Project Officer - Nutrition at Catholic Relief Services (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 are accomplished through programs of emergency response, HIV, health, agriculture, education, microfinance and peacebuilding.

CRS has been supporting program activities in Nigeria for over 30 years and has long-standing relationships with Church and non-Church partners and communities throughout the country. The Nigeria country program has a diverse funding base with projects in health, nutrition, food security and agricultural livelihoods, microfinance (SILC), emergency response and peacebuilding. CRS/Nigeria currently has over 210 national and 8 international staff. With an FY22 annual budget of over USD $100 million, coupled with strong donor interest in supporting CRS’ work in the country, significant growth opportunities exist for the CP. The CP has been supporting emergency activities in the NE states since 2015 with offices in Damaturu, Maiduguri and Yola.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Project Officer - Nutrition

Job ID: 2200003U
Location: Maiduguri, Borno
Job Type: Full-time
Shift: Standard
Schedule: Regular
Job Level: Day Job
Travel: Yes, 50 % of the Time
Job: Program Management
Employee Status: Individual Contributor

Job Summary

• The Nutrition Project Officer will be responsible for the overall management of the day-to-day activities of CMAM and MIYCN-E programme in assigned locations. The Nutrition Officer with support from Senior Project Officer- Nutrition will undertake the following responsibilities related to project cycle management, technical direction, and field activities implementation.

Roles and Key Responsibilities

• Support the coordination and monitoring of project activities at the field level, ensuring implementation schedules are met as per the detailed activity plan, and that adherence to systems for quality project implementation are strengthened.
• Coordinate communication and facilitate information sharing among the project team, implementing partners, and project beneficiaries at the community level to assist local partners in strengthening the community interest, involvement and support networks.
• Liaise with various community stakeholders and mobilize them to ensure full involvement of community leaders, community representatives, and local government representatives in the overall implementation and improvement of project activities.
• Carry out weekly activity supervisory visits, review the data collection process to ensure it’s per the MEAL standards across project locations assigned.
• Work closely with partner Nutrition Officers, CNMs and Lead mothers to ensure activities are well planned and delivered as per the approved DIPP.
• Ensure adequate availability of food and non-food supplies for distribution in all project locations and share monthly distribution plan with the Nutrition Manager
• Develop distribution tracker to track all the Nutrition commodities dispatched to the field locations.
• Submit weekly field data and report to the Nutrition Manager
• Report any progress and any problems in a timely manner
• Ensure effective follow ups on beneficiaries in all project locations.
• Identify gaps and present plans for capacity building to inform effective programing
• Attend regular nutrition meetings and assist in any other tasks when required
• Respect the dignity and culture of beneficiaries and other members of the community
• Ensure that the minimum standards of humanitarian relief are maintained in accordance with the Sphere standards.
• In coordination with the project team support capacity building events for community representatives.
• Coordinate, monitor, and report on volunteer activities.
• Compile data provided at the community level as per project requirements and contribute to the preparation of reports.
• Review and highlight opportunities for Protection, safeguarding and Gender mainstreaming in the proposed Nutrition activities; And follow up to ensure, nutrition team integrate the protection principles during activity design and implementation.

Key Working Relationships:

• Internal: Head of Office, Senior Nutrition Project Officer, Accountability Officer, Enumerators, GBV Officer.
• External: Partner staff, contractors, CNMs, volunteers and vendors.
• Supervisory Responsibilities: None.

Basic Qualifications

• B.Sc in Nutrition / Public Health / BSc or equivalent.
• 4 to 6 years of work experience in community development and mobilization, implementation of CMAM and MIYCN-E projects in emergencies, preferably Northeast, Borno state.
• Experience in conducting nutrition assessments and an understanding of nutritional surveillance and information systems.
• Excellent communication skills and a willingness to be respectful, kind, sensitive and empathize with all beneficiaries.
• Willingness and capacity to be flexible and accommodating when faced with difficult and frustrating working conditions.
• Excellent report writing, coordination and planning skills.
• Excellent capacity-building skills and ability to develop training plans and write training reports. He/She should have great support supervision skills and be able to organize on the job training for partner Officers, CNMs and Lead mothers.
• Experience in participatory action planning and community engagement.
• Experience using MS Windows and MS Office packages (Excel, Word, PowerPoint).

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience in participatory action planning and community engagement.
• Experience monitoring projects and collecting relevant data preferred.
• Experience using MS Windows and MS Office packages (Excel, Word, PowerPoint).

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Observation, active listening, and analysis skills with ability to make sound judgment.
• Good interpersonal skills and the ability to interact effectively with diverse groups.
• Proactive, agile, results-oriented, and service-oriented.
• Solid analytical, reporting writing skills, and communication skills.
• Sound knowledge and skills in training and facilitation.
• Team spirit and excellent interpersonal relations.
• Great innovative and creative skills, as well as ability to document high quality success stories.

Required Languages:

• English and Hausa required. Kanuri strongly preferred.

Travel:

• Must be willing and able to travel up to 60 %.

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.

Application Closing Date
1st March, 2022.