Senior Project Officer – Early Warning & DRR

Category:  Agriculture, Development and Project Management
Location:  Mekelle, Tigray
Career Level: Senior Level (5+ years experience)
Employment Type: Full time

Job Description

Internal/External Job Announcements

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.

 

For nearly 60 years, CRS has taken the lead in responding to natural and man-made disasters affecting Ethiopia’s most vulnerable communities. Moving beyond emergency response, CRS’ disaster mitigation and recovery projects in drought and flood-prone areas have rebuilt individual and community assets through non-food aid in the form of agriculture, livestock, health, nutrition, and water and sanitation assistance. CRS’s humanitarian work in Ethiopia also provides livelihoods support to farmers and entrepreneurs, promotes gender equality, mobilizes for immunization and mitigates the impact of HIV.

 

As part of CRS family, you will join the more than 5000 strong and vibrant individuals working globally to accomplish the mission of CRS. CRS/Ethiopia invites you, the qualified candidate, to apply for the following positions.

I.

Position Title:

Senior Project Officer – Early Warning & DRR

Duty Station:

Mekele

Employment Term:

Fixed Term contingent upon funding of the JEOP

Reports to:

Program Manager II – Early Warning and DRR

Application Deadline:

October 8, 2021

Job Summary:

Joint Emergency Operation (JEOP) is a food assistance consortium operating in Ethiopia since 2012. JEOP works closely with the National Disaster risk management commission and other stakeholders to provide food assistance to disaster affected people in Ethiopia. JEOP also supports and engages in the food security assessment in the affected areas and targeting process of the affected people. Strengthening the Government early warning system is one of the JEOP’s strategic investment areas to enhance the Government’s capacity to collect timely and quality data to inform the need estimation.

Due to the current conflict in Tigray Region, JEOP response scaled up significantly into more than 50 Woredas. Presently the JEOP response in Tigray is ongoing with the involvement of five consortium members such as CRS (lead), CARE, FHE, REST and WVE. In order to increase the effectiveness of food assistance program in Tigray, JEOP planned various program activities in areas of food security assessment and analysis; market assessment and survey; capacity building of woreda and Kebele DRM structure; regular early warning data collection and reporting and targeting of project participants.

In this position, you will be responsible to provide strategic leadership and support for the JEOP partners implementing early warning activities in Tigray region. Your position involves participation and representation in regional level meetings with key stakeholders to strategize need assessments and other early warning activities. You are also expected to demonstrate innovative thinking and approaches to support implementation of early warning activities in a challenging security situation.

You will provide support to CRS/JEOP on a range of program design and implementation issues in the area of Early Warning, Disaster Risk Reduction and resilience in line with Catholic Relief Services (CRS) program quality principles and standards, donor guidelines, and industry best practices to CRS country program team and JEOP team 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’ programming is across the globe.

 

Job Responsibilities:

·         Support JEOP partners in the implementation of strategies, standards, tools and best practices in Early Warning, Disaster Risk Reduction, resilience and market surveys in Tigray region.

·         Assess gaps and provide a capacity building training to partners’ Early Warning and market focal persons in areas of early warning/market data collection and analysis

·         Regularly review JEOP early warning and market data collected from JEOP partners operating in Tigray, and draw alerting trends for the attention, preparedness and response

·         Support JEOP partners, woreda and zonal Government to review early warning reports regularly and effectively in a monthly base; assess needs and exercise forecast; generate key risk messages; and   disseminate early warning information innovatively to the Tigray context and in appropriate media at local level for early action measures.

·         Support partners to roll out capacity building trainings to local Government and communities in areas of early warning, humanitarian assistance, and national targeting guideline

·         Regularly ask feedback from trainee’s, trainers and other stakeholders on the JEOP training modules, dashboards, and reports; and make improvement, recommend changes and revise materials as necessary

·         Provide technical support to JEOP partners and local Government to conduct seasonal need assessments and quality need estimation at woreda level

·         Provide technical support to JEOP partners and local Government to conduct Project participant targeting based on the national relief targeting guideline and increase awareness of kebele relief committee to conduct need-based targeting through facilitating participatory hazard, vulnerability and capacity assessment

·         Ensure partners conduct quarterly early warning review and need estimation meeting at woreda level through complying with the recommended approach and protocols. Provide technical support for JEOP partners and local Government to prepare a quality report as a proceeding of the quarterly reviews.

·         Closely work with JEOP partners and RFSA to ensure the risk action plans prepared by the communities are included in the annual woreda development plan

·         Provide support to JEOP partners in implementation of market monitoring system as per the MARKit guideline

·         Adapt the market and supply chain monitoring tool to the local context and implement the tool to collect the market and supply chain information in severely disaster affected parts of the region

·         Reflect the Tigray market situation in a monthly early warning and market information dissemination session, Tigray regional early warning technical working group meetings, and any other forums organized by stakeholders

·         Provide support to the market monitoring team to collect market information in key periods, such as before and after cash/in-kind distribution, analyze result and flag impacts of program implementation in local markets with recommendations.

·         Follow up with partners to ensure the recommendations from the market monitoring system were implemented.

·         Initiate multi – agency rapid need assessment in a disaster affected areas and coordinate with rapid response team for timely response

·         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 JEOP and CP learning agenda.

·         Coordinate with technical personals of CRS to ensure the cross-cutting teams are mainstreamed in the early warning activities

·         Represent CRS and JEOP in forums in the area of Early Warning, Disaster Risk Reduction and resilience to collect and share best practices and promote CRS’ work and contribute to maintaining relationships with government, donors, peer organizations, research and other institutions.

·         Participate in regional level clusters for coordination of need assessment activities

·         Chair a Tigray level implementing partners early warning technical working group meeting which should be conducted at least once per quarter

Job Requirements

Typical Background, Experience & Requirements:

Education and Experience

·         University degree in project management, development, Agriculture, Early Warning, Disaster Risk Reduction,  resilience and related field of studies.

·         Minimum of 3 years of relevant work experience  in areas of resilience or early warning systems, DRR, livelihood, food security and other related areas with progressive responsibilities, ideally with an international NGO.

·         Minimum of one years of experience with partnership activities and institutional strengthening.

·         Knowledge of technical concepts in one or more of the following areas: early warning, disaster risk reduction, food security, livelihoods, market monitoring, resilience, and humanitarian assistance. General knowledge of other related disciplines to ensure proper cross-sectoral approach.

·         Experience in project design and proposal development.

·         Knowledge of and experience with capacity strengthening best practices; experience with capacity building, including training mentoring as well as developing training materials.

·         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.

·         Strong English writing skills.

·         Proficient in MS Office packages (Excel, Word, PowerPoint), Web Conferencing Applications, information and budget management systems, knowledge-sharing networks, data collection platforms (e.g. iFormBuilder, KOBO, CommCare), statistical analysis and visualization software (e.g. SPSS, STATA, R, Power BI).

 

Personal Skills

·         Strong relationship management skills with ability to influence and get buy-in from people not under direct supervision, work with individuals in diverse geographical and cultural settings, and with local partners in a collaborative way, prioritizing subsidiarity

·         Ability to work under protracted security situation

·         Ability to work under remote supervision as part of the team in fast-paced emergency environment according to CRS Standard Operating Procedures

·         Good strategic, analytical, problem-solving and systems thinking skills with capacity to see the big picture and ability to make sound judgment

·         Strong technical writing skills

·         Strong data collection and research skills and ability to interpret and analyze data

·         Presentation, facilitation, training, mentoring, and coaching skills

·         Proactive, resourceful and results-oriented

·         Attention to details, accuracy and timeliness in executing assigned responsibilities

·         Women are highly encouraged to apply.

 Required/Desired Foreign Language: English, Amharic and Tigrigna.

Travel Required 25%-30%

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

Disclaimer:  This job description is not an exhaustive list of the skill, effort, duties, and responsibilities associated with the position.

How to Apply

You should fill the application form through this link: Form

and attach your up-to-date CV on / before the application deadline October 08, 2021.

You will be contacted only if selected for written exam/interview. Phone solicitations will not be accepted. These job opportunities are open to Ethiopian nationals only.

CRS requires its staff to treat all people with dignity and respect and to actively prevent harassment, abuse, exploitation, and human trafficking. 

 

** Qualified women are highly encouraged to apply**