Technical Advisor I –RFSA Health & Nutrition -Dire Dawa, Ethiopia

About CRS: Catholic Relief Services (CRS) 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 are accomplished through programs of emergency response, 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.

Position:                       Technical Advisor I – RFSA Health and Nutrition

Duty Station:                CRS Ethiopia/Diredawa

Employment Term:      Definite term (i.e. up to June 30, 2026)

Report to:                     Program Manager II – Health and Nutrition

Job Summary:

You will provide technical advice and support, coordination towards the achievements of set objectives through a range of program design and implementation with focus on the Health and Nutrition in line with Catholic Relief Services (CRS) program quality principles and standards, donor guidelines, and industry best practices to CRS’ Resilience Food Security Activity (RFSA)/Ifaa program to advance the delivery of high-quality programming to the poor and vulnerable. In addition, you will ensure new community approaches such as the Care Group Model (CGM) are established and that these Care Groups, its structures, and other stakeholders receive the appropriate capacity building support.

You will also work with RFSA (Ifaa) consortium members to develop agendas/curricula, conduct trainings and workshops, and coaching as appropriate. In addition, the position holder will work with multiple Ifaa sectors staff to make sure that partners and stakeholders, working with Ifaa have an appropriate household/ community engagement and local capacity strengthening plan localization and subsidiarity in place. The overarching goal of Ifaa is Improved food security of vulnerable households in targeted PSNP communities, contributing to a sustained reduction in rural poverty in Oromia. Your advice, knowledge, and support will contribute to determining how effective, adaptive, and innovative CRS programming is within the RFSA/Ifaa. You will also ensure appropriate and continued coordination and joint planning with other USAID and other donor activities (specifically the USAID food security and resilience portfolio), and GoE initiatives.

Job Responsibilities:

• Support the development and contribute to the implementation of agency-wide strategies, standards, tools and best practices in Health and Nutrition that effectively engage partners, donors, and governments. Help ensure a cross-sectoral approach integrating gender, protection mainstreaming, and disaster risk reduction.
• Provide technical solutions to CP and field level RFSA teams, remotely and on-site, for strategic planning and how to best apply standards, best practices, partnership principles, tools, and M&E, helping to ensure high-quality implementation of the RFSA Health and Nutrition activities.
• Contribute to, and in some cases lead, the development of the technical design, submission and approval of project concepts and full-fledged proposals for the Health & Nutrition components. As needed, act as a technical writer on proposal development teams; advise project teams on integrating donor strategies, priorities, and technical requirements into CRS’ approach.
• Support capacity strengthening initiatives in Health and Nutrition programming for staff and partner through developing learning and training strategies and agendas/curriculums, conducting trainings and workshops, and supervision/coaching.
• 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 Health and Nutrition learning agenda.
• Contribute to maintaining relationships with donors, peer organizations, research, and other institutions, participate in forums around Health and Nutrition to collect and share best practices and promote CRS’ work.
• Play key role and ensure the implementation of all assigned RFSA Health & Nutrition activities as outlined in the DIP in line with CRS program quality principles and standards, donor requirements, government policies and good practices.
• Ensure that all Health and Nutrition program activities comply with Ethiopian MoH polices, strategies and guidelines including but not limited to National Nutrition Strategy, National Nutrition Programme, Food policy, 1000 days principle, Saqota declarations, etc. Provide regular support to the Health and Nutrition PM in overall focused strategic areas, Coordinating and monitoring of financial and material resources; this includes moving between field and CP office as required.
• Play a key role in building and maintaining relationship with CRS partners, government staff, and working with all relevant stakeholders in RFSA targeted areas.
• With field-based CRS and HCS staffs, engage in Implementations/ documentations of quality and standard Health and Nutrition MEAL components (ITT/IPTT, data collection, checklists, quarterly and annual report writing, Meeting minutes, regular updates, DIP tracking, success stories, etc); that includes analyzing and interpretation of field data.
• With other sectors, organize response to Nutrition emergencies and outbreaks in drought affected Woredas, including preparing HN related concept note, gathering of updated data on prevalence of malnutrition and outbreaks, networking with other agencies in the areas and galvanizing responses.
• Provide support to all Health and Nutrition related capacity building trainings to Partners and GoE MoH and HFs staffs.
• Play a key role in all Health and Nutrition sector planned assessments, surveys, research and continued learning plan (Food preservation and storage, Nutrition linkage, time saving technologies, etc).
• Supervise, guide, and conduct regular follow up on the field CRS Health and Nutrition officers as per the CRS performance management system.
• Engage in other activities as assigned by the Health and Nutrition PM or other RFSA senior managers.

Scope: The RFSA Health & Nutrition Technical Advisor will supervise two field based RFSA Health and Nutrition officers.

Education and Experience

• Master’s Degree in Health, public Health, or combination of PH & Nutrition.
• Minimum of seven years of relevant work experience (as TA or similar level) in Health and Nutrition with progressive responsibilities, ideally with an international NGO, with minimum of two to three years of working for programming interventions in multiple countries.
• Knowledge of technical principles and concepts in Health and Nutrition. General knowledge of food security and other related disciplines to ensure proper cross-sectoral approach.
• Demonstrated experience and skills in project design and proposal development, quality report writing, data analysis and interpretations, etc.
• Knowledge of capacity strengthening best practices.
• Experience with program monitoring, evaluation, and analysis.
• Experience and skills in networking and relations with donors (BHA and the like), peer organizations, and faith-based and civil society partners. Understanding of partnership principles.
• Experience and skills in conducting assessments, surveys, including analysis and report writing.
• Previous Experience of leading and managing complex nutrition programmes in different community settings.
• Skills in analyzing, interpreting, and communicating reports/information to a wide range or stakeholders, including producing publications and organizing public events.
• Proficient in MS Office packages (Excel, Word, PowerPoint), Web Conferencing Applications, information and budget management systems, knowledge-sharing networks.

Personal 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.
• Good strategic, analytical, problem-solving and systems thinking skills with capacity to see the big picture and ability to make sound judgment.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills with ability to write well-articulated reports as per donor and CRS guidelines.
• Presentation, facilitation, training, mentoring, and coaching skills
• Proactive, resourceful, and results-oriented, personal integrity, building and maintaining team sprits.

• Strong relationship management skills and the ability to work effectively with culturally diverse groups.
• Strong presentation, facilitation, training, mentoring, and coaching skills.

 Required/Desired Foreign Language

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English and Afaan Oromo (given the need to be based in Dire Dawa and working in East Hararghe); ability to write and edit reports, plans.
• Strong written and verbal skills in Amharic.

Travel Required (include percentage of required travel, if applicable)

• Frequent (40%) travel to RFSA intervention Woredas and respective Kebeles required.
• Based on need, required to move between field and CP office to support the PM (HN).

 Key Working Relationships:

Supervisory: The Technical Advisor will supervise two field based RFSA Health and Nutrition officers.

Internal: RFSA Chief of Party, RFSA Deputy Chief of Party for Programing, RFSA Health and Nutrition Manager, other RFSA sector team leaders, CRS field HN staffs and RFSA sector team, all Country Program staff.

External:  Implementing partners, consortium members, representatives from for-profit and other non-profit organizations, all Health and Nutrition related government and agencies forus/networks, and other relevant GoE stakeholders.

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

Competencies Relevant for the Specific Position (include those that are applicable):

• Will be included upon finalization of the Competency-Based Management project

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