Household Economic Strengthening Technical Specialists at Catholic Relief Services (CRS)

Background
4Children will implement a two year project focused on providing technical assistance to PEPFAR OVC implementing partners (IPs), Government of Nigeria entities and networks to graduate and transition OVC households and children from care and support. To support these efforts, the project will strengthen programming around sustainability planning, case management and referral of OVC and vulnerable households to health facilities, household economic strengthening activities parenting, and youth/adolescent girl programming, as well as supporting the development of a HIV-sensitive social service system.

Job Summary

• The Household Economic Strengthening Technical Specialist (HES TS) be will based in one of three 4Children zonal offices to provide technical assistance and accompaniment to PEPFAR OVC Implementing Partners (IPs).
• In this role, s/he will support IPs to develop/enhance and implement a holistic HES strategy, appropriate to the local context that allows the IPs to strengthen the capacity of their partner CSOs to provide high quality HES services to enrolled beneficiaries.
• Services will be aligned with household economic vulnerability level and designed to improve household resilience to shocks, reduce food insecurity (access and availability) and facilitate household graduation from the program.
• S/he will work under the supervision of the 4Children Household Economic Strengthening Technical Director and, but work as part of a Zonal team consisting of a Senior Zonal State Coordinator, Zonal State Coordinator, Sustainability/Capacity Strengthening Technical Specialist and a Case Management/ Linkages Technical Specialist.
• This position will support IPs to (1) develop and implement capacity strengthening plans informed by a HES technical capacity assessment; (2) provide tailored capacity building and mentorship to IPs based on assessed capacity (3) collaborate with the Agriculture Technical Advisor to strengthen farm-based livelihoods and improve food access and availability; (4) collaborate with Case Management/Linkages Technical Specialist to ensure household care plans incorporate economic and food security considerations and promote graduation.
• This position will also support IPs within his/her zone to liaise with relevant government ministries and programs, other technical experts and agencies and the private sector to support household graduation and transition.
• The HES TS will conduct joint monitoring and supportive supervision visits with IP counterparts to CSOs to support high quality HES intervention implementation and ensure household case plans are promotive of graduation.
• This position reports to the HES Technical Director, but will be matrixed with the Senior Zonal State Coordinator.

Specific Responsibilities

• Under the supervision of the HES Technical Director, carry out the 4Children HES/Food Security activities at the zonal level, working closely with IPs to ensure adherence to accepted technical standards, best practices and donor guidelines and regulations.
• Support the implementation and analysis of an HES technical capacity assessment and improvement plan development; coordinate with the Sustainability/Capacity Strengthening Technical Specialist to ensure plans are integrated and harmonized with other capacity strengthening initiatives.
• Provide capacity building and mentorship to OVC IPs with a focus on implementation and management of community-based savings groups, OVC-optimized financial education, market assessment and opportunity identification, value addition along identified value-chains based, entrepreneurship, and micro-enterprise management based on assessed IP capacity.
• Lead and/or co-facilitate trainings of trainers/trainings in prioritized areas of HES and food security in collaboration with the HES Technical Director, Agriculture Technical Advisor, CRS Master Trainers, and IP counterparts.
• Conduct joint supportive supervision with IP counterparts to CSOs to ensure adherence to guidelines and maintain program quality standards.
• Collaborate with Case Management/Linkages Technical Specialist to ensure to ensure household care plans incorporate economic and food security considerations, motivate and promote household graduation.
• Support IPs to develop linkages with relevant government, civil society/project and private sector actors in within their operational areas.
• Collaborate with Advocacy Technical Advisor on issues pertaining to HES and food security e.g., domestication of social protection policies and programs.
• For household not yet ready to graduate, support IPs and CSOs to transition households to other programs, especially emerging government social protection initiatives.
• Identify promising practices in HES and food security to document and share across OVC IPs.
• Collaborate with other sector leads, consortium partners and government ministries to ensure effective HES and food security programming and harmonization.
• Ensure a culture of accountability and learning through regular monitoring to project sites, providing oversight of studies and assessments and proper documentation of tools and to contribute to learning and building the evidence around effective household economic strengthening and food security programming.
• Document project results and impacts in various forms, including media stories, promising practices, lessons learned, case studies, client satisfaction, etc.
• Support the Senior Zonal State Coordinator and HES Technical Director by provide timely inputs to 4Children Nigeria annual planning, monitoring, reporting and budgeting processes.

Agency-wide Competencies (for all CRS Staff):
These are rooted in the mission, values, and principles of CRS and used by each staff member to fulfill his or her responsibilities and to achieve the desired results:

• Serves with Integrity
• Models Stewardship
• Cultivates Constructive Relationships
• Promotes Learning

Additional Competencies:
These are rooted in the mission, values, and principles of CRS and used by each Technical Advisor to fulfill his or her responsibilities and to achieve the desired results:

• Sets clear goals and manages toward them
• Collaborates effectively with staff and stakeholders
• Manages financial resources with integrity
• Applies program quality standards to project design and organizational learning

MEAL Competencies:
These are rooted in CRS MEAL Policies and Procedures and used by each program staff to fulfill his or her responsibilities and to achieve the desired results:

• Evaluation: Supporting project and program evaluations and reviews by ensuring the quality of evaluation methods, tools, and data and facilitating the use of evaluation results to inform decision-making and enhance learning.
• Learning: Promoting excellent knowledge management and collaborative learning processes at the project, program and institutional levels, generating robust evidence for project and programmatic learning that leads to action.
• Analysis and Critical Thinking: Engaging with data, challenging biases and assumptions, posing thoughtful questions, pursuing deeper understanding of evidence through reflection and perspective-taking, and making informed programming decisions.
• ICT for MEAL: Applying knowledge on information and communication technologies (ICT), both hardware and software, for opportune and accurate data collection, database management, conducting analyses, and making information easily accessible.

Supervisory Responsibility:

• None

Key Working Relationships

• Internal: Household Economic Strengthening Technical Director, Agriculture Technical Advisor, Senior Zonal State Coordinator, Case Management/Linkages 4Children Leadership and Technical Advisors; CRS Nigeria Programming, Finance, Procurement, and HR/Admin teams.
• External: 4Children consortium members, select government ministries at the State and LGA levels, PEPFAR implementers including UGM partners, LOPINS and all other IPs, Child Protection and OVC Networks and relevant private sector entities.

Qualifications

• Master's degree in Development Studies, Agricultural Economics, Economics, Business Administration, International relations or a closely related field.
• Three to five years professional field experience in urban and rural economic strengthening/livelihoods.
• Experience in savings led microfinance and financial education programming.
• Experience in market assessment and opportunity identification, using a value-chain approach for resourced constrained populations.
• Experience in developing and implementing strategic plans with diverse teams.
• Experience working in partnership with both international and local NGO partners.
• Capacity to work closely with, understand, and support partners both government and faith-based organizations.
• Excellent written and oral communications skills in English.
• Strong interpersonal, cross -cultural and training/facilitation/mentoring skills
• Proficiency in the use of Microsoft Office suite, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook.
• Familiarity with using household vulnerability assessment tools and SAVEX a plus.

Travel:

• The Household Economic Strengthening Technical Advisor will be expected to travel within Nigeria and potentially outside of Nigeria to attend conference, workshops or other activities related to the project.