Program Manager II At Catholic Relief Services

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.

Job Summary:

You will manage and provide technical oversight of the development and implementation of the West Africa Large-Scale Food Fortification (LSFF) Technical Team, a new initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, ensuring effective systems and processes are in place that support high-quality technical assistance and grant management advancing Catholic Relief Services’ (CRS) work in serving the poor and vulnerable. Your management skills, tech nical knowledge and high-level representation capacity will ensure that the Team delivers high-quality outputs promised on this grant and positions the Team for continued and increased funding to deliver technical assistance to government entities across the 15- member country ECOWAS region.

Roles and Key Responsibilities:

• Provide management, guidance, and technical oversight of all new and existing projects within the West Africa region focused on large-scale food fortification throughout the project cycle to ensure project design, start-up, implementation, and close-out are in line with CRS quality principles and standards, donor guidelines, and industry best practices.
• Effectively manage talent for the LSFF Technical Team and directly supervise six team members, including four Technical Advisors and two grant management support staff. Manage team dynamics and staff well- being. Provide coaching, strategically tailor individual development plans, and complete performance management for direct reports.
• Lead the development of program learning – identify opportunities for learning, research and publications in the area of LSFF and implementation of MEAL policy. Facilitate the dissemination of promising practices and lessons learned to contribute to the agency knowledge management agenda. Ensure integration of innovations and best practices.
• Contribute to the proactive pursuit of opportunities for new funding to ensure growth of the LSFF-Nutrition sector portfolio in line with agency, regional and CP Nutrition strategic priorities. Serve as the technical lead and technical writer to ensure quality proposals are submitted as per agency and donor standards. Contribute to budgeting and staffing plans and activities for proposals.
• Oversee LSFF technical assistance and capacity strengthening activities for staff and partner organizations to enhance program quality and impact.
• Oversee the identification, assessment and strengthening of partnerships relevant to LSFF and the appropriate application of partnership concepts, tools and approaches.
• Ensure timely and appropriate project expenditures in line with financial plans and efficient use and stewardship of project material sources.

Basic Qualifications

• Master’s Degree in International Development, Food Science/Technology, Public Health, and/or MBA with at least some relevant experience in the field of Nutrition required. Additional experience may substitute for some education.
• Minimum of 5 years’ experience in relevant field-based project management experience required, with preferably at least 2-3 years working in the area of Large-Scale Food Fortification,
• Experience in managing moderately complex projects preferably with an international NGO.

Preferred Qualifications

• Good experience in project grants management, including project design, preferably for grants from multiple public donors, including USAID.
• Demonstrated ability to write high quality technical proposals.
• Experience engaging with partner organizations
• MEAL skills and experience required.
• Staff management experience and abilities that are conducive to a learning environment.
• Experience using MS Windows and MS Office packages (Excel, Word, PowerPoint), Web Conferencing Applications, information management systems.

Required Languages – English and French

Travel – Must be willing and able to travel up to 30%, largely within West Afric

Supervisory Responsibilities: None

Key Working Relationships:

Internal: CRS country program leadership across the 15 country ECOWAS region; CRS WARO regional leadership; HQ Nutrition STAs; IDEA donor engagement and BD teams, as relevant; CRS CARO Health regional, PQ and BD staff with respect to ECOWAS countries that fall within the CRS Central Africa region.

External: WAHO; ECOWAS member country Ministries of Health and other government entities relevant to regional and country-level LSFF standards and strategies; peer NGOs active in the LSFF/Nutrition space; donor agency representatives funding LSFF programs, such as Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, USAID/Feed the Future, GIZ, and others.

Catholic Relief Services carries out the commitment of the Bishops of the United States to assist the poor and vulnerable overseas. Our Catholic identity is at the heart of our mission and operations. We welcome as a part of our staff and as partners people of all faiths and secular traditions who share our values and our commitment to serving those in need.