Governance Adviser at Catholic Relief Services (CRS)

Band:                         9

Department:             Recovery/North-East

Reports To:               Director of Early Recovery & Resilience (DERR)

Location:                    Maiduguri, Borno State, Nigeria

Job Ref Code:            GOA070219

Full JD Link:           https://bit.ly/2DjWkTp

Background:

Now in its ninth year, the Lake Chad Basin crisis is estimated to affect 10.7 million people in one of the world's poorest, most drought-prone regions. As of March 2018, 7.7 million people in Northeast (NE) Nigeria are in severe need of humanitarian assistance, of which 437 million people are estimated to be food insecure. On the other hand, improvements in security is enabling some families to return to their homes.  These families are however returning to localities that have been plundered and where basic service infrastructure has been destroyed.  Most of the returnee families must rebuild their lives and livelihoods altogether as their villages were razed to the ground.  A large proportion of returnee families are residing with their relatives in urban centers as peripheral rural areas are still insecure.

To respond to the crisis, CRS' Northeast Nigeria emergency and early recovery program provides a holistic support package including food assistance, nutrition, NFI, WASH, shelter, agriculture, livelihoods, and social cohesion for both IDPs and host families across three states. Where possible, CRS maximizes project impact and efficiency through market-based modalities and empowers targeted communities through participatory approaches. CRS intends to link its development and humanitarian work approaches in Nigeria through delivering blended humanitarian and development programs that address the needs of refugees, IDPs, returnees and host communities.

 Job Summary:

The objective of this role is to provide technical guidance on governance, peacebuilding, and disaster risk reduction to CRS Nigeria programming in the Northeast focused on recovery and resilience. The Governance Adviser will work with the Northeast Emergency Team and relevant Country Program and regional advisers to ensure that governance, peacebuilding, and disaster risk reduction (DRR) is integrated into recovery and resilience projects.  S/he will ensure that recovery and resilience programs strengthen government systems, reduce community vulnerability to shocks and stresses, and counter violent extremism through promoting interventions that build social cohesion. The Adviser will ensure adherence to CRS’ technical quality standards in program design and implementation, and will represent CRS Nigeria in key technical working groups, partner forums, and to the government. Working closely with the business development team, s/he will contribute to concept notes, proposals, intelligence gathering and partnership development and management.

Primary Function:

The Governance Adviser will ensure that governance, peacebuilding, and disaster risk reduction are integrated into CRS Nigeria’s early recovery and resilience work by providing technical guidance, engaging government and other key stakeholders, and leading the design and implementation of community DRR approaches. This work will include: 

• Technical support on governance, DRR and peacebuilding
• Business development
• Government engagement, advocacy and representation
• Reporting and documentation
• Surge Capacity - Operations management

Education and Experience:

• Minimum of master’s degree in Sociology, Development, Administration or a related field
• At least six (6) years of working experience in livelihoods, agriculture, nutrition, WASH, food security or governance program;
• Understanding of donor grant provisions, policies, procedures, guidelines and priorities, including reporting requirements.
• Excellent situational leadership style; strategic; analytical; participatory; and supportive and mentoring.
• Excellent partnership skills and the ability to interact effectively with donors, collaborating agencies, and local partners demonstrated through close work experience with international organizations.
• Effective negotiation and representation skills to mentor program teams to follow quality standard and facilitate learning from each other.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills
• Demonstrated capacity to understand the current best practices and challenges while coordinating the implementation of program strategies through a participatory approach.
• Flexibility, persistence, and ability to work well with people through cross cultural skills
• Demonstrated commitment to improving gender equality and gender responsiveness in programming and operations.
• Ability to travel nationally and internationally as required.
• Excellent English language oral and written communication skills required.
• Knowledge of Northern Nigeria is an added advantage. 
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office suite, including Word, Excel and Outlook required.
• Willingness and ability to travel at least 50% of time