JOB DESCRIPTION
Job Title: Technical Advisor II Agriculture Livelihoods & Environment
Department/Country: Southern Africa Regional Office (SARO)
Position Type: Full-Time
Job Location: International Telecommuter
Band: 10
FLSA: Exempt
Reports To: Deputy Regional Director (DRD), Program Quality

About CRS:
Catholic Relief Services carries out the commitment of the Bishops of the United States to assist the poor and vulnerable overseas. Our Catholic identity is at the heart of our mission and operations. We welcome as a part of our staff and as partners people of all faiths and secular traditions who share our values and our commitment to serving those in need.

CRS’s overall 2030 agency strategy has a primary goal that All People Achieve Dignified and Resilient Livelihoods in Flourishing Landscapes. Laudato Si, Pope Francis’ groundbreaking encyclical, underscores this connection between human poverty and environmental degradation. CRS has a strong partnership commitment to see transformational outcomes, through partners that including the Catholic Church, civil society organizations, governments, the private sector and local communities. CRS’ experience working with communities and local partners affirms their connection, and experience linking livelihoods and natural solutions to address the increasing impact of climate change within agricultural landscapes, including water catchments.

Background:

The Southern Africa Region (SARO) is a large and complex region comprised of six country programs (Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe) and two outreach countries (Angola and South Africa). CRS works predominantly in marginalized areas, characterized by arid and semi-arid lands, where agricultural and/or pastoralist communities reside. CRS implements a variety of agricultural programs in the region, including crop production, agro-enterprise development, natural resource management as well as emergency response and early recovery activities. Climate change has also had significant impacts on agricultural systems in the region. Over the last 24 months alone, CRS has responded to droughts in Madagascar, Zimbabwe and Lesotho and cyclones/flooding in Madagascar, Malawi and Mozambique, focusing on community managed Disaster Risk Reduction and approaches for building household and community resilience. New projects are focusing on natural resource management/climate change, scaling-up production of new crops/crop varieties, and linking farmers and crops to specific markets through innovative partnerships with the private sector. CRS SARO agriculture programming needs to keep pace with community needs, more frequent climate related threats, increasing environmental degradation and also CRS strengths. CRS Southern Africa needs to expand its agriculture and natural resource management programming in the region, and must ensure that its programming is competitive, innovative and results- oriented. CRS is working to better define its niche in the agriculture, climate change and natural resource management space and to integrate this programming with nutrition, WASH, gender and youth programming and conflict mitigation in this region.

Job Summary:

To provide strategic leadership and technical guidance and support in the area of improved livelihoods, agriculture, climate adaptation and mitigation, and watershed and natural resource management to CRS’ Country Programs in Southern Africa; to maintain and improve the program quality of such programs; and to help build CRS’ expertise and portfolio in the area of agriculture, with a focus on climate change adaptation and mitigation (and resilience); Natural resources management; dry land farming and pastoralist systems and livestock management, water for domestic and productive uses, and market systems development. The position will link SARO with the global Agriculture and Livelihoods community in CRS, including the Landscapes and Livelihoods Platform, to assist SARO countries to develop high quality funding proposals; and to implement programming in line with CRS program quality standards and promote learning and innovation.

RESPONSIBILITIES
Specific Responsibilities:
Project Implementation

Develop strategies, tools and approaches to support and strengthen the design and implementation of innovative agriculture, livelihoods and/or natural resource management projects that also address climate adaptation and mitigation.
Support country programs in developing a collaborative understanding of underlying drivers and environmental and economic impact of land degradation within agricultural landscapes/water catchments.
Provide technical advice to country programs to understand the climate change, environment and agricultural policy and strategies, map key stakeholders and identify entry points to dialogue with government, private sector and civil society
Reinforce country programs’ capacities in effective stakeholder engagement and communication approaches as a foundation for effective collaboration and sustainable systems change
Identify and integrate the use of digital tools for agriculture.
Promote and expand the implementation of agency priorities including the updated Theory of Change for agriculture and livelihoods projects; climate adaptation and natural resource management/land restoration; integrated seed systems; market systems development, and SMART skills in SARO projects.
Support Land Restoration initiatives in SARO including integrated watershed management; multi-story agroforestry; and linking rural communities to the Voluntary Carbon Market through reforestation projects (Malawi).
Provide punctual and practical technical support to CRS SARO country programs
Support project implementation by participating in start-up workshops, mid-term assessments, recruitment and transition planning and evaluation.
Submit trip reports, describing activities undertaken, raising significant issues, and making recommendations. Provide remote support to country programs as a follow up to visits.
Make regular visits to ongoing projects to conduct collaborative program reviews. Help troubleshoot, recommend changes as needed and identify areas of improvement and learning.
Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning

In coordination with the S/RTA for MEAL, provide guidance to country programs and partners in the design and/or enhancement of MEAL tools (including Participatory M&E) and protocols to strengthen data collection, analysis and reporting – especially in regard to the CRS Global Results.
Provide technical advice and guidance to increase country programs’ knowledge and understanding of agricultural landscape planning and spatial analysis to implement sustainable land management and nature-based solutions to restore vital ecosystems services and improve livelihoods.
Assist in the design and implementation of baseline, mid-term and final evaluations and ensure follow-up of findings/recommendations to improve program quality.
Ensure that relevant reports are disseminated within the Region and Agency.
Promote learning and innovation in new projects and throughout the life of activity. Assist CPs to document learning at key points during the project life. Support meta-analyses, ex-post impact evaluations and monitoring in order to facilitate learning.
Attend international conferences representing CRS and our work, and prepare abstracts, full papers, posters for conferences and assist country programs in preparing their abstracts, papers and posters.
Fundraising/Marketing/Growth

Contribute to regional and country program efforts to pre-position CRS for growth opportunities in agriculture, livelihoods and landscapes and climate change programming. Lead or contribute to the development of the technical design for large and/or complex proposals, including defining and/or aligning appropriate monitoring systems to country level or global indicators.
Support country program staff to develop strong relationships with relevant ministries and contribute to influence and scaling strategies for improving policies and programs.
Contribute to the design and technical approach for any agriculture proposals under development in the region to ensure adherence to best practices, incorporation of lessons learned and overall innovation and competitiveness. Participate in write up of large projects when invited by the country program
Carry out a scan of the agriculture actors and institutions that CRS might compete or collaborate with: Identify emerging funding opportunities and assist country programs acquire them
Liaise with regional and sub-regional agriculture research institutions (CGIAR institutions and others) to stay updated on research findings and new practices, as well as to seek new partnerships.
Build working relationship with USAID offices in each country and at the Regional level, and explore relationships with other donors in the sector (DfID, FAO, EU, etc.).
Capacity Strengthening

Lead and maintain the CRS Southern Africa agriculture and livelihoods community of practice
Facilitate understanding of the linkages between agriculture and other sectors (nutrition, WASH, HRD, Peace Building, Youth, etc.).
Facilitate understanding of climate change threats, adaption, mitigation and resilience/disaster risk reduction in the region
Maintain an understanding of regional and international policy debates and processes on climate change, disaster risk reduction and resilience.
Work closely with the other sectors on the SARO PQ team to integrate programming across sectors
Coordinate and facilitate annual regional agriculture meetings and other training opportunities for agriculture staff; explore capacity building options for staff and partners. Facilitate relevant sectoral workshops and trainings for country program and partner staff
Assist country programs with the recruitment and on-boarding of agriculture staff
QUALIFICATIONS
Basic Qualifications:

Master’s degree required in agronomy, crop/soil/animal science, natural resource management, agricultural economics or related field.
Minimum of 5-7 years overseas experience in research, development and/or relief programs. Thorough understanding of development issues and solid international agricultural research/development experience, strategic leadership and experience in integrated programming (natural resource management, agriculture and nutrition, WASH, conflict mitigation and microfinance).
Experience with participatory methods and strong M&E skills with an emphasis on learning. Experience in the use of digital tools to facilitate stronger agriculture systems for extension, aggregation.
Ability to coach, mentor and build the capacity of CRS staff and partnerships using a variety of interactive and static methods (community of practice, newsletters, webinars, meetings, workshops)
Excellent interpersonal skills and the ability to represent and market the strengths of CRS in Southern Africa to peer agencies and donors globally as needed. Demonstrated ability to work independently
Preferred Qualifications:

PhD preferred in agronomy, crop/soil/animal science, natural resource management, agricultural economics or related field.
Knowledge of the agriculture and natural resource management policy environment in Southern Africa. Experience with Disaster Risk Reduction in the context of the southern Africa and its cyclical droughts and floods, preferred.
Experience in dry land farming systems, sustainable agriculture, natural resource management, agricultural marketing and monitoring & evaluation. Knowledge and experience in pastoralist systems, livestock management, agro-pastoralist livelihoods, a plus.
Expertise in project design and proposal review. Knowledge of CRS Program Quality tools and standards, a plus.
Required Foreign Language: English essential. French preferred and Portuguese a plus

Required Travel:
The position will require extensive travel throughout Southern Africa, to meet country program staff, donors and partners, to the US and Europe for CRS meetings and donor conferences etc.

Willingness to travel 30% of the time within the Southern Africa region and for global meetings.

Supervisory Responsibilities, Reporting and Collaboration:

Report to the Deputy Regional Director for Program Quality, SARO
Support from the CRS Technical Advisors in HQ (PIQA) and other CRS Regions
Key Working Relationships:
Internal: SARO Regional Director, SARO Deputy Regional Directors for PQ and MQ, the SARO PQ team, SARO Country Representatives, Heads of Programming and agriculture project managers; CRS/HQ Agriculture Technical Advisors; CRS agriculture technical advisors in other regions.
External: Host country government ministries, bilateral and multilateral organizations, non-governmental organizations, National Universities, USAID, WFP, FAO, CGIAR Centers, and other agriculture partners, as appropriate.

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

Disclaimer Clause:
This job description is not an exhaustive list of the skill, effort, duties, and responsibilities associated with the position.