Senior Project Officer-Inclusion

bout 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-Inclusion

Band:                                  VIII

Required number:           One

Employment Term:         Indefinite Term contingent on funding of the JEOP Program

Reports To:                  Deputy Chief of Party – Program Quality (JEOP)

Country/Location:            CRS Ethiopia/Addis Abba

Job Summary: You will provide support to CRS/JEOP on a range of program design and implementation issues around inclusion 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 development and contribute to implementation of JEOP-wide gender and protection-sensitive disability and youth engagement strategies, standards, tools, and best practices in youth programming that effectively engage partners, USAID, and Government of Ethiopia. Help ensure a cross-sectoral approach integrating inclusion, gender, protection mainstreaming, and disaster risk reduction, with close collaboration with the CRS’ USAID-funded Resilience Food Security Activity (RFSA).
• Closely work with CRS Social Behavioral Change team to develop comprehensive behavioral change strategies and plans around youth engagement on JEOP with a Do No Harm lens.
•  Provide technical support to JEOP’s partner teams, remotely and on-site, for strategic planning and how to best apply standards, best practices, partnership principles, tools and monitoring, Evaluation, accountability and learning (MEAL), helping to ensure high-quality implementation.
• Support JEOP’s MEAL team to include youth perspective in research, mid-term and end line evaluations and mainstream sex, age and disability disaggregated sensitive indicators into the MEAL framework. Contribute to developing indicators, milestones and plans, and lead reporting on all indicators for youth integration, and program progress.
• Provide dynamic support and team coordination to JEOP’s inclusion activities, including support in integration and empowerment and build knowledge and technical capacity to implement and monitor youth engagement programming.
• Support capacity strengthening initiatives in inclusive humanitarian action for staff and partners through helping develop learning and training agendas, conducting trainings and workshops, and coaching.
• Collect and analyze program data, capture and share lessons learned and best practices to facilitate improvements in decision-making and contribute to a youth learning agenda.
• Participate in forums for inclusion, collect and share best practices and promote CRS’ work.
• Act as the main focal person for JEOP with inclusion partners. Establish, coordinate, and oversee working relationships with all local project stakeholders, including organizations of persons with disabilities, disability service providers, and disability-related government authorities. Serve as the liaison between them and the project team to mobilize local actors; advocate and facilitate access to services for children with disabilities and their families.
• Implement and coordinate disability inclusion capacity building and technical support activities such as training, coaching, and materials review/adaptation to ensure assigned project activities are implemented per project guidelines and standards.
• Ensure learning properly accompanies disability inclusion activities throughout the project cycle. Support accountability through coordinating project evaluation activities and guiding partners in their efforts to reflect on project experiences. Analyze implementation challenges and report any inconsistencies and/or gaps to inform adjustments to plans and implementation schedules.
• Ensure project documentation for disability inclusive approaches, outcomes, and lessons learned is complete with all required documents and is filed per agency and donor requirements. Assist with preparation of trend analysis reports and documentation of case studies and promising practices

Typical Background, Experience & Requirements:

 Required Education and Experience

•  BA/MA Degree in Degree in Special Education, Social Work, Public Health or in the field of disability inclusion would be a plus.
• Minimum of three years of relevant work experience in inclusion programming with progressive responsibilities with an NGO.
• Knowledge of technical principles and concepts in youth.
• Knowledge of capacity strengthening best practices.
• Experience with participatory methods. Demonstrated capacity building experience.
• Proficient in MS Office packages (Excel, Word, PowerPoint), Web Conferencing Applications, information and budget management systems, knowledge-sharing networks.
• Ability to draft reports, communications materials, detailed implementation plans.

Desired Education and Experience

• Experience working with an international NGO.
• General knowledge of other related disciplines to ensure proper cross-sectoral approach.
• Experience in working in large scale complex programs, in challenging environments, with strong emphasis on poor and vulnerable populations, pastoralist cultures, and agriculture.
• 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.

Personal Skills

• Inclusive approach, able to elevate the voices of underrepresented groups.
• Flexibility, persistence, and ability to work well with people and cross-cultural skills Strong 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
• Analytical, problem-solving and systems thinking skills with capacity to see the big picture and ability to make sound judgment
• Strong presentation, facilitation, training, mentoring, and coaching skills
• Proactive, resourceful, and results-oriented

 Required/Desired Foreign Language: Strong written and verbal communication skills in English and Amharic. Other Ethiopian national languages a plus.

Travel Required: 25-50% by road and air across Amhara, Oromia, SNNPR, Sidama, Dire Dawa City Administration and Tigray (subject to need and flexible to family commitments)

 Key Working Relationships:

Supervisory: N/a

Internal: JEOP Chief of Party and Senior Management Team; JEOP technical team leads; CRS Ethiopia Country Program staff; Regional Technical Advisors.

External:  JEOP Consortium members, local government stakeholders and communities, peer organizations and, representatives from for-profit and other non-profit organizations, operating in JEOP woredas.

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.