Technical Advisor II - Infrastructure Specialist, STaR Project

Job Title: Technical Advisor II - Infrastructure Specialist, STaR Project

Job Location: Remote-based

Reports To: Chief of Party, STaR Project

Salary Grade: 10

 

About CRS 

Catholic Relief Services is the official international humanitarian agency of the Catholic community in the United States. CRS works to save, protect, and transform lives in need in more than 100 countries, without regard to race, religion, or nationality. CRS’ relief and development work is accomplished through programs for emergency response, HIV, health, agriculture, education, microfinance, and peacebuilding. 

Project Context

STaR is a recovery and resilience project entitled Stabilization and Reconciliation in the Lake Chad Region, funded by the German Government’s Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development through KfW. The project has been recurrently awarded. In Phase I, CRS was awarded €15m for a 33-month project starting in April 2019. Phase II of the project started in September 2021 with €10m in funding for 36 months. KfW has confirmed €7.5m funding for a third Phase starting in September 2024 and ending on 31 December 2026 that will include Niger, Chad and Nigeria, but not Cameroon. 

In Phase II, the STaR project is intended to contribute to the stabilization and reconciliation in the regions affected by the ongoing Lake Chad Basin Crisis: Adamawa State in Nigeria; Diffa Province in Niger; the extreme North of Cameroon, and the Lake Region in Chad. Through a package of activities involving infrastructure rehabilitation, economic revitalization, social cohesion, and governance strengthening, STaR will enable targeted communities and individuals across the four target countries to feel more secure and cohesive to improve their livelihoods, to be more resilient in facing shocks, and to use non-violent means to address conflicts. The upcoming third phase of the project will integrate gender equality and inclusion as new key project outcomes.

Job Summary

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

Roles and Key Responsibilities: 

• Support the development and contribute to the implementation of agency-wide strategies, standards, tools and best practices in infrastructure development  that effectively engage partners, donors, and governments. Help ensure a cross-sectoral approach to the four project Components while integrating gender, protection mainstreaming, and disaster risk reduction.
• Provide technical solutions to CP teams, remotely and on-site, for strategic planning and how to best apply standards, best practices, partnership principles, tools and M&E, helping to ensure high-quality, budget-compliant and timely implementation.
• Contribute to, and in some cases lead, the development of the technical design for proposals.  Support the process of preparation, design, submission and approval of project concepts and full-fledged proposals. As needed, act as a technical writer on proposal development teams. Advise project teams on integrating donor strategies, priorities and technical requirements into CRS’ approach.
• Provide oversight to developing the technical designs and processes for infrastructure projects, including technical design reviews, defining appropriate monitoring systems and indicators, guiding the Community Infrastructure Rehabilitation Plans, guiding and reviewing infrastructure-related procurement procedures, the contracting process, the construction management process, community MoUs, implementing the quality assurance/quality control (QAQC) system, adapting it to donor requirements, and overseeing construction project close-out. 
• Coordinate the development and implementation of the Environmental and Social Management Framework and the subsequent Environmental and Social Management Plans (ESMP) and Codes of Practice (ESCOP) in each country program, as the donor requires. Support capacity strengthening initiatives in infrastructure development  programming for staff and partners through helping develop learning and training strategies and agendas/curriculums, conducting trainings and workshops, and coaching, including developing guides and mechanisms for sustainable operations and maintenance.
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