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.
Note: This is a telecommuter position.
Job Summary:
You will provide technical advice, guidance, and support to a wide range of program design and implementation issues with a focus on larger projects in the area of Program Quality and Management for the EMPOWER project in the Caribbean in line with Catholic Relief Services (CRS) program quality principles and standards, donor guidelines, and industry best practices to regional and Country Program (CP) teams to advance the delivery of high-quality programming to the poor and vulnerable. Your technical knowledge, advice and guidance will contribute to determining how effective, adaptive and innovative CRS’ Emergency programming is across the globe.
Roles and Key Responsibilities:
- Contribute to the development and implementation of agency-wide strategies, standards, tools, and best practices in Emergency Preparedness and Response that effectively engage partners, donors and governments. Help ensure a cross-sectoral approach integrating gender, protection mainstreaming, and disaster risk reduction.
- Provide technical solutions to EMPOWER partners in the Caribbean, remotely and on-site, for strategic planning and how to best apply program design and implementation standards, best practices, partnership principles, tools, and M&E, ensuring high-quality implementation.
- Contribute to support EMPOWER partners in the Caribbean in efforts to pre-position for growth opportunities in Emergency Preparedness and Response. Lead or contribute to the development of the technical design for large and/or complex proposals, including defining appropriate monitoring systems and indicators. Advise EMPOWER partners and team members on integrating donor strategies, priorities and technical requirements into CRS’ approach.
- Contribute to capacity strengthening initiatives in Emergency Preparedness and Response programming for partner staff as requested and prioritized by the partners through helping develop learning and training strategies and agendas/curriculums, conducting trainings and workshops, and mentoring and coaching to partner staff.
- Contribute to knowledge management and learning through collecting and analyzing program data, evaluating strategic projects, assisting with measuring program impact, capturing and sharing lessons learned and best practices, and research and internal reports.
- Ensure a quality partnership between CRS and Caribbean EMPOWER partners in line with CRS and Caritas Internationalis (CI) partnership principles; ensure coordinated, consistent partner strengthening efforts and support timely resolution of partnership challenges via dialogue and support from others, as appropriate.
- Through on-going coordination with Caribbean EMPOWER partners, ensure timely and quality implementation of capacity strengthening support in emergency preparedness and response
- Support quality partner-led emergency response program development, through participation in donor discussions and ensuring quality program design and budgeting, including proposal support to EMPOWER partners
- Develop and maintain strong collaboration with CRS technical experts and, in agreement with partners, develop SOWs for in-country support for partners as needed — especially for technical support in managing cash-based interventions, WASH, shelter and others as selected by the partners.
- Oversee the implementation and management of the ELMA grant in the Caribbean region and Rapid Response Funding mechanism to EMPOWER partners in the Caribbean. This includes timely communication with donor according to the agreement.
- Review and analyze project and financial reports and take necessary steps to ensure proper management and utilization of project budgets; develop budget modifications, as necessary, ensure disbursements are issued and liquidated timely and in compliance with CRS Finance policies, and ensure timely submission and review of financial reports.
- Assist Caribbean EMPOWER partners to regularly communicate progress and challenges in ongoing emergency responses through written Situation Reports and updates.
- Establish and maintain regular communication channels between CRS and Caribbean EMPOWER partners, including the preparation of CRS Situational Reports for dissemination during ongoing emergencies.
Required Languages – English (required), French and Spanish (encouraged)
Travel– Must be willing and able to travel up to 50 %.
Knowledge, Skills and Abilities
- Excellent relationship management skills with ability to influence and get buy-in from people not under direct supervision and to work with individuals in diverse geographical and cultural settings.
- Strong strategic, analytical, problem-solving and systems thinking skills with capacity to see the big picture and ability to make sound judgment
- Strong written and oral communication skills
- Strong presentation, facilitation, training, mentoring, and coaching skills
- Proactive, resourceful and results-oriented
Basic Qualifications
- Master’s Degree in International Relations, International Studies, International Development, or related field required.
- Minimum of five years relevant international working experience in an advisory or management role with progressive responsibilities, ideally with an international NGO, with minimum of three years working for programming interventions in Emergency Preparedness and Response.
- Previous experience providing technical assistance and developing successful proposals for external donor funding is required.
- Demonstrated application of technical principles and concepts in Emergency Preparedness and Response, Partnership and Capacity Strengthening. General knowledge of other related disciplines to ensure proper cross-sectoral approach.
- Experience in business development, project design and proposal development, including technical writing.
- Experience in mentoring, coaching, facilitation and training applying adult learning principles and practices.
- Experience with program monitoring and evaluation, including applying data collection tools and methodologies, data analysis, and data presentation.
- Experience and skills in networking and relations with donors, peer organizations, and faith-based and civil society partners. Understanding of partnership principles.
- Proficient in MS Office packages (Excel, Word, PowerPoint), Web Conferencing Applications, information and budget management systems, knowledge-sharing networks.