Humanitarian Operations Technical Advisor II Finance & Grant Management, Global Remote

Job Title: Humanitarian Operations Technical Advisor II Finance & Grant Management Reports to:  Technical Advisor III Department: Humanitarian Response Department (HRD) Salary Grade: 10

 

About CRS' Humanitarian Response Department: 

Catholic Relief Services was founded as an emergency relief organization and emergency related work still represents nearly one-third of the agency’s expenses. CRS is recognized by public and private donors in the US as one of the prime American emergency responders. CRS’ ability to respond effectively in the early stages of an emergency is crucial to the survival and well-being of hundreds of thousands of disaster-affected people. CRS’ holistic approach to emergency response and recovery, combined with its early presence on the ground to address immediate needs, enables CRS to accompany disaster-affected households and communities in resuming productive and dignified lives as soon as possible while building their capacity to better withstand future disasters. 

The Humanitarian Response Department (HRD) provides leadership and support to CRS emergency programming. The HRD strengthens CRS’ impact through high quality, innovative programs; improved technical and management capacity at the field level; and active engagement in global efforts to promote excellence and learning in humanitarian response. The HRD has technical staff that support emergency program planning, rapid response operations, and capacity strengthening of staff and partners worldwide. 

 

Job Summary:  

You will provide technical advice, guidance, and support to a wide range of program design and implementation issues with a focus on larger projects in Humanitarian Response in line with Catholic Relief Services (CRS) program quality principles and standards, donor guidelines, and industry best practices to regional and Country Program (CP) teams to advance the delivery of high-quality programming to the poor and vulnerable. Your technical knowledge, advice and guidance will contribute to determining how effective, adaptive, and innovative CRS’ Humanitarian Response programming is across the globe. 

The Humanitarian Operations Technical Advisor II’s primary role is to provide HRD with additional rapid deployment capabilities for breaking and ongoing humanitarian responses. He/she will be primarily responsible for setting up and supporting the following emergency operational focuses: finance management, grant management, administration, field base set up, and human resources. The Technical Advisor will support HRD direct projects with grant and finance management support and oversight. He or she will facilitate a high standard of field operations management in emergencies; advise on best practices and support capacity building for CRS country programs and partners. 

The exact responsibilities during deployments will vary depending on the local context, ranging from providing direct management of relief operations, setting up and managing relief delivery systems, providing technical assistance, and mentoring of CRS Partners and Country Programs staff. 

The Humanitarian Operations Technical Advisor II will be part of the HRD Operations Team and will be required to travel at least 50% of the time, often at very short notice (within 48 hours) and for an average of four to six weeks. 

 

Roles and Key Responsibilities: 

• Specialize in the following operational focuses in emergencies: finance management, grant management, administration, field-based set up, and human resources.
• Support HRD direct projects with timely and accurate grant and finance management support and oversight.
• Provide technical solutions to CP teams and partners, remotely and on-site, for strategic planning and how to best apply standards, best practices, partnership principles, and tools, helping to ensure high-quality implementation.
• Conduct partner financial assessments, financial monitoring, and Internal Control Improvement Plans. Monitor and provide feedback to partner on progress against their plans and additional ways to improve operational efficiency.
• Collect and analyze program data, capture, and share lessons learned and best practices for specific projects to facilitate improvements in decision-making and contribute to the Humanitarian Operations learning agenda.
• Contribute to the development of the technical design for proposals.      Support the process of pr