EMPOWER West Africa Emergency Program Quality and Business Development Technical Advisor I

Job Title: EMPOWER West Africa Emergency Program Quality and Business DevelopmentTechnical Advisor I

Reports to: EMPOWER West Africa Coordinator (Program Manager II)

Department: West Africa Regional Office

Salary Grade: 9

PLEASE NOTE: This position is open to candidates from any location globally, with preference for those who live in any West African country.

About CRS

Catholic Relief Services (CRS) 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 Program Quality and Business DevelopmentTechnical Advisor I (Emergency PQ and BD 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 response program design, business development and proposal writing, and project and budget management. You will support participating organizations to strengthen their institutional capacity for humanitarian response programming, informed by CRS program quality principles and standards, donor guidelines, and industry best practices to advance the delivery of high-quality programming to the poor and vulnerable. As a part of the EMPOWER team, you will support local national organizations to achieve their institutional objectives for humanitarian response management.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Roles and Key Responsibilities:

• Provide technical assistance and lead capacity strengthening activities for EMPOWER West Africa Local Humanitarian Actors (LHAs) on emergency business development and emergency response program quality and management. Capacity strengthening may be achieved through remote or on-site trainings, workshops, learning events, peer-to-peer exchanges, simulations, coaching, and on-the-job training.
• Provide capacity strengthening in resource mobilization including capture planning for diverse private and public donors.
• Provide capacity strengthening in proposal design and writing to participating organizations. Contribute to, and in some cases lead, the development of the technical design for proposals. Support the process of preparation, design, review, revision, submission and approval of project concepts and full-fledged proposals. As needed, act as a technical writer on proposal development teams. Advise participating organizations’ proposal teams on integrating donor strategies, priorities and technical requirements.
• Provide capacity strengthening on multisectoral and rapid needs assessments, market assessments and response analysis. As needed/requested, directly support the design, training, and implementation of assessments and analysis.
• Provide capacity strengthening on protection and gender mainstreaming and safeguarding in emergency responses, including Feedback, Complaints and Response Mechanisms (FCRM).
• Provide capacity strengthening on emergency program management throughout the project cycle including project design, planning, start-up, implementation, budget management, MEAL, reporting and close-out, to ensure efficient and effective implementation informed by CRS program quality principles and standards, donor requirements, and good practices.
• Assume a direct support, management or leadership role during emergency responses via remote or on-site secondment to participating organizations, as needed/requested.

QUALIFICATIONS

Basic Qualifications

• Master’s degree in International Development, International Relations or related field required. A bachelor’s degree with significant relevant work experience may replace the requirement for a master’s degree.
• Minimum of three years relevant work experience with progressive responsibilities, ideally with an international NGO, with minimum of two years relevant field-based experience in complex emergencies in partnership with local humanitarian actors.
• Knowledge of technical principles and concepts in emergency program management and business development. General knowledge of other related disciplines such as local organization capacity strengthening, food security and market-based approaches, protection mainstreaming, safeguarding and MEAL to ensure proper cross-sectoral approach.
• Demonstrated ability to design and write high quality technical proposals.

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 Local Humanitarian Actors 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 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
• 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 in establishing and implementing community based FCRM 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.
• MEAL and ICT4D skills and experience a plus
• Proficient in MS Office packages (Excel, Word, PowerPoint), Web Conferencing Applications, information and budget management systems, knowledge-sharing networks.

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.

• Integrity
• Continuous Improvement & Innovation
• Builds Relationships
• Develops Talent
• Strategic Mindset
• Accountability & Stewardship

Emergency Competencies

• Communicates strategically under pressure.
• Manages stress and complexity.
• Actively promotes safety and security.
• Manages and implements high-quality emergency programs.

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