Temporary Program Manager, USAID Feed the Future Nigeria livelihoods Project at Catholic Relief Services

Catholic Relief Services (CRS) is an International non-governmental organization supporting relief and development work in over 99 countries around the world. CRS programs assist persons on the basis of need, regardless of creed, ethnicity or nationality. CRS works through local church and non-church partners to implement its programs, therefore, strengthening and building the capacity of these partner organizations is fundamental to programs in every country in which CRS operates. CRS re-established presence in Nigeria in 2000 and currently focuses on agriculture, HIV and health extractive and governance, and peace building programming.

We are recruiting to fill the position below

Job Title: Temporary Program Manager, USAID Feed the Future Nigeria livelihoods Project

Location: Abuja
Job Type: Temporary (6 Months)
Report to Technical Program Director

Job Descriptions
CRS/Nigeria is seeking a short-term Program Manager (PM) who will ensure high quality implementation governance system with 7 local government councils as well as case management model and conditional transfer programming for the USAID funded Feed the Future Nigeria Livelihoods project. This component provides a case-by-case support to project beneficiaries to improve their decision making process, income participation in the local economy.

The PM will support a systematic organizational capacity strengthening and effective implementation of organization development plans for local government council. The PM will process of participatory budgeting and governance supporting village development committees and development committees to participate in the development of local economic development plans at the government level.

The PM will report to the Technical Program Director and maintain close liaison with M&E Director and other Technical Leads. The PM, in addition to working with implementing CSOs will closely with the Federation of Muslim Women of Nigeria (FOMWAN) and the project LGA caseworkers and desk officers to ensure quality program delivery.

The PM, with support from Technical Program Director, support and advise the local governments in developing and implementing a comprehensive strategy for strengthening local governance systems to be more responsive to communities needs and priorities.

Specific Responsibilities

• Work with CSOs and caseworkers to supports trainings of community volunteers (liaisons and liaison supervisors) on livelihood planning process.
• Monitor the implementation of the caseworker management process including household visits at the community level and tracking of progress of amongst households.
• Develop a systematic organizational capacity strengthening for 7 LGAs, while increasing the voice of citizens to participate in local economic planning
• Play an active and effective role in the design and implementation of organizational development plans (ODPs) and priorities in relation to local government systems, strategic planning, social sector development and financial and corporate management and responsibilities.
• In collaboration with LGA council, identity key activities for the project to undertake to advance women's participation in service delivery, decision making or building the skills and competencies of LGA officials to conduct their work in a more gender sensitive and socially inclusive way
• Building the capacity of village and ward development committees (VDC5/WDCs), community women and youths to articulate their local economic development (LED) plan and productively engage in service delivery decision making. This would demand designing capacity building activities and advocacy strategies
• Provide support and advisory services relating to governance processes, institutional strengthening, and engagement of local government systems.
• Supports local government councils in the development and delivery of its action plan based on the organizational capacity assessment report
• Develops and leads the implementation of an overarching strategy for strengthening local governance systems for the design and implementation of social sector development priorities as relevant to communities.
• Provides support and advice to the development and implementation of specific projects, work plans and interventions on appropriate governance -
• Support C5O partners to implement appropriate Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) designed program
• With support from Technical Program Director and M&E team, collaborate with CSO partners to develop and implement appropriate monitoring systems and tools for Market/Cash Transfer Programs.
• Support the development of quality scopes of work for technical assistance, training materials/facilitation guides.
• Work with the M&E director to identify and implement appropriate ICT4D solutions to improve timeliness and quality of M&E and project implementation
• Support CSO and local government development of capacity In the framework of project to implement appropriate cash transfer programming, including developing/identifying training tools for tracking progress at the level of beneficiaries
• Willingness and ability to travel at least 50% of time.

Qualifications and Skills

• Degree in Social Sciences, International Development or related field.
• At least 5 years of working experience in governance, development or food security program context including focus on programming in cash transfer and livelihoods.
• Understanding of U.S Government grant provisions and guidelines, including proposal formats and reporting requirements.
• Excellent training and facilitation skills
• Demonstrated commitment to improving gender equality and gender responsiveness in programming and operations.
• Flexibility to work both in a team and independently.
• Demonstrate strong competency in government engagement and ability to apply governance skills in sustainable service delivery and social sector development
• Demonstrated personal accountability and driven to serve others.
• Ability to travel nationally and internationally as required.
• Excellent English language oral and written communication skills required.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills and proficiency in Microsoft Office suite, including Word, Excel and Outlook required.

Application Closing Date
8th April, 2015.

How to Apply
Interested and qualified candidates should download the Application Form below and send with a detailed resume as attached MS word document to: [email protected] Only applications sent in the required format will be considered and only short listed candidates will be contacted.

Click Here To Download Application Form