Job Title: Program Manager I/Capacity strengthening Advisor

Department: Programming/INECD

Band: 9

Reports To: Deputy Chief of Party

Country/Location: Rwanda (Kigali)

 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, nutrition, agriculture, education, microfinance, and peacebuilding.

Catholic Relief Services has been present in Rwanda since 1960, and currently implements projects in nutrition, WASH, agriculture, youth entrepreneurship, and peacebuilding. The Country Program has over 40 staff and implements its projects through local and international partners, with strong coordination/collaboration with Government of Rwanda structures.

Job Summary:

The Inclusive Nutrition and Early Childhood Development (INECD) activity will promote nurturing and responsive care practices, especially in the areas of health, functioning, nutrition, and early childhood development (ECD) for caregivers and children. Specifically, the activity aims to improve health and nutrition outcomes among women of reproductive age and adolescents and improve infant and young child feeding practices. It also aims to address child development gaps and significant unmet physical rehabilitation and assistive technology (rehab/AT) and social inclusion needs for infants and children. The activity will focus on community-level service delivery, community-health facility linkages, and district-level capacity development, as well as address issues of inclusion and participation, including access to programs and services for children and adults with disabilities, in line with Government of Rwanda priorities.

You will manage programming in the Country Program (CP) for INECD, providing technical oversight of the development and implementation of the CRS Rwanda’s INECD Capacity Strengthening and Coordination Activities, ensuring effective systems and processes are in place that supports high-quality programming advancing Catholic Relief Services (CRS) work in serving the poor and vulnerable. Your management skills and knowledge will ensure that the CP delivers high-quality programming and continuously works towards improving the impact of INECD Program. You will work with INECD technical advisors and officers to ensure that Comprehensive capacity strengthening and coordination efforts are designed and implemented at national, district, and lower levels involving both GOR stakeholders and local partners. You will report to the Deputy Chief of Party (DCOP) of INECD.

Roles and Key Responsibilities:

• Provide management, guidance, and technical oversight of all capacity building and coordination efforts under the INECD Program to ensure project plans, implementation and sustainability measures are in line with CRS quality principles and standards, donor guidelines, GoR’s policy strategies, and industry best practices.
• Effectively manage talent and supervise. Manage team dynamics and staff well-being. Provide coaching, strategically tailor individual development plans, contribute to the recruitment process of project staff.
• Lead the development of program learning – identify opportunities for learning, research, and publications in capacity strengthening, partnership, and coordination, and implementation of MEAL policy. Facilitate the dissemination of promising practices and lessons learned to contribute to the agency knowledge management agenda. Ensure integration of innovations and best practices.
• Contribute to the proactive pursuit of opportunities for new funding to ensure the growth of the CP’s Capacity Strengthening and Coordination sector portfolio in line with an agency, regional, and CP’s Partnership strategic priorities. Serve as the technical lead and technical writer to ensure quality marketing material to capture innovations and lessons in Capacity Strengthening and Coordination per agency and donor standards.
• Oversee technical assistance and capacity-strengthening activities under INECD for staff and partner organizations to enhance program quality and impact.
• Oversee the identification, assessment, and strengthening of partnerships relevant to INECD and the appropriate application of partnership concepts, tools, and approaches.
• Ensure timely and appropriate project expenditures in line with financial plans and efficient use and stewardship of project material sources.
• Act as a key resource person in project design and proposal development in the respective programming areas, gap-filling and taking on growth responsibilities, as needed.
• Coordinate the identification of staff capacity and technical assistance needs of partner organizations and capacity strengthening and required interventions to support quality project implementation.
• Ensure submission of timely and high-quality reports on program performance, partnership forum, collaboration outputs, research undertakings by directly compiling and through coordination of relevant partner and CRS’ staff

Basic Qualifications

• Master’s Degree in International Development, International Relations, Public Administration or in the field of Social Science required. Additional experience may substitute for some education.
• Minimum of 7 years experience in relevant field-based project management experience required, with at least 2-3 years working in Capacity Strengthening and Coordination, preferably with an international NGO.

Required Languages – Oral and written fluency in English and Kinyarwanda. French is a plus.

Travel – The position is Kigali based. Must be willing and able to travel up to 50 %.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Strong critical thinking and creative problem-solving skills with the ability to make a sound judgments.
• Strong relationship management skills and the ability to work effectively with culturally diverse groups.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to write reports
• Proactive, results-oriented, and service-oriented

 Preferred Qualifications

• Project management experience in nutrition, ECD, and disability and inclusion is highly desirable. Good experience in project grants management, including project design, preferably for grants from multiple public donors, including USAID
• Experience engaging with partner organizations.
• Experience contributing to the development of technical proposals.
• MEAL skills and experience preferred.
• Experience using MS Windows and MS Office packages (Excel, Word, PowerPoint), Web Conferencing Applications, information management systems.

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

 Supervisory Responsibilities – None

Key Working Relationships:

Internal: All INECD staff, relevant CRS Country Program staff

 External: MoH and RBC relevant staff, NCDA leadership, District Leadership, Local Partners, relevant TWGs (FNTWG, ECD&SP WG, DI TWG, etc.), CHES platform, NGO working in INECD areas.

***Our Catholic identity is at the heart of our mission and operations. Catholic Relief Services carries out the commitment of the Bishops of the United States to assist the poor and vulnerable overseas. We welcome as a part of our staff people of all faiths and secular traditions who share our values and our commitment to serving those in need. CRS’ processes and policies reflect our commitment to protecting children and vulnerable adults from abuse and exploitation.

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

 CRS’ talent acquisition procedures reflect our commitment to protecting children and vulnerable adults from abuse and exploitation.

CRS is an Equal Opportunity Employer

Interested and qualified candidates should complete the attached application form, Self -Declaration Clause and submit them together with one page Cover letter plus updated CV (maximum three pages) all in/as one document - via email only to: [email protected] not later than Friday, September 17, 2021, at 5:00 pm.

Please, include the below statement in your motivation letter:

“By applying to this job, I understand and acknowledge that CRS requires its staff to treat all people with dignity and respect and to actively prevent harassment, abuse, exploitation, and human trafficking. Further, I understand that if I am a successful candidate, I will be subject to a comprehensive background check, and my personal/professional references will be asked to evaluate my behaviors related to the above safeguarding-related topics”

Also, include your full names and title “Capacity strengthening” in the subject line. Due to the anticipated high interest in this post and the expected number of applicants, only short-listed candidates will be contacted.

Kigali. September 6, 2021 

                                                                 

 Jude-Marie Banatte

 Country Representative

CRS/Rwanda Program