Project Officer – Early Warning & DRR

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.

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 ensure partners implement program activities in quality. Your position involves frequent travel to field to monitor the program implementation against standard checklist and provide on spot feedbacks during debriefing sessions with partners. In addition, you might also be required to provide a backup support to partners to implement program implementations.  When providing your technical backup and support in these specific areas, you are expected to comply 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:

·         Participate in monthly woreda level review meetings in a randomly selected woredas and closely monitor partner early warning staff alignment to the requirement of conducting the monthly woreda level early warning review meetings to complete monthly reporting indictors; review data and generate key messages; and document meeting minutes accordingly.

·         Review weekly and monthly early warning reports received from partners and consistently provide feedbacks to reporting partners and woreda to improve the quality of reporting

·         Participate in a quarterly zonal level review meeting; ensure meeting participants review JEOP EW data/dashboard; and reach into sound conclusions in terms of impacts of disaster and need estimation

·         Closely monitor the timeliness and quality of the delivery of early warning trainings at woreda and kebele level, such as participator hazard, vulnerability, and capacity assessment and need estimation; early warning, humanitarian assistance, and national targeting guideline; and MARKit trainings

·         Support and participate in the need identification process in some randomly selected kebeles in JEOP program implementation woredas; organize feedback from the process; and suggest improvements in JEOP programming

·         Conduct a random visit to Kebeles and woredas to learn the targeting process; identify missed components in the process; and learn challenges and suggest where to improve the process

·         Monitor the project targeting process comply with the national targeting guideline and partners provide the planned support to the process in a timely and quality manner.

·         Ensure complaints and feedback received related to the targeting process are addressed by the woreda and kebele targeting committee and the list endorsed accordingly

·         Ensure that partners are conducting the market monitoring system as per the MARKit guideline, timely review market reports, conduct occasional visit to markets, and provide constructive feedbacks

·         Closely work with the JEOP distribution team to understand distribution plan (cash/commodity) and advise early warning team to pick prices and availability information of key staples, pulse, and oil at least a week before and a week after distribution in selected markets.

·         Follow up with partners implementing the market and supply chain survey and ensure quality data is collected and submitted to CRS by making spot checks and conducting review meetings with enumerators and partner early warning staff

·         Provide program quality monitoring feedback reports and share findings in regional and national JEOP EW technical working group meetings

·         Collect and analyze program data, capture and share lessons learned and best practices for the project to facilitate improvements in decision-making and contribute to the JEOP and CP learning agenda.

·         Ensure the rapid assessment questionnaire and methodologies are contextualized, engage in rapid need assessment and support rapid response team to provide timely and relevant response to the affected people

·         Ensure the cross-cutting teams are mainstreamed and implemented in the market assessment and surveys

·         Represent CRS and JEOP in forums in the area of markets to share best practices and promote CRS’ work and contribute to maintaining relationships with government, donors, peer organizations, research and other institutions.

·         Participate in national, zonal and woreda level multi-agency need assessments activities as required.

Typical Background, Experience & Requirements:

Education and Experience

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

·         Minimum of 2 years of relevant work experience in market assessment, food security, resilience or early warning systems or Disaster Risk Reduction with progressive responsibilities, ideally with an international NGO.

·         Minimum of 1 years of experience with partnership activities and institutional strengthening, preferably with a religious partner.

·         Knowledge of technical principles and concepts in market monitoring, early warning, and food security, humanitarian assistance. General knowledge of other related disciplines to ensure proper cross-sectoral approach.

·         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

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 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, and Amharic. Tigrigna language is advantageous

Travel Required: 30-50%

 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.