disasters affecting Ethiopia’s most vulnerable communities. Moving beyond emergency response, CRS’ disaster mitigation and recovery projects in drought and flood-prone areas have rebuilt individual and community assets through non-food aid in the form of agriculture, livestock, health, nutrition, and water and sanitation assistance. CRS’s humanitarian work in Ethiopia also provides livelihoods support to farmers and entrepreneurs, promotes equality and inclusion, and mitigates the impact of COVID-19.

The Joint Emergency Operation (JEOP) is an emergency food assistance program targeting transitory food insecure households through a project participant targeting process led by the Government of Ethiopia’s (GoE) National Disaster Risk Management Commission (NDRMC). JEOP provides emergency assistance to protect their lives and livelihood where recurrent drought affected in significant harvest loss, livestock death and price increase of essentials. The consortium is led by CRS and includes consortium partners, CARE, Food for the Hungry, Relief Society of Tigray (REST), World Vision and Organization for Relief and Development in Amhara (ORDA). CRS also works thorough local implementing partners Hararghe and Meki Catholic Secretariat (HCS and MCS).

 As part of CRS family, you will join the more than 5000 strong and vibrant individuals working globally to accomplish the mission of CRS. CRS/Ethiopia invites you, the qualified candidate, to apply for the following position.

Job Summary:

As a senior staff on JEOP, you will facilitate achievement of project objectives through coordinating partner capacity building and fostering strategic linkages to advance CRS work serving the poor and vulnerable. Your communication, strategic leadership, coordination, relationship management skills and creativity will ensure that JEOP consistently adopts and applies best practices and partnership principles, and constantly works towards improving the impact of its benefits to those we serve. JEOP has a wide partnership base of non-governmental organizations (local and international), private sector, technical, data management, inclusion and learning research partners.

This role will cut across all three of JEOP’s core units: Program Quality, Operations, Compliance and Risk. The role will also act as the primary interface with CRS’ Resilience food Security Activity (RFSA). Critically, you will also serve as a focal point for ensuring regular communication and coordination across JEOP and the four RFSAs, including with the RFSA CoPs, relevant technical working groups, and across joint initiatives in support of the continuum of response. You will galvanize attention and action on local partner capacity building, localization, and subsidiarity.

 You will work within JEOP to develop and implement tailored partner capacity building plans, explore, and develop new strategic linkages in liaison with the wider CRS partnership team and other flagship projects funded by USAID and other key donors. This will include designing and delivering workshops using CRS’ Holistic Organizational Capacity Assessment Instrument (HOCAI) and Sub-Recipient Management Policy (SRFMP), Safeguarding, Gender, Nutrition, Protection Mainstreaming, Environmental Impact Assessment in close collaboration with technical leads for these areas. You will support key initiatives such as the roll out of service provider safeguarding action plans.

 You will act as a resource person for CRS and partner staff engaged in joint programs and/or other partnership activities, with the primary purpose of ensuring that partnerships are effective and mutually beneficial. You will ensure that relevant information is shared appropriately and effectively, you will be responsible for ensuring partnership and capacity strengthening tools, including Memorandums of Understanding, Partnership Reflections, Partnership Scorecard, etc. are developed and applied appropriately and in keeping with CRS standards and best practice. You will serve as primary liaison with regional and HQ-based partnership and capacity strengthening staff and ensures the adoption and sharing of CRS and peer agency best practices.

 Job Responsibilities:

·         Contribute to design, advocate for, and ensure implementation of agency-wide strategies, standards, tools, and best practices in Knowledge in PCS to effectively engage partners, donors, and governments. Ensure a cross-sectoral approach that integrates gender, protection mainstreaming, and disaster risk reduction.

·         Provide technical solutions for strategic planning and how to best apply and adapt program design and implementation standards, best practices, partnership principles, tools, and MEAL in PCS.

·         Initiate and lead implementation of partner capacity building activities (including support developing the partner capacity building plan) in line with CRS program quality principles and standards, donor requirements, and good practices.

·         Coordinate and oversee working relationships with local project stakeholders and mobilize local actors and promote project activities and impact.

·         Contribute to efforts to pre-position CRS for strategic growth opportunities in PCS. Provide technical guidance in annual resource pipeline planning exercises with partners, contributing to project refinement. Lead designing and implementation of evidence-based sustainability.

·         with a focus on complex projects to ensure innovative programming solutions and technical excellence.

·         Support JEOP partners to appropriately staff project teams, including support with strategic hires, onboarding, and talent management.

·         Oversee and lead the delivery of capacity strengthening initiatives of PCS for staff and partners through helping develop learning and training strategies and agendas/curriculums; organizing and/or facilitating trainings, workshops, and conferences; and mentoring and coaching staff in innovative CRS approaches and tools. Provide mentoring and coaching to staff.

·         Effectively manage talent and supervise staff. Manage team dynamics and staff well-being ensuring diverse voices on the team are heard. Provide coaching, strategically tailor individual development plans, contribute to the recruitment process of project staff, complete performance management for direct reports and support career pathways for underrepresented groups. Mentor staff to ensure high levels of motivation, commitment, capacity, and teamwork.

·         Oversee MEAL aspects of the agency knowledge management and learning agenda in PCS through helping implement conditions for collective learning that ensure the capturing, documenting, and sharing of key successes, promising practices, lessons learned, and evidence-based implementation research, internally and externally, including publications in peer reviewed journals.

·         Support learning from reviews and improve ad-hoc inspections of various processes and resources at project sites to ensure timely project activities implementation and adherence to established process standards and procedures.

·         Represent CRS in targeted regional or global forums to develop opportunities and better ensure collaboration and shared learning in PCS to influence technical partner approaches, future funding opportunities, and policies. Network with relevant organizations to increase CRS’ profile in knowledge in PCS, influence in the regional or global PCS community, and donor diversification

·         Work with technical sector leads (MEAL, Early Warning, Compliance and Risk, Nutrition, Protection, Gender) to incorporate partners capacity building in each activity, for follow up action plans and identification for support.

·         Ensure JEOP project activities are favorable to vulnerable segments of the population such as women, people living with disabilities, children, and elders.

·         Identify/adapt and promote sustainable evidence-based organizational capacity strengthening tools, methods, or approaches that the local partners can use or improve upon to address identified capacity gaps or areas in need of improvement for CSO/CBO and networks.

·         Coordinate and monitor strategies and material resources relevant to achieve the assigned project outcome. Through planning and oversight ensure efficient use of project resources.

·         Support the communications team to identify and develop solid success stories, write-up of lessons learned and human-interest pieces.

·         Support carrying out protection risk analyses in the project areas, identifying mitigating measures, and providing oversight of the implementation of those measures.

·         Ensure the Safeguarding Policy and Code of Conduct and Ethics is followed by staff and consultants in the field and provide adequate supervision to staff to ensure their work is carried out in a manner that does not cause any harm to children, vulnerable adults, or other staff, or increase risks of harm

·         Provide additional training on expected staff behaviors that are program and context specific; consistently and regularly communicate to staff and communities CRS’ commitment to safeguarding.

·         Ensure staff understand local (internal) reporting procedures and support them in safely and appropriately reporting/responding to concerns, if necessary.

Typical Background, Experience & Requirements:

 Required Education and Experience

·         MA/BA Degree in Management/International or Community Development/Human Resource Development/related field with 3 years’ relevant experience for MA degree or 5 years’ relevant experience for BA degree ideally in the field of Partnership & Capacity Strengthening and for an NGO.

·         Demonstrated commitment to accountability to affected populations, and experience meaningfully engaging diverse populations, including pregnant and lactating mothers, persons with disabilities.

·         Demonstrated commitment to and application of gender responsive programming and positive action measures towards gender equality, including the participation and leadership of women

        Experience developing curricula, tools, and other products to support PCS interventions and programming. Demonstrated experience to transfer knowledge to diverse audiences through training, mentoring, and other formal and informal methods.

·         Experience with program monitoring and evaluation including development of indicators, data collection tools and methodologies, data analysis, and data presentation.

·         Demonstrated ability to work both strategically and at an appropriate level of detail to lead a complex program and consortium, excellent analytical skills

·         Excellent partnership skills and the ability to interact effectively with donors, collaborating agencies, and local partners demonstrated through close work experience with international NGOs

·         Proficient in MS Office packages (Excel, Word, PowerPoint), Web Conferencing Applications and strong understanding of information and budget management systems and knowledge-sharing networks.

Desired Education and Experience

·         Understanding and application of technical principles and concepts in PCS. Good knowledge of related disciplines to ensure proper cross-sectoral approach.

·         Experience and skills to represent the organization at meetings with donors, government, international NGOs, local partners – faith-based and civil society. Understanding of partnership principles

·         Demonstrated capacity to understand current best practices and challenges while coordinating to implement program strategies through a participatory approach

·         Knowledge and experience in USAID Title II program areas of emergency food distribution, program monitoring and evaluation, consortium management.

·         Knowledge of USAID and USG grant regulations and procedures. Prior management of USAID funding; knowledge of Title II policies and procedures preferred.

Personal Skills

         Inclusive approach, able to elevate the voices of underrepresented groups.

·         Flexibility, persistence, and ability to work well with people and cross-cultural skills.

·         Analysis and problem-solving skills with ability to make sound judgment.

·         Strong relationship management skills and the ability to work closely with local partners.

·         Proactive, results-oriented, and service-oriented.

·         Attention to detail, accuracy, and timeliness in executing assigned responsibilities.

·         Strong facilitation and creative problem-solving skills.

Female applicants and persons with disabilities are strongly encouraged to apply. CRS is committed to maintaining a diverse talented workforce.

Required/Desired Foreign Language: Amharic, Afan Oromo and English essential. Tigrinya, Somali a plus.

Travel Required: 50% (subject to need and flexible to family commitments)

Key Working Relationships:

·         Supervisory: One Senior Project Officer

·         Internal: JEOP Senior Management Team and technical leads, CRS Ethiopia partnership unit, CRS Ethiopia safeguarding, finance, protection mainstreaming, and gender units.

·         External:  JEOP partners

Agency-wide Competencies (for all CRS Staff):

These are rooted in the mission, values, and guiding principles of CRS and used by each staff member to fulfill his or her responsibilities and achieve the desired results.

    Trusting Relationships

·         Professional Growth

·         Partnership

·         Accountability