Company Profile

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. CRS Ghana was established in 1958, a year after Ghana gained independence. In Ghana, CRS works with local partners to tackle poverty on several fronts including improving health and nutrition; increasing access to safe water and improved sanitation; promoting agriculture to enhance food security; and increasing financial assets through Savings and Internal Lending Communities. 

Job Description

• Job Title:Technical Advisor I – Enabling Environment and Compliance            
• Job Grade: 9
• Department: WARO Regional Office
• Reports To: Program Manager II-LSFF
• Country/Location:  Telecommuter

Job Summary

• You will provide technical advice and support to a range of program design and implementation issues in the area of Large-Scale Food Fortification (LSFF) Standards and Compliance in line with Catholic Relief Services (CRS) program quality principles and standards, donor guidelines, and industry best practices to West Africa country teams to advance the delivery of high-quality programming to the poor and vulnerable. Your advice, knowledge, and support will contribute to determining how effective, adaptive and innovative CRS’ LSFF and Nutrition programming is across the globe.

Job Responsibilities

• Support the development and contribute to the implementation of agency-wide strategies, standards, tools and best practices to strengthen public sector capacity to implement Large-Scale Food Fortification strategies that effectively engage all stakeholders. Help ensure a cross-sectoral approach integrating gender, protection mainstreaming, and disaster risk reduction.
• Provide technical solutions to public sector teams, remotely and on-site, for strategic planning and how to best apply standards, best practices, partnership principles, tools and M&E, helping to ensure high-quality implementation.
• Contribute to, and in some cases lead, the development of the technical design for proposals.  Support the process of preparation, design, submission and approval of project concepts and full-fledged proposals. As needed, act as a technical writer on proposal development teams. Advise project teams on integrating donor strategies, priorities and technical requirements into CRS’ approach.
• Support capacity strengthening initiatives in LSFF programming for staff and partners by helping to develop learning and training strategies and agendas/curriculums, conducting trainings and workshops, and coaching.
• Collect and analyze program data, capture and share lessons learned and best practices for specific projects to facilitate improvements in decision-making and contribute to the LSFF learning agenda.
• Contribute to maintaining relationships with donors, peer organizations, research, and other institutions, participate in forums in LSFF to collect and share best practices and promote CRS’ work.

Key Working Relationships:  

• Internal: CRS country program leadership across the 15 country ECOWAS region; CRS WARO regional leadership; HQ Nutrition STAs; IDEA donor engagement and BD teams, as relevant; CRS CARO Health regional, PQ and BD staff with respect to ECOWAS countries that fall within the CRS Central Africa region.
• External: WAHO; ECOWAS member country Ministries of Health and other government entities relevant to regional and country-level LSFF standards and strategies; peer NGOs active in the LSFF/Nutrition space.

Required Skills or Experience

Education and Experience

• Master's Degree in Food Science/Technology with particular focus on food laws and regulation, Nutrition/Public Health, International Law/Trade Legislation or relevant field required.
• Minimum of three years relevant work experience with progressive responsibilities, ideally with an international NGO or governmental entity with minimum of two years relevant field-based experience in fortified food standards compliance systems or enabling environment strengthening on related policy areas.
• Knowledge of technical principles and concepts in Nutrition, specifically Large-Scale Food Fortification. General knowledge of other related disciplines to ensure proper cross-sectoral approach.
• Experience in project design and proposal development. Experience in writing content for proposals.
• Knowledge of standard-setting, legislation, and regulatory compliance system best practices.
• Experience with program monitoring and evaluation and analysis.
• Experience and skills in networking and relations with donors, peer organizations, and faith-based and civil society partners. Understanding of partnership principles.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Strong 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
• Good strategic, analytical, problem-solving and systems thinking skills with capacity to see the big picture and ability to make sound judgment
• Understanding of legislative instruments and standards on food trade in West Africa
• Good technical writing skills
• Presentation, facilitation, training, mentoring, and coaching skills
• Proactive, resourceful and results-oriented

Preferred Qualifications

Proficient in MS Office packages (Excel, Word, PowerPoint), Web Conferencing Applications, information and budget management systems, knowledge-sharing networks

Required/Desired Foreign Language:

• English and French Preferred

Travel Required:

• Must be willing and able to travel up to 30%, largely within West Africa

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.

• Trusting Relationships
• Professional Growth
• Partnership
• Accountability