Technical Advisor II – Catholic Relief Services

Job Description

Technical Advisor II-Operationalize and Scale Land Restoration

About CRS

JOB DESCRIPTION

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.

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.

Job Summary:

Degradation of land is a leading cause of hunger and poverty. The vast majority of people living in developing countries depend on agriculture for their food and income, and 80% of smallholder farmers rely on rain-fed agriculture and are especially vulnerable to environmental changes affecting water and soil. As climate change, poor farming practices, and other factors degrade productive land, more than a billion people live on fragile and degraded land that cannot produce sufficient crops to meet their food and livelihood needs. By exacerbating resource scarcity, land degradation leads to food insecurity and poverty, escalates conflict and triggers migration and displacement. CRS has identified and implemented successful, evidence-based models for land restoration that reduce hunger and improve livelihoods of farming families. As part of its Vision2030, CRS aims to build relationships with a diverse array of local and global partners, to revitalize landscapes at scale, thereby addressing a root cause of poverty and laying the foundation for the prosperity and dignity of generations to come.

You will provide technical advice, guidance, and support to operationalize and scale land restoration in collaboration with the Landscapes and Livelihoods [PL1] Strategic Platform in country Malawi Your technical knowledge, systems thinking approach, relationships and network, and guidance will contribute to CP and platform success in achieving landscape restoration at scale.

Roles And Key Responsibilities:

• Contribute to the development and implementation of the country-level strategies, standards, tools, and best practices that effectively engage partners, donors and governments in landscape restoration.
• Together with key country program staff, map key public and private stakeholders, including donors; assess national climate change and restoration commitments; analyze agricultural/environmental/climate policies and programs;
• Together with team, contribute to the development of a value proposition for CRS landscape restoration approaches.
• Identify and represent CRS within key national and regional platforms dedicated to landscape restoration and related areas. Develop strong relationships with key government actors. Where platforms don’t exist, identify and build coalitions of like-minded multisectoral actors to develop and operationalize strategies to scale landscape restoration.
• Contribute to knowledge management and learning,, capturing and sharing lessons learned and best practices, supporting communication strategies, research and internal report development.
• Use data to understand obstacles to uptake and related enabling environment/policy constraints. Build partner advocacy and representational capacity to connect local action to national goals to influence change. Support programmatic team to evaluate and address issues related to the enabling environment.
• Represent CRS at national and regional restoration events, seeking out speaking opportunities/panel participation. Represent CRS at global events as appropriate.
• Contribute to regional and CP efforts to pre-position CRS for growth opportunities in Landscape Restoration. Lead or contribute to the development of the technical design for large and/or complex proposals, including defining appropriate monitoring systems and indicators. Advise country teams on integrating donor strategies, priorities and technical requirements into CRS’ Landscape Restoration approach.
• Contribute to capacity strengthening initiatives in landscape restoration programming for CRS staff and platform members through helping develop learning and training strategies and agendas/curriculums, conducting trainings and workshops, and mentoring and coaching.
• relationship building with key actors including government and multi-stakeholder coalitions
• understanding, and helping CRS and partner staff understand the enabling environment and its impact on project implementation/scaling
• looking for opportunities to build mechanisms to connect community level implementation to the achievement of national level goals
• enhancing communications and visibility of the restoration agenda (i.e., establishing CRS as a thought leader in people centered restoration)

Knowledge, Skills And Abilities

• Excellent 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.
• Strong strategic, analytical, problem-solving and systems thinking skills with capacity to see the big picture and ability to make sound judgment
• Strong written and oral communication skills
• Strong presentation, facilitation, training, mentoring, and coaching skills
• Proactive, resourceful and results-oriented

QUALIFICATIONS

Basic Qualifications

• Master’s Degree in Natural Resource Management, Agronomy, Agro ecology, agricultural economics, policy or related field(s)
• Minimum of five years relevant international working experience in an advisory or management role with progressive responsibilities, ideally with an international NGO, government institution or regional body; minimum of three years working for programming interventions in Sustainable Agriculture or Natural Resource Management.
• Experience and understanding of national government institutions, internal workings and agricultural and environmental policies.
• Significant leadership experience and capacity to build relationships leading to alliances. Ability to motivate and bring together diverse actors.
• Experience and skills in networking and facilitating inter-institutional coordination among donors, peer organizations, faith-based and civil society partners. Understanding of partnership principles, with emphasis in the agricultural sector.
• Well-connected and knowledgeable of key actors among donors, public sector, farmer organizations and private sector.
• Experience with program monitoring and evaluation, including applying data collection tools and methodologies, data analysis, and data presentation.[PL1]
• Proficient in MS Office packages (Excel, Word, PowerPoint), Web Conferencing Applications, information and budget management systems, knowledge-sharing networks.