Job Title: Technical Advisor III – Health and Nutrition, Central Africa Regional Office

Job Location: Remote/home-based

Reports to: Deputy Regional Director for Program Quality, CARO

Salary Grade: 11

*NOTE: This is a remote position; CRS prioritizes candidates who are citizens OR permanent residents of the countries where we have CRS offices. CRS does not sponsor visas for remote employees.

 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.

Job Summary: 

CRS’ health portfolio in Central Africa currently has an annual program value of about $120 million, including malaria, nutrition, vaccination, and health systems strengthening activities. Your expertise, advice and influence will significantly contribute to determining how effective, adaptive and innovative CRS’ health and nutrition programming is across the region.

You will contribute to strategy development in health and nutrition for the 10-country Central Africa region (Benin, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria and Rwanda) and provide technical advice and leadership in health and nutrition to programs within the Central Africa region, in line with Catholic Relief Services (CRS) program quality principles and standards, donor guidelines, and industry best practices to Country Program (CP) teams to advance the delivery of high-quality programming to the poor and vulnerable.

Roles and Key Responsibilities:

• Contribute to the design, advocate for, and ensure implementation of agency-wide strategies, standards, tools, and best practices in health and nutrition –particularly in the development of new proposals and business development initiatives–that effectively engage partners, donors, and governments. Ensure a cross-sectoral approach that integrates food security, WASH, emergency response, gender, protection mainstreaming, and disaster risk reduction.
• Contribute to HQ, regional, and country program staff efforts to pre-position CRS for strategic growth opportunities in health and nutrition. Provide technical guidance in proposal development, project design, and review with a focus on complex projects to ensure innovative programming solutions and technical excellence. Periodically serve as technical lead or lead reviewer on proposal teams as needed. Support CPs to appropriately staff project teams, including design of job descriptions and participation in recruitment.
• Collaborate with regional and country program staff to identify, design and deliver technical solutions for regional and CP teams, including for strategic planning and how to best apply and adapt program design and implementation standards, best practices, partnership principles, tools, and M&E in health and nutrition, including for social and behavior change concepts.
• Oversee and lead the delivery of capacity strengthening initiatives in health and nutrition for staff and partners in Central Africa through helping develop learning and training strategies and agendas/curriculums; organizing and/or facilitating trainings, workshops and conferences; and mentoring and coaching staff in innovative CRS approaches and tools. Provide mentoring and coaching to TAs, as well as CP staff.
• Train and mentor staff across the region in understanding how our Catholic identity influences our health work; assist country teams in designing and securing required reviews for activities and partnerships that are responsive to local needs while remaining faithful to Church principles.
• Oversee and lead the regional knowledge management and learning agenda in health and nutrition through helping implement conditions for collective learning that ensure the capturing, documenting, and sharing of key successes, promising practices, lessons learned, and evidence-based implementation research, internally and externally, including publications in peer reviewed journals.
• Represent CRS in targeted regional or global forums to develop opportunities and better ensure collaboration and shared learning in health and nutrition to influence technical partner approaches, future funding opportunities, and policies. Network with relevant organizations to increase CRS’ profile in health and nutrition, influence in the regional or global health and nutrition community, and donor diversification.

Basic Qualifications

• Master’s degree in public health, or medicine, nursing, nutrition, biochemistry, or a similar/related field. PhD a plus.
• Minimum of seven years of work experience in nutrition or health projects with progressive responsibilities, ideally with an international NGO, with three years overseas in multiple regions as a technical advisor and/or program manager of a health/nutrition project and/or multi-sectoral project with a health or nutrition component.
• Strong understanding and application of technical principles and concepts in public health/health systems strengthening. Good knowledge of related disciplines to ensure proper cross-sectoral approach.
• Track record of contributing to successful business development activities—including as a proposal team member—capturing public and/or private donor funding in health and nutrition.
• Experience in the development and production of curricula, tools, and other products to support health or nutrition interventions and programming. Demonstrated experience to transfer knowledge to diverse audiences through training, mentoring, and other formal and informal methods.
• Experience with program monitoring and evaluation including development of indicators, data collection tools and methodologies, data analysis, and data presentation.
• Experience and skills to represent the organization at meetings with donors, government, international NGOs, local partners – faith-based and civil society. Understanding of partnership principles.
• Proficient in MS Office packages (Excel, Word, PowerPoint), Web Conferencing Applications and strong understanding of information and budget management systems and knowledge-sharing networks.
• Technical and/or academic publications a plus.

Required Languages – Fluency in English and French required

Travel – Must be willing and able to travel up to 30%, including to remote locations across the CRS Central Africa Region.

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
• Very strong strategic, analytical, problem-solving and systems thinking skills with capacity to see the big picture and ability to make sound judgment
• Very strong written and oral communication skills
• Very strong presentation, facilitation, training, mentoring, and coaching skills
• Proactive, resourceful and results-oriented

Agency REDI Competencies (for all CRS Staff):

Agency competencies clarify expected behaviors and attitudes for all staff. When demonstrated, they create an engaging workplace, help staff achieve their best, and help CRS achieve agency goals. 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.

• Personal Accountability – Consistently takes responsibility for one’s own actions.
• Acts with Integrity – Consistently models values aligned with CRS Guiding Principles and mission.  Is considered honest.
• Builds and Maintains Trust – Shows consistency between words and actions.
• Collaborates with Others – Works effectively in intercultural and diverse teams.
• Open to Learn – Seeks out experiences that may change perspective or provide an opportunity to learn new things.

Agency Leadership Competencies:

• Lead Change – Continually looks for ways to improve the agency through a culture of agility, openness, and innovation.
• Develops and Recognizes Others – Builds the capacity of staff to reach their full potential and enhance team and agency performance.
• Strategic Mindset – Understands role in translating, communicating, and implementing agency strategy and team priorities.

Supervisory Responsibilities: None

Key Working Relationships: 

Internal: Chiefs of Party, Program Managers and Technical Staff based in the country programs; Heads of Programming; Other regional technical advisors (WASH, Ag/Livelihoods, Emergency Response, Gender, etc.); Global Health and Social Services Technical Team; Global Fund Support Unit

External: Donor representatives (especially USAID and GF), UN agencies (UNICEF, WHO), Government Counterparts; Consortium partners and peer organizations

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’ 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