EMPOWER West Africa Emergency Finance Technical Advisor II

JOB DESCRIPTION

Job Title: EMPOWER West AfricaEmergency Finance Technical Advisor IIReports to: EMPOWER West Africa Coordinator (Program Manager II)

Department: West Africa Regional OfficeSalary Grade: 10

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.

Program Background

The EMPOWER (Empowering Partner Organizations Working on Emergency Responses) project began in 2018 in the Latin American and Caribbean Region to increase and advance local leadership of humanitarian responses through institutional strengthening and direct funding of Local Humanitarian Actors (LHAs). EMPOWER expanded in 2021 to CRS’ Asia Regional Office and is being launched in CRS’ West Africa Regional Office (WARO) at the start of 2023. Leveraging lessons learned and recommendations from the preceding EMPOWER projects, EMPOWER West Africa will grow a team of emergency response technical advisers whose primary role is to strengthen the emergency response capacity of LHAs in West Africa and support them to implement high quality emergency responses. Based on local organizations’ self-assessment of their self-identified operational and technical support needs and requests for support, EMPOWER provides participating organizations with demand-driven technical resources, on-the-job support, training and accompaniment, and organizes regional workshops to facilitate shared learning and strengthening of peer networks among local humanitarian actors. EMPOWER also manages a rapid response fund, through which, participating local organizations propose and receive funding for emergency response programs to support communities impacted by crises in West Africa.

Job Summary:

The EMPOWER West Africa Emergency FinanceTechnical Advisor II (Emergency Finance TA) will provide technical advice and accompaniment to local organizations participating in the EMPOWER West Africa program on a range of program design and implementation issues in the area of emergency finance systems, resource stewardship, financial accountability and financial risk management. You will support participating organizations to strengthen their institutional capacity of financial management systems, processes, and practices 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’ partnership capacity strengthening of locally led humanitarian response is in West Africa.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Roles and Key Responsibilities:

• Contribute to the development and implementation of agency-wide strategies, standards, tools, and best practices in emergency finance capacity strengthening to support locally led humanitarian 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 local humanitarian organization teams, remotely and on-site, for strategic planning and how to best apply emergency finance system design and implementation standards, best practices, partnership principles, tools, and M&E, ensuring high-quality implementation.
• Contribute to regional and CP efforts to pre-position CRS for growth opportunities in partner capacity strengthening for humanitarian response. Lead or contribute to the development of the budget and financial management design for large and/or complex proposals, including defining appropriate monitoring systems and indicators. Advise project teams on integrating donor strategies, priorities and technical requirements into CRS’ approach.
• Contribute to capacity strengthening initiatives in emergency finance for humanitarian response programming for participating local humanitarian actors 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.
• Establish and maintain relationships with donors, peer organizations, research and other institutions. Participate in forums in the area of local humanitarian actors’ emergency finance capacity strengthening for humanitarian response to collect and share best practices and promote CRS’ work.
• Develop and manage procedures for the rapid response funding mechanism for participating organizations’ emergency responses, supporting timely, high quality emergency relief assistance to impacted communities served by participating organizations. Monitor the rapid response funding mechanism sub-recipients and provide technical assistance to facilitate timely financial resource management and compliance.
• Assume a direct support, management or leadership role during emergency responses via remote or on-site secondment to local partners, as needed/requested.

QUALIFICATIONS

Basic Qualifications

• Master’s Degree in Accounting, Finance, Economics, Business Administration with courses in accounting, or similar field required. A professional certification in Accounting or a related field highly preferred.
• 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 finance and/or partner capacity strengthening.
• Previous experience providing technical assistance and developing successful proposals for external donor funding is required.
• Demonstrated application of technical principles and concepts in emergency finance and partner capacity strengthening. General knowledge of other related disciplines to ensure proper cross-sectoral approach.
• Experience in business development, project design and proposal development in emergency finance and partner capacity strengthening, 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.

Required Languages – English and French oral and written language proficiency required, with excellent English writing skills and capable of conducting trainings, writing reports and proposals, holding meetings, conducting interviews and communicating with partners in both English and French.

Knowledge of West African languages or Portuguese a plus.

Travel – Willingness and ability to travel internationally up to 50% of time (6 months out of the year).

Willingness and ability to deploy quickly to support responses to rapid onset emergencies, when necessary, primarily within West Africa but may include opportunities to deploy to other regions as agency needs dictate.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

• Excellent strategic, analytical, problem-solving and systems thinking skills with capacity to ability to quickly adapt technical guidance to any given operating environment
• Knowledge of capacity strengthening best practices and partnership principles.
• Extremely flexible and able to cope with stressful situations in emergency environments
• Proactive, resourceful, results and service-oriented
• Presentation, facilitation, training, mentoring, and coaching skills including remote and online settings

Preferred Qualifications

• Candidates from/presently based in the West Africa region are highly preferred.
• Experience and knowledge of technical principles, concepts and international standards in safeguarding, protection from sexual exploitation and abuse (PSEA) and protection mainstreaming in humanitarian response highly preferred.
• Experienced trainer/teacher of adults and multi-cultural groups, in both in-person and virtual settings.
• Experience managing warehouse, transport, and food or other humanitarian distribution operations a plus
• Proficient in MS Office packages (Excel, Word, PowerPoint), Web Conferencing Applications, information and budget management systems, knowledge-sharing networks.

Agency REDI Competencies (for all CRS Staff):

Agency competencies clarify expected behaviors and attitudes for all staff. When demonstrated, they create an engaging workplace, help staff achieve their best, and help CRS achieve agency goals. 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.

• Personal Accountability – Consistently takes responsibility for one’s own actions.
• Acts with Integrity – Consistently models values aligned with CRS Guiding Principles and mission. Is considered honest.
• Builds and Maintains Trust – Shows consistency between words and actions.
• Collaborates with Others – Works effectively in intercultural and diverse teams.
• Open to Learn – Seeks out experiences that may change perspective or provide an opportunity to learn new things.

Agency Leadership Competencies:

• Lead Change – Continually looks for ways to improve the agency through a culture of agility, openness, and innovation.
• Develops and Recognizes Others – Builds the capacity of staff to reach their full potential and enhance team and agency performance.
• Strategic Mindset – Understands role in translating, communicating, and implementing agency strategy and team priorities.

Supervisory Responsibilities: Occasional temporary supervision or management roles during deployments, as needed/requested.

Key Working Relationships:

Internal: EMPOWER West Africa Coordinator and Team members, WARO Regional Team and Country Program Staff, HRD Technical Advisors

External: Program, Operations, and Management Staff from Participating Local Organizations; UN, NGO, and Cluster agencies operating in targeted countries

***Our Catholic identity is at the heart of our mission and operations. Catholic Relief Services carries out the commitment of the Bishops of the United States to assist the poor and vulnerable overseas. We welcome as a part of our staff people of all faiths and secular traditions who share our values and our commitment to serving those in need. CRS’ processes and policies reflect our commitment to protecting children and vulnerable adults from abuse and exploitation.

Disclaimer: This job description is not an exhaustive list of the skill, effort, duties, and responsibilities associated with the position.

CRS’ talent acquisition procedures reflect our commitment to protecting children and vulnerable adults from abuse and exploitation.

CRS is an Equal Opportunity Employer