Project Director

The Project Director will facilitate fluid communication with program and operations teams in the two countries and the regional land restoration platform. You will represent the project to the donor ensuring clarity in communications and timely reporting. You will ensure that the project is designed and implemented to meet the donor’s expectations in terms of results and budget execution, including exit strategies and sustainability. Your management skills and knowledge will ensure that CRS delivers high-quality programming and continually works toward improving the impact of its programming in agriculture and resilience.

Roles and Key Responsibilities:

• Provide management, guidance, and technical oversight of the Pathways to Resilience Project throughout the project cycle to ensure project design, start-up, implementation and close-out are in line with CRS quality principles and standards, donor guidelines, and industry best practices.
• Effectively supervise and manage talent for the project. Manage team dynamics and staff well-being. Provide coaching, strategically tailor individual development plans, and complete performance management for direct reports.   
• Serve as the project’s point of contact with the donor, collaborating with the CRS Charitable Giving office to formulate official communications and ensuring the delivery of high-quality reports.
• Ensure constant coordination and communication with the country programs and the regional land restoration platform, facilitating spaces for regular meetings, dialogue and reflection and ensuring fluid execution with related projects in the field.
• Support the development and contribute to the implementation of strategies, standards, tools, and best practices in project programming that effectively involve partners, donors and governments.
• Help ensure a cross-sector approach that integrates gender, safe and dignified programming and communications for scale and influence, working closely with the Technical Director and the land restoration platform in the development of such approaches.
• Support a learning environment together with the Technical Director, identifying opportunities for learning, research, and publications in ​​agriculture and resilience. Facilitate the dissemination of promising practices and lessons learned to contribute to the learning agenda of the project, agency, region, and country programs.
• Ensure effective implementation of the agency’s Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, and Learning (MEAL) policy. Work closely with the Technical Director to analyze and communicate information produced by the MEAL system to various actors, including communities, government, the private sector and members of civil society, encouraging its use for decision-making and adaptive management.
• Ensure CRS teams and partner organizations establish and operationalize feedback, response, and complaint mechanisms (FCRM) for participating families. Work with MEAL teams in both countries to apply good practices in the implementation of such mechanisms to ensure timely response and effective application of feedback for adaptive management.
• Contribute to the proactive pursuit of opportunities for new funding to ensure growth in the agriculture and resilience sectors for the CPs and the region in line with agency, regional, and CP agriculture and resilience strategic priorities. Support technical leadership and technical writing to ensure quality proposals per agency and donor standards. Contribute to budgeting and staffing plans and activities for proposals.
• Lead and represent the project team to identify and mobilize new resources for landscape restoration initiatives as co-investment to existing project resources through new public and private sector alliances.
• Supervise technical assistance and capacity building activities in agriculture, microfinance, and market systems development for staff and partner organizations to improve project quality and impact. Effectively apply agency partnership concepts, tools, and approaches.
• Ensure that project expenditures are timely and appropriate in line with financial plans and the efficient use and good management of project material sources. Together with the Project Coordinators, supervise budgets implemented by partners in the project territories.

Qualifications:

• Master’s degree in international development, international relations or in the field of agriculture required. Additional experience may substitute some education.
• Minimum of 5 years’ experience in relevant field-based project management required, with preferably at least 2-3 years working in the area of agriculture or resilience.  Experience managing multi-country projects preferred.
• Strong experience in donor engagement.  Experience with private foundations preferred.
• Demonstrated capacity to write high quality reports and technical proposals.
• Experience working with partner organizations. Knowledge of CRS partnership concepts and principles an advantage.
• MEAL skills and experience is required.
• Experience in managing personnel and skills that are conducive to a learning environment.
• Experience using MS Office package (Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Visio), online conferencing applications and management information systems.
• Experience managing moderately complex projects preferably with an international NGO.

Languages:

• Fluency in English and Spanish required.

Source: https://eipn.fa.us2.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/CandidateExperience/en/sites/CX_1/job/3001865