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 – Program Quality and Business Development 
• Department: WARO Regional Office
• Grade:  9
• Reports To:  EMPOWER West Africa Coordinator (Program Manager II)
• Country/Location:  West Africa Regional Office

• 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.

• 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

Required Skills or Experience

Education and Experience:

• 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.

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

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.

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