Department: Programming/Rwanda/CARO
Reports To: Deputy Chief of Party I, Rwanda
Country/Location: Kigali, Rwanda
Salary Grade: 9
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 the 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 provide technical advice and support to the INECD project for a range of program design and implementation issues in inclusive Nutrition, ECD for children 0-3 as well as 4-6, adolescents in line with Catholic Relief Services (CRS) program quality principles and standards, donor guidelines, and industry best practices to Country Program (CP) teams 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’ inclusive Health, Nutrition, and ECD programming is.
Roles and Key Responsibilities:
- Support the development/adaptation and contribute to the implementation of project strategies, standards, tools and best practices in inclusive nutrition and health programming that effectively engage partners, donors, and governments. Help ensure a cross-sectoral approach integrating SBC, gender and protection mainstreaming.
- Monitor the technical quality of program implementation in the field. Provide technical solutions to region & cluster and district-based 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.
- Support capacity strengthening initiatives in inclusive Nutrition and Health programming for staff and partner through helping develop learning and training strategies and agendas/curriculums, conducting trainings and workshops, and coaching.
- Collect and analyze program data, capture and share lessons learned and best practices for the projects to facilitate improvements in decision-making and contribute to the inclusive nutrition, ECD and Health learning agenda.
- Contribute to maintaining relationships with donors, peer organizations, research and other institutions, participate in forums in the areas of inclusive nutrition, ECD and Health to collect and share best practices and promote CRS’ work.
- Review nutrition activities reports from sub-recipients and provide timely feedback, compile sub-recipient reports and contribute to all reports to the donor, ensuring proper and complete documentation and description of nutrition activities and achievements.
- Work with finance team and DCOP to monitor the budget for nutrition component activities.
. Basic Qualifications
- Master’s Degree in Nutrition, public health or related field required.
- Minimum of seven years relevant work experience in nutrition programming in Rwanda, with progressive responsibilities, ideally with an international NGO.
- Knowledge of technical principles and concepts in inclusive nutrition. General knowledge of other related disciplines (ECD, Health etc) to ensure proper cross-sectoral approach. Demonstrated commitment to gender-responsive programming.
- Strong Knowledge and previous experience in capacity strengthening best practices.
- 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.
- Proficient in MS Office packages (Excel, Word, PowerPoint), Web Conferencing Applications, information and budget management systems, knowledge-sharing networks.
Required Languages – Strong oral and written skills in both English and French/Kinyarwanda
Travel – Must be willing and able to travel up to 50% throughout project sites.
Knowledge, Skills and Abilities
- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with ability to make sound judgment and decisions and offer innovative solutions
- Strong relations management abilities. Ability to relate to people at all levels internally and externally. Strategic in how you approach each relationship.
- Good presentation and facilitation skills
- Proactive, resourceful, solutions-oriented and results-oriented
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: Project Sr nutrition specialists and officers
Key Working Relationships:
Internal: Chief of Party, Deputy Chief of Party, Country Representative, Programming staff, Finance Manager, Regional Technical Advisors.
External: Partner nutrition staff, other USAID-funded projects nutrition staff, the Rwanda Ministry of Health/RBC, Districts and local health centers.
***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.
Please note that this position is contingent upon award of the funding opportunity and the USAID’s approval of a Program Manager I – Nutrition Technical Advisor candidacy.
CRS’ talent acquisition procedures reflect our commitment to protecting children and vulnerable adults from abuse and exploitation.
CRS is an Equal Opportunity Employer
How to apply
Electronic applications-Only a motivation letter and a current detailed CV should be addressed to the CRS Country Representative exclusively at RW_HR@crs.org not later than Monday, Tuesday February 23, 2021 at 5:00pm.
Please, include 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”
Include also your full names and title “Nutrition Technical Advisor” in the subject line. Due to anticipated high interest in this post and the expected number of applicants, only short-listed candidates will be contacted.
Kigali. February 16, 2021
Jude-Marie Ban
Country Representati
CRS/Rwanda Program
