CRS
Job Title: Technical Advisor I – MEAL EMPOWER
Reports to: Technical Advisor II
Department: Humanitarian Response Department
Country/Location: HRD/International Telecommuter
Duration: 2 years
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.
The Humanitarian Response Department (HRD) provides leadership and support to CRS emergency programming. The HRD strengthens CRS’ impact through high quality, innovative programs; improved technical and management capacity at the field level; and active engagement in global efforts to promote excellence and learning in humanitarian response. The HRD has technical staff that supports emergency program planning, rapid response, and capacity strengthening of staff and partners worldwide.
Country/Program Background
The EMPOWER (Empowering Partner Organizations Working on Emergency Responses) project is a joint initiative piloted in FY18 of the CRS Latin American and Caribbean Regional Office and the Humanitarian Response Department (HRD). In 2020, CRS expanded this program to Central America and Mexico and it continues to grow a team of LACRO-based emergency responders whose primary role is to support strengthening the emergency response capacity of local partners response in the Caribbean, South and Central America and Mexico and support them implementing high quality emergency responses.
Through EMPOWER, CRS staff accompany local organizations in institutional capacity self-assessments. Based on self-assessment results, as well as institutional mission, vision, and strategy, participating local organizations develop institutional strengthening plans. In response to expressed priorities and requests, CRS provides participating organizations with demand driven technical resources, support, training and accompaniment, and organizes zonal and regional workshops to facilitate shared learning and strengthening of peer networks among local and national humanitarian response organizations.
Job Summary
You will provide technical guidance and accompaniment to local and national organizations participating in the EMPOWER program in the areas of project management and monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning (MEAL) to strengthen their institutional capacity for humanitarian response programming, in line with Catholic Relief Services (CRS) program quality and partnership principles and standards, donor guidelines, and industry best practice. As a part of the EMPOWER team, you will support local and national organizations in achieving their institutional objectives for humanitarian response management.
Roles and Key Responsibilities
- Support capacity strengthening initiatives in humanitarian response project management and MEAL for participating local organizations through helping develop learning and training strategies and agendas/curriculums, conducting trainings and workshops, and coaching.
- Support participating local organizations to develop project management and MEAL documents and tools, technical manuals or guidance, training materials, and quality improvement and assessment guidelines.
- Support the development and contribute to the implementation of agency-wide strategies, standards, tools and best practices in MEAL and Information Management that effectively engage partners, donors, and governments.
- Contribute to, and in some cases lead, the development of the technical design for MEAL strategies for proposals. Support the process of preparation, design, submission and approval of project concepts and full-fledged proposals. Advise project teams on integrating donor strategies, priorities and technical requirements into CRS’ approach.
- Help ensure a cross-sectoral approach integrating gender, protection mainstreaming, and disaster risk reduction.
- Provide technical solutions to participating local organizations, remotely and on-site, for strategic planning and how to best apply operations and finance management standards, best practices, partnership principles, tools and M&E, helping to ensure high-quality implementation.
- Provide technical lead for quality MEAL design, including tools and methods, appropriate to scope, context, and technical requirements of a project.
- Provide technical lead for analysis of MEAL data, qualitative and quantitative
Required Languages – Oral and written language proficiency; capable of conducting trainings, writing reports and proposals, holding meetings, conducting interviews and communicate with partners in English and Spanish is a requirement.
Knowledge of Portuguese, French or Haitian Kreyol are a plus.
Required Travel:
- Willingness and ability to travel internationally 50% of time (i.e., 6 months out of the year)
- Willingness and ability to deploy as soon as possible when disasters strike, primarily within Latin American and the Caribbean; may include deployments to other regions, as needed
Knowledge, Skills and Abilities
- Excellent interpersonal skills.
- Extremely flexible and able to cope with stressful situations in emergency environments.
- Excellent relationship management skills with ability to influence and get buy-in from people not under direct supervision and 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 verbal communication skills with ability to write reports
- Proactive, resourceful, results and service-oriented
- Presentation, facilitation, training, mentoring, and coaching skills
Emergency Competencies:
These are rooted in the mission, values, and principles of CRS and used by each staff working in emergencies to fulfill his or her responsibilities and to achieve the desired results.
- Communicates strategically under pressure.
- Manages stress and complexity.
- Actively promotes safety and security.
- Manages and implements high-quality emergency programs.
Supervisory Responsibilities: None
Key Working Relationships
Internal: EMPOWER Team Lead and Team members, HRD Technical Advisors, CRS Latin America and Caribbean Country Program Staff
External: Program, Operations, and Management Staff form Participating Local Organizations
Qualifications – External
Basic Qualifications:
- Master’s Degree in MEAL or equivalent experience, in a field relevant to a MEAL position in an international NGO e.g., Social Sciences, Statistics, International Development, Economics, Humanitarian management, Data Science, etc.) required
- 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 Project Management or MEAL.
- Knowledge of technical principles and concepts in Project Management and MEAL. General knowledge of other related disciplines to ensure proper cross-sectoral approach.
- Experience in business development, project design and proposal development in MEAL, including technical writing.
- Experience in implementing relational databases in humanitarian/development contexts, including data cleaning/wrangling, data analysis and creation of dashboards
- Expertise in Excel and statistical software, with experience in PowerBI and one or more of the following digital data collection tools: DHIS, CommCare, RedRose.
- Familiarity with geo spatial data management principles with demonstrable experience in GIS software and familiarity with concepts of relational databases and hands-on experience with one or more RDBMS a plus.
- Knowledge of capacity strengthening best practices and partnership building principles.
- Experience in mentoring, coaching, facilitation, and training applying adult learning principles and practices.
- 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.
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
*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.
*Disclaimer: This job description is not an exhaustive list of the skill, effort, duties, and responsibilities associated with the position.*
Note: All positions requiring residence or frequent travel outside their home country must undergo and clear a pre-employment medical examination.
CRS’ talent acquisition procedures reflect our commitment to safeguarding the rights and dignity of all people – especially children and vulnerable adults – to live free from abuse and harm.
CRS welcomes candidates from the countries and regions in which we work. In the event the successful candidate is an expatriate or global telecommuter, the anticipated duration of the assignment is informed by a term limit, based on the type and level of the job and the needs of the agency.
CRS is an Equal Opportunity Employer