EMPOWER West Africa Coordinator (Program Manager II)

Job Title: EMPOWER West Africa Coordinator (Program Manager II)

Reports to: Deputy Regional Director, Program Quality West Africa

Department: West Africa Regional Office

Salary Grade: 10

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 Coordinator will manage and provide technical oversight and strategic leadership of the development and implementation of all EMPOWER West Africa programming, ensuring effective systems and processes are in place that support high-quality programming advancing CRS’ work in serving the poor and vulnerable. Your management skills and knowledge will ensure that EMPOWER West Africa delivers high-quality programming and continuously works towards improving the capacity of participating Local Humanitarian Actors to lead emergency preparedness and response activities in their respective countries.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Roles and Key Responsibilities:

• Provide management, guidance, and technical oversight of EMPOWER West Africa, including its rapid response funding mechanism, throughout the project cycle to ensure project design, start-up, implementation, financial management, reporting, and close-out are in line with CRS program quality principles and standards, donor guidelines, and industry best practices.
• Effectively manage talent for EMPOWER West Africa and supervise. Manage team dynamics and staff well-being. Provide coaching, strategically tailor individual development plans, and complete performance management for direct reports.
• Oversee and facilitate technical assistance and capacity strengthening activities for EMPOWER West Africa participating organizations to enhance program quality and impact. 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.
• Oversee and administer the LHA rapid response funding mechanism, ensuring timely, high quality disaster relief assistance to impacted communities served by participating organizations, aligned with humanitarian needs and the budget, operational, and technical capacity of the project and organizations.
• Assume a direct support, management or leadership role during emergency responses via remote or on-site secondment to participating organizations, as needed/requested.
• Manage and mitigate safeguarding and protections risks and ensure all staff and participating organizations understand and adhere to CRS protection, code of conduct, and safeguarding policies and procedures. Ensure protection, gender, and conflict sensitivity are mainstreamed throughout project design and implementation, and that diverse, vulnerable people’s feedback is frequently solicited and incorporated into project design, implementation, and adaptive management.
• Lead the development of program learning and identify opportunities for learning, research and publications in the area of emergency partner capacity strengthening and humanitarian localization. Facilitate the dissemination of promising practices and lessons learned to contribute to the agency knowledge management agenda. Ensure integration of innovations and best practices.
• Contribute to the proactive pursuit of opportunities for new funding to ensure growth of EMPOWER West Africa’s multi-donor portfolio in line with agency, regional, and participating organizations’ strategic priorities. Serve as the technical lead and technical writer to ensure quality proposals for EMPOWER West Africa meet agency and donor standards. Contribute to budgeting and staffing plans and activities for proposals.
• Ensure timely and appropriate project expenditures in line with financial plans and efficient use and stewardship of project material sources. Review and analyze project finance reports and take necessary steps to ensure proper management and utilization of project budgets; develop budget modifications, as necessary.
• Represent EMPOWER West Africa in the EMPOWER Steering Committee and contribute to CRS’ global learning agenda on and advancement of humanitarian capacity strengthening.

QUALIFICATIONS

Basic Qualifications

• Master’s Degree in International Development, International Relations or related field required. Additional experience may substitute for some education.
• Minimum of 5 years in relevant field-based project management experience required, with preferably at least 2-3 years working complex emergencies in partnership with local humanitarian actors.
• Experience in managing moderately complex projects preferably with an international NGO.

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 LHAs 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
• Excellent technical and proposal writing skills
• 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
• Ability to effectively manage staff remotely.

Preferred Qualifications

• Candidates from/presently based in the West Africa region are highly preferred.
• Strong demonstrated experience in project grants management, including project design, preferably for grants from multiple public donors, including USAID.
• Demonstrated ability to write high quality technical proposals and reports.
• Experience with building the capacity of local organizations, including to serve in leadership roles, preferably in emergency situations. Knowledge of church networks and Caritas Internationalis is highly preferred.
• MEAL and ICT4D skills and experience a plus
• Staff management experience and abilities that are conducive to a learning environment.
• Experienced trainer/teacher of adults and multi-cultural groups, in both in-person and virtual settings.
• Proficient in MS Windows and MS Office packages (Excel, Word, PowerPoint), Web Conferencing Applications, information 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: EMPOWER West Africa core team, including:

• Emergency MEAL and Information Management Technical Adviser (TA) I
• Emergency Program Quality and Business Development TA I
• Grant Manager and Emergency Finance TA I
• Emergency Operations and Supply Chain TA I

The number of supervisees may change over the duration of the position.

Key Working Relationships:

Internal: Humanitarian Response Department (HRD) Emergency Program Quality and Management Technical Adviser, West Africa Focal Point; WARO Regional Team and Country Program Staff, HRD Technical Advisors, EMPOWER Steering Committee members

External: Program, Operations, and Management Staff from Participating Local Organizations; Caritas Internationalis member organizations operating in targeted countries; 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

How to apply

To apply please visit: https://eipn.fa.us2.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/CandidateExperience/en/sites/CX_1/job/3000410/?utm_medium=jobshare