Job Title: Senior Technical Advisor- Africa Governance
Department/Country: PIQA
Position Type: Full-time
Job Location: Baltimore, MD
Band: E
FLSA: Exempt
Reports To: Team Leader-AJPWG
About CRS:
Catholic Relief Services carries out the commitment of the Bishops of the United States to assist the poor and vulnerable overseas. Our Catholic identity is at the heart of our mission and operations. We welcome as a part of our staff and as partners people of all faiths and secular traditions who share our values and our commitment to serving those in need.
Catholic Relief Services (CRS) is an international non-governmental organization supporting relief and development work in over 93 countries around the world. CRS programs assist persons on the basis of need, regardless of creed, ethnicity or nationality. CRS works through local church and non-church partners to implement its programs.
Introduction:
CRS established the Africa Justice and Peace Working Group (AJPWG) in 2009 in recognition of the Church’s potential to carry out peacebuilding and governance work and with the assumption that if CRS supported it to do so, the Church could better respond to increasing demands to address such issues.
In 2014 the AJPWG was restructured placing a Team Leader at CRS HQ and three advisors in the field. These advisors have focused mostly on peacebuilding and developing, assessing, documenting and disseminating programming approaches and tools to integrate it into CRS’ signature programming areas. A major challenge for the AJPWG has been how to extend this effort into governance. CRS’ new emphasis on engaging government, which involves improving public policy, increasing civic participation and optimizing institutional performance, underscores the need to increase the AJPWG’s capacity to support CRS country programs and partners in this area.
The Africa Governance Senior Technical Advisor (hereafter referred to as the Advisor) will work in close coordination with the other three Advisors, who together with the Team Leader comprise the AJPWG. While each will focus on her/his respective areas of expertise, it is understood that all four will sometimes work interchangeably, depending on the nature of the assignment and the competing demands on their time.
Primary functions:
The Africa Governance Advisor shall be responsible for providing technical and thought leadership in articulating and advancing the CRS strategic vision for governance, part of the core competency, peacebuilding, governance and gender (PBGG) integration. In doing so, the Advisor shall assume responsibility for the following core functions:
- Provide technical solutions to country programs and regions program design and development in governance, and design of monitoring and evaluation systems.
- Coordinates the development of agency-wide strategies to address governance challenges, and helps regions to roll these out across country programs.
- Lead setting agency governance standards and guide African regions in their implementation.
- Stimulate knowledge generation, learning and sharing among staff of CRS and partners in PBGG.
- Participate actively in prepositioning CRS to increase its influence with public donors, developing winning proposals and collecting lessons learned and best practices from ongoing projects.
- Strengthen relationships with the Church of Africa, CRS peers, donor and learning alliance partners through information sharing, representation and advocacy.
- Strengthen the capacity of CRS staff, Church and other civil society partners in PBGG integration, consistent with CRS’ Partnership and Capacity Strengthening Unit’s standards.
Specific Responsibilities:
- Develop and introduce governance approaches and tools to build staff capacity so that CRS more systematically integrates them in signature and other programming areas by leading workshops or learning events to increase staff application of these tools and approaches.
- Market these approaches and identify potential growth opportunities to scale them up.
- Leads technical design in large, strategic (standalone and integrated) governance proposals and reviews proposals to ensure that technical design meets sectoral standards and agency strategy.
- Develop and support application of monitoring and evaluation methods and tools, especially for governance, identifying and documenting promising practices and lessons learned.
- Work with Church and other partners on the continent and abroad to coordinate and harmonize integrated and standalone PBGG priorities and programs and advocacy.
- Travel to country programs to provide quality assurance to ongoing governance programs, as well as support the documentation of highly successful interventions and models.
- Support Church and other partners in advocacy at the local through international levels.
- Support AJPWG Team Leader and Program Impact & Quality Assurance (PIQA)/PBGG Senior Technical Advisors to:
- Develop governance approaches rooted in Catholic Social Teaching (CST) and focused on increasing equity and inclusion
- Identify, develop, and implement initiatives that:
- Foster greater ownership and leadership within the Church in Africa for governance, and
- Accompany Church leadership so that it provides leadership for stimulating active civic engagement of Africa’s citizens in promoting peace and justice.
- Lead pre-positioning and capture of major standalone and integrated governance opportunities.
- Develop and implement capacity strengthening initiatives for CRS and partner staff, including but not limited to the Institute for Peace in Africa as the platform for:
- sustained capacity building in the fundamentals of governance for partners; and
- action and learning in governance through support for research, documentation, and sharing of knowledge on major issues confronting the continent.
- Write publications that highlight best practices and innovations in CRS governance programs.
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.
- Serves with Integrity
- Models Stewardship
- Cultivates Constructive Relationships
- Promotes Learning
Key Working Relationships:
Internal
- AJPWG Team Leader.
- Regional Directors and Deputy Regional Directors for Program Quality in Central, East, West, and Southern Africa regions of CRS; Signature Programming Areas and other development programming pooled technical advisors in the regions.
- Program Impact and Quality Assurance (PIQA) Director for Technical Integration, PIQA Senior Technical Advisors for Justice and Peacebuilding, Gender, Protection.
- Country Representatives; Heads of Programming; PBGG Program Managers.
External
- The leadership and staff of continental and regional Episcopal conferences, institutions, and organizations of the Catholic Church.
- The leadership of institutions and organizations in Africa and elsewhere which have a stake in the promotion of PBGG on the continent.
- Representatives of donor agencies and other bodies with interest in PBGG in Africa.
Personal Skills:
- Broad understanding and application of governance principles, theories, and concepts. Demonstrated knowledge of best practices, and general knowledge of other related disciplines.
- Excellent interpersonal, diplomacy, and negotiating skills. Proven ability to work effectively in an interdisciplinary and intercultural team, to influence change without authority, to work successfully in the field with people at all levels, and to manage conflict and move groups toward consensus.
- Ability to work independently toward goals and with partners. This includes building capacity, being sensitive to CRS staff and partner’s needs, resolving issues, responding proactively and respectfully.
- Outstanding oral and written communication skills. Proven ability to design high quality projects and successful proposals.
- Demonstrated ability to transfer knowledge to diverse audiences through training, mentoring, and other formal and non-formal methods.
- Demonstrated ability to design curricula and facilitate learning opportunities for adults through training, mentoring, and other methods.
- Excellent organizational and planning skills. Self-motivated and able to work under pressure.
- Proven ability to use office productivity products currently in use at CRS.
- Flexibility, patience, dedication and creativity.
- Strong personal orientation and commitment to good governance as a way of promoting social injustice; committed to the principles of Catholic Social Teaching.
Qualifications:
- PhD in the social sciences, law, governance, international relations, public policy/administration or related fields or Master’s degree with significant experience.
- Eight to fifteen years of relevant international working experience in an advisory or management role, preferably with five years’ experience working in Africa, contributing to or managing projects in anticorruption, local governance, elections, and/or natural resource governance.
- Previous relevant experience in a regional advisory role required.
- Candidates should also have experience developing successful proposals for external donor funding and have been published.
- Knowledge of and experience with working with country, regional and continental institutions of the Catholic Church and other civil society organizations.
- Experience with program monitoring including development of indicators, data collection tools and methodologies, data analysis, and data presentation.
- Recognized technical leader in governance with significant publications in relevant fields.
- Fluency in spoken and written English and French required.
- Computer skills (Word, Excel, Access, Outlook, SharePoint, SalesForce).
- Willingness to travel overseas up to 40% of time.
Physical Requirements/Environment:
Travel will be throughout the African continent, sometimes to areas that are experiencing civil conflict. Generally, travel will be 2-3 week trips. Normal office environment when not traveling.
Disclaimer:
This job description is not an exhaustive list of the skills, 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
EOE
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