Senior project officer- Accountability

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 equality and inclusion, and mitigates the impact of COVID-19.

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 position.

Job Title:                          Senior project officer- Accountability

Band:                                 VIII

Required number:           One

Employment Term:          Indefinite Term up on contingent of the program

Reports To:                        Program Manager – MEAL PM

Department:                    MEAL

Job Summary:

Accountability Senior Project officer is the member of the Monitoring Evaluation Accountability and Learning (MEAL) team. S/he is responsible to ensure that mechanisms are in place in projects/program to fulfill CRS internal policies CRS’ (Monitoring Evaluation Accountability and Learning Policies and Procedures-MPP) and key CRS accountability related commitments (Core Humanitarian Standard, HAP-Humanitarian Accountability Partnership, good enough and other emerging standards).  And as country program accountability officer, the position holder is responsible to lead effective implementation of CRS Ethiopia Accountability framework.

Moreover, CRS Ethiopia accountability officer is a resource person for key accountability roles related to: coordinating projects and CRS leadership efforts; establish and review feedback and response (FRM) system; assist information sharing and community participation process, and capture and share learning identified through different accountability systems.

Job Responsibilities:

Develop and strengthen accountability system:

• Establish a system, oversee and maintain mechanisms to ensure accountability to the people we serve, to donor and stakeholders.
• Support CRS staff and partners in designing and implementing monitoring and evaluation system that strengthen quality and accountability.
• Establishing a sustainable Complaints Response Mechanism (CRM) in each site which ensures all beneficiaries can make confidential complaints and be confident in response processes.
• Establish a system to track and analyze trends on feedback and response to regularly improve programming.
• Monitor the functionality of the hotline system
• Manage call center agents

 Capacity development

• Building capacity of all staff, partners and project participants as appropriate in MPP with special emphasis on accountability standards.
• Support projects/emergency responses to integrate sound accountability system (feedback and response mechanism, information provision mechanism, and community participation) through the project life cycle that also aligns to donor requirements (if any)
• Support the application of accountability into project design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, and partnership agreements.
• Participate actively in Inter-Agency Accountability Working Group (IAAWG) based in Addis Ababa representing CRS-ET and update accountability systems and relevant staff with information.

 Monitoring, Evaluation, Learning, and knowledge management

• Support target communities’ priorities are identified and use inputs from communities to shape program design, implementation, monitoring, evaluation, and learning process.
• Support the project design process and overall MEAL system to incorporate elements of CRS Ethiopia accountability framework.
• Monitor and report elements of the country program accountability mechanism particularly progress related to the feedback system, information sharing, and participation.
• Organize learning events with a focus on learning from accountability and application of CRS/Ethiopia accountability framework.

Gender and protection issues

• Ensure that gender and protection issues are well considered in developing the CP accountability system, and application of CRS Ethiopia framework. More specifically ensures that the overall accountability mechanism in the agency particularly complaint and response system address gender issues including the incidence of abuse and exploitation.
• Ensures that accountability data collection tools, checklist and reporting templets collect disaggregated data on sex as well as other relevant aspects of social, economic, cultural, and environmental useful for decision making.
• Ensure that both male, female, and other relevant segment of communities (depending on specific tasks) are fairly represented in complaint handling process (mainly complaint committees), training and monitoring process.

 Support to MEAL unit and country program

•  Support CRS’ work in Ethiopia by undertaking other tasks as appropriate and required.

Typical Background, Experience & Requirements:

 Education and Experience

• MA/MSC or BA/BSC Degree in social work, social science or related field of study
• 2 years relevant experience for MA or 5 years relevant experience for BA degree
• Experience in accountability to the beneficiary, and donor.
• Experience in monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning.
• Experience in establishing and management of feedback and response system, information sharing etc.
• Experience using MS Windows and MS Office packages (Excel, Word, and PowerPoint).

 Personal Skills

• Observation, active listening and analysis skills with ability to make sound judgment
• Good relationship management skills and the ability to work closely with local partners and community members

• Attention to details, accuracy, and timeliness in executing assigned responsibilities
• Proactive, results-oriented and service-oriented

 Skills & experience:

• Demonstrated experience in participatory methods and understanding of adult learning principles.
• High integrity and willingness to conduct her/himself transparently and open to scrutiny.
• Familiarity with the work of NGOs is desirable.
• Thorough familiarity with principles and current approaches to monitoring and evaluation of relief and development programs using both quantitative and qualitative methods
• Demonstrated experience in facilitation skills and training.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Strong empathy skills and genuine care and respect for the needs of others especially female and another marginalized group.
• The ability to work in a systematic and organized manner.
• Ability to respect and maintain confidentiality.
• Strong negotiation skills.
• The ability to prioritize competing demands.
• Commitment to humanitarian principles and values.

Travel Required – frequent travel to project implementation areas estimated to be >50%.

Key Working Relationships:

Supervisory: Call Center Agents

Internal: MEAL Manager, HOP, DHoP-MPS, DHoP-Program Quality, Protection and Safeguarding PM, Sector PMs, EARO/HQ MEAL RTA

External:  Partners, MEAL working group, Consultants

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.

• Integrity
• Continuous Improvement & Innovation
• Builds Relationships
• Develops Talent
• Strategic Mindset
• Accountability & Stewardship