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 consideration of race, religion, or nationality. CRS’ relief and development work is accomplished through programs of emergency response, HIV, health, agriculture, education, microfinance, and peacebuilding.

CRS has been operating in Nigeria for over 25 years, with extensive experience across all 36 states. The organization has substantial expertise in building resilient agriculture-led livelihoods, enhancing agricultural value chains, and advancing natural resource management (NRM). CRS has successfully implemented several agriculture and livelihood development projects, including the Feed the Future (FtF) Agriculture and Livelihoods project and the Water for Agriculture initiatives across the Northeast and Northwest regions. Additionally, CRS is leading value chain initiatives such as the BASICS project, which focuses on developing cassava value chains.

Job Summary: 

As Program Manager, you will provide overall leadership to the EU-funded Regreening Africa project team. You will be responsible for the overall management of the project, including the quality of programmatic implementation (i.e. monitoring, evaluation, and learning) and administrative elements of the project to serve the poor and vulnerable. You will be responsible for ensuring that project results are achieved on time and within budget, including strategies for phase-out and sustainability, and that the budget is consumed as planned. As a senior leader, you will proactively manage security and mitigate security risks. The PM I will be based in Sokoto, Sokoto State.

Roles and Key Responsibilities:

• Lead all aspects of the project development, implementation, and consolidation of project results. Serve as the primary point of contact for the country consortium lead (CARE Nigeria) and all stakeholders, including public, private, and non-governmental entities.

• Ensure the project meets donor expectations through timely and quality implementation of activities, results reporting, and budget tracking, including strategies for phase-out and sustainability. Ensure coordination between program and operations leads, adhering to CRS program quality standards per MEAL policy and procedures.

• Effectively manage programming and operations talent by overseeing team dynamics and staff well-being, providing coaching and mentoring, tailoring individual development plans, and completing performance assessments for direct reports. Oversee staffing plans and the recruitment process for senior staff.

• Manage and mitigate risk by monitoring national and regional issues that may impact staff and programming. Ensure all staff understand and adhere to CRS safety and security policies and plans, updating them as necessary.

• Promote efficient use of agency and donor resources. Ensure compliance with EU grants, including financial tracking, administration, and reporting. Approve program expenditures, budget adjustments, and cost modification requests.

• Oversee the development of communication strategies and materials, complying with donor and CRS branding and marketing requirements.

• Facilitate collaboration with consortium partner organizations by supporting the lead partner in organizing review and planning workshops. Coordinate CRS staff roles and activities in alignment with consortium-wide plans, ensuring consistency with CRS partnership principles and the lead partner’s strategic direction.

• Create and maintain proper conditions for learning, establishing a safe environment for sharing ideas, solutions, and challenges. Detect, analyze, and respond quickly to deficiencies, identify performance gaps and training opportunities, and ensure the design and delivery of high-quality training and technical assistance for CRS and partner staff.

Required Languages – English language

Travel – Must be willing and able to travel up to 30%.

Key Working Relationships: 

Internal: DCR-Programs, DCR Operations, Head of Office – Sokoto, Finance, Administration, M&E, Audit, Country Representative, Business Development Specialist, MarComm Coordinator, RTA/Agriculture as well as other relevant regional and HQ Technical Staff.

External: Catholic Diocese of Sokoto, CARE Nigeria, ICRAF-CIFOR, National Agency for Great Green Wall, representatives of other NGOs, Donors, Researchers, and the Private Sector, etc.

• Master’s degree in Agriculture, International Development, International Relations or a related field.

• At least 7 years of experience managing large-scale development grants, preferably focusing on Seed systems development.

• Proven track record of successful EU-funded program management, including management of multi-activity projects, complicated logistics, and large budgets, as well as commodities.

• At least 5 years of supervisory experience, including performance evaluation, coaching, and mentoring.