Deadline: Ongoing

Location: Lilongwe, Malawi

Catholic Relief Services (CRS) is seeking applications from eligible applicants for the post of Chief of Party, Land Restoration Initiative.

CRS works to save, protect, and transform lives in need in more than 100 countries without regard to race, religion or nationality.

Responsibilities

• Lead all aspects of the development, implementation, and consolidation of the land Restoration Initiative in Malawi, including sharing how it contributes to the thought leadership of the industry
• Serve as the primary point of contact to GEA’s programme coordination unit
• Ensure the project is designed and implemented to meet donor expectations in terms of timely and quality results and budget, including strategies for phase-out and sustainability
• Ensure coordination between programme and operations leads
• Ensure the CRS programme quality standards are adhered to per monitoring, evaluation, accountability, and learning (MEAL) policies and procedures, and that project monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) of the carbon component is met
• Provide management, guidance, and technical oversight of the Land Restoration Initiative in Malawi throughout the project cycle
• Ensure programmatic integration of land restoration approaches in Malawi in close collaboration with CRS, government of Malawi and partner staff
• Ensure national representation of the project with various government of Malawi departments and other stakeholders
• Manage relationships within Malawi GEA consortium partners as chair of the steering committee comprising senior leadership from the partner agencies
• Manage the programme management unit and the integration of a team of multiagency, multidisciplinary staff in line with CRS partnership principles
• Effectively manage and supervise CRS talent for the Land Restoration Initiative programme team
• Manage team dynamics and staff well-being
• Provide coaching, strategically tailor individual development plans, and complete performance management for direct reports
• Lead the development of programme learning – identify opportunities for learning, research and publications in the area of sustainable agriculture practices and implementation of MEAL policies as well as ensure feeding of Malawi relevant MEAL into the global GEA MEAL system
• Facilitate the dissemination of promising practices and lessons learnt to contribute to the agency and GEA knowledge management agenda
• Ensure integration of innovations and best practices
• Contribute to the proactive pursuit of opportunities for new funding
• Contribute to the technical design and technical writing for the CP
• Contribute to budgeting and staffing plans and activities for proposals
• Oversee technical assistance and capacity-strengthening activities in sustainable agriculture practices for staff and partner organisations
• Oversee the identification, assessment and strengthening of partnerships relevant to climate asset management and the appropriate application of partnership concepts, tools and approaches
• Ensure timely and appropriate project expenditures and partner advances and liquidations in line with financial plans and efficient use and stewardship of project material sources
• Manage and mitigate risk through monitoring national and regional issues that may impact staff and programming
• Ensure all staff understand and adhere to CRS staff safety and security policies and plans and ensure the updating of such plans
• Promote, uphold, and model a commitment to the efficient use of agency and donor resources
• Ensure compliance with the GEA grants, including financial tracking and oversight of partner budgets, finance, administration and reporting to the GEA programme coordination unit

Requirements

• Master’s degree in International Development, Agriculture, Natural Resource Management, International Relations or a related field
• Ten years, minimum, of experience in relevant field-based project management, preferably three years, minimum, working in the areas of landscape management and restoration, climate smart agriculture or sustainable agriculture practices
• Seven years of experience in managing complex projects, donor funds, including multi-country grants
• Excellent knowledge and experience in budget management, preferably with an international NGO
• Five years of staff management experience and abilities that are conducive to a learning environment
• Experience coaching and mentoring senior programme staff
• Good experience in project grants management, including project design and sub-grant management, budget management, preferably for grants from multiple public donors, including institutional and government donors and large private foundations
• Strong communications and presentation skills
• Ability to develop tailored and persuasive messaging for varied audiences
• Consortium management experience preferred

To apply and for more information, click here.

Photo source: Catholic Relief Services