Deputy Chief of Party – Resilience Food Security Activity, DRC

This post is contingent on donor funding and donor approval of the candidate.

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:

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is one of the most populous, vast and resource rich countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Decades of conflict and other challenges over the past decades have left the Congo with 73% of its population living under the internationally recognized poverty rate of $1.90 per day and 43% of children are malnourished due to inadequate social and health services. Given its fragility and weak institutions, the country is susceptible to health crises, including recent outbreaks of Ebola, measles, cholera and potentially COVID-19.

CRS has operated in the DRC since 1961, successfully implementing programs in nutrition, agriculture livelihoods, emergency, water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), health, microfinance, and peacebuilding throughout the country. CRS/DRC currently has around 190 staff operating out of 6 offices in Kinshasa, Mbuji Mayi (Kasai Oriental), Kananga (Kasai Central), Kalemie (Tanganyika), Goma (North Kivu), and Bukavu (South Kivu).

As Deputy Chief of Party II, you will provide overall management of and have responsibility for an area of a Resilience Food Security Activity, and act on behalf of the Chief of Party as needed, including global representation to the donor to serve the poor and vulnerable. Your management and technical knowledge will ensure the delivery of high-quality programming and advance the posi tion of CRS as a leading agency in resilience food security programming. As a senior leader you will proactively manage security and mitigate security risks.

Roles and Key Responsibilities:

• Manage key aspects of the development, implementation and consolidation of a USAID Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance (USAID BHA) multi-sectoral Resilience Food Security Activity. Serve as a point of contact to USAID BHA as well as public, private and non-government stakeholders, when needed.
• Manage key functions of the project to meet donor expectations in terms of timely and quality results and budget. Contribute to ensuring coordination between program and operations leads. Contribute to ensuring the CRS program quality standards are adhered to per MEAL policy and procedures.
• Effectively manage talent and supervise. Manage team dynamics and staff well-being. Provide coaching and mentoring. Strategically tailor individual development plans and complete performance assessments for direct reports. Contribute to the development of staffing plans and the recruitment process of senior staff.
• Manage and mitigate risk through monitoring national and regional issues that may impact staff and programming. Ensure all staff understand and adhere to CRS staff safety and security policies and plans and ensure the updating of such plans.
• Promote, uphold and model a commitment to the efficient use of agency and donor resources. Help ensure compliance with USAID grants, including financial tracking and oversight of partner budgets, finance, administration and reporting to USAID.
• Maintain relationships with key staff of consortium partner organizations. Contribute to coordination of the roles and activities of staff from other consortium member organizations in implementation in line with CRS partnership principles.
• Create and maintain proper conditions for learning. Establish a safe environment for sharing of ideas, solutions, and difficulties and the capacity to detect, analyze and respond quickly to deficiencies. Identify performance gaps and training opportunities for CRS and partner staff and recommend trainings and technical assistance.

Required Languages – English, French

Travel – Field-based position in D.R. Congo. Must be willing and able to travel up to 40%.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

• Strong strategic, analytical, systems thinking, and problem-solving skills, with capacity to see the big picture and ability to make sound judgment and decisions.
• Strong relations management abilities. Ability to relate to people at all levels internally and externally. Strategic in how you approach each relationship.
• Team leadership abilities with diverse/multi-disciplinary teams. Coaching skills.
• Proactive, resourceful, solutions-oriented and results-oriented.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience engaging partners and strengthening partnerships. Knowledge of CRS partnership strategy a plus.
• Experience in MS Office package (Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Visio), Web Conferencing Applications, and information and budget management systems.

Supervisory Responsibilities: Resilience Food Security Activity programming staff

Key Working Relationships:

Internal: Chief of Party, Country Representative, Head of Programing, Deputy Country Representative for Operations, Deputy Head of Programming, RFSA MEAL Manager, Country Program MEAL/ICT4D Coordinator, Gender and Protection Technical Advisor, Finance Manager, Deputy Regional Director for Program Quality, Regional Technical Advisors, HQ based Public Donor Liaison.

External: Donors, partner INGOs and local NGOs, Caritas, and peer agencies.

Basic Qualifications

· Master’s degree in International Development, International Relations or a relevant technical area.

· 7 or more years’ relevant management and technical experience.

· 5 years experience managing donor funds, including multi country grants. Strong knowledge and experience in budget management.

· Recognized technical experience and qualifications in sector as demonstrated by peer reviewed publications, conference presentations etc.

· Demonstrated experience of successful management, including management of functions of complex, high-value, multi-activity projects, with complicated logistics.

· Staff management experience and abilities that are conducive to a learning environment. Experience coaching.

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.