India: Head of Programming – India

About CRS: Catholic Relief Services (CRS) is an international non-governmental organization supporting relief and development work in over 90 countries around the world. CRS programs assist persons on the basis of need, regardless of creed, ethnicity or nationality. CRS works through local church and non-church partners to implement its programs.

Background: CRS has been operational in India since 1946, during which time it has implemented programming in multiple sectors across the country. CRS' country office in India is located in New Delhi with 3 sub-offices in Chennai, Lucknow, and Patna as well as programs in Odisha, Assam, and Andhra Pradesh. CRS' current programming sectors in India include health, agricultural livelihoods, women & child protection, and disaster management.

CRS seeks an experienced Head of Programming (HoP) to play a lead role in the management of program staff, and to ensure successful implementation of high quality programming in all sectors. The HoP will need to play a lead role in strategic planning and project design with program teams, and work closely with the business development and sub-regional team on growth opportunities. To ensure high quality implementation, the HoP will be expected to mentor and guide program teams on core elements of project management, including budget management, detailed planning, supportive supervision, reporting, and monitoring, evaluation and learning.

Agriculture and Livelihoods: CRS is leading the Improved Rice-Based Rainfed Agricultural Systems project (IRRAS) funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. CRS, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), the Government of Bihar Agriculture Department, three local CRS NGO partners, and two university partners are investigating promising technologies and best-management practices for rainfed, stress-prone, rice-based agricultural systems in Bihar. Successful technologies are shared with extension agencies to disseminate them to smallholder farmers in Bihar. Visit www.facebook.com/IRRAS.Bihar for more information.

CRS also supports various other livelihoods strengthening programs in India. In Bihar, CRS supports agriculture and livelihood strengthening activities as part of efforts to reduce child migration, child labor, and other forms of trafficking. In Odisha and Assam CRS supports livelihood strengthening among communities vulnerable to emergencies (floods, cyclones) in order to increase community preparedness and resilience, and reduce risks from disasters. CRS is collaborating with the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) in Odisha to improve agricultural productivity among smallholder farmers. CRS' relief and recovery efforts following emergencies also include livelihood recovery components. In addition to agricultural crop productivity enhancement, CRS India livelihood activities may include agro-enterprise, livestock production, links to microfinance, and other approaches.

Maternal and Child Health: CRS is operating three health projects in India. The ReMiND Project is currently implemented in Kaushambi District of Uttar Pradesh (UP) promoting the use of mobile health (mHealth) technology as a tool for improving access to and quality of government community health workers' (called ASHA) home-based care during the pregnancy, postpartum and early childhood period. The project also works directly with the government of UP to pilot a mobile application for ASHA supervisors that is being considered for state-wide scale-up through the government health system. CRS is initiating a new project that builds on ReMiND to improve respectful care of pregnant women and to increase focus on key male influencers of health behaviors. In the USAID-funded CORE Group Polio Project (CGPP) CRS is a sub-grantee for implementation of community mobilization activities to support polio eradication in 19 blocks across 4 districts of Uttar Pradesh (UP). CRS is the manager for a GAVI health systems strengthening grant to support country-level civil society to establish national civil society organization platforms for effective engagement in immunization and health systems strengthening in India.

Women and Child Protection: CRS' interventions in the area of women & child protection aims to protect sex trafficking survivors, prevent trafficking of children, rehabilitate survivors by strengthening employability skills and providing psychosocial support, and reduce sexual and gender-based violence. In October 2015 CRS is initiated a new, three-year anti-trafficking project in up to 3 states of India. In addition to this project, CRS's ongoing women and child protection projects to fight against trafficking operates from source to destination areas, including a project supporting sex trafficking victims in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and two projects addressing child labor, migration and early marriage in Bihar. As part of a U.S. State Department-funded project with Sri Lankan Tamil refugees residing in Tamil Nadu, CRS supports activities to prevent sexual and gender-based violence. In addition, CRS' relief and recovery efforts following emergencies include women and child protection components.

Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Response: CRS' mandate is to assist people in need during and following major emergencies. Major CRS/India Disaster Management programs in recent years have included response to the Bhuj earthquake, the 2004 tsunami, the 2005 Maharashtra floods, Kashmir earthquake rehabilitation, the 2007/08 Bihar floods, the Cyclone Phailin response and recovery (2013-2014), support to Nepal following the 2015 earthquake, as well as responses to seasonal floods, droughts, and cyclones. CRS/India also engages in community-based disaster preparedness (CBDP) programs in several hazard-prone states. The country program is starting a 3-year project in January 2016 with an emphasis on building partner capacity to respond to emergencies. CRS/India has recently developed a five-year strategy for Disaster Management which includes a strong focus on internal capacity building as well as strengthening quality of disaster risk reduction and emergency response programming with a DRR perspective.

Position Summary: The HoP will play a leadership programming role in the India country program, and will be responsible for managing program quality staff. The HoP will supervise technical advisors and program managers and support project teams to implement high quality programs. The HoP will work closely with the South Asia Head of Programming and with country program staff to ensure the application of PQ strategies, principles, guidelines, standards and resources. S/he will work with program and state office teams to document and demonstrate its capacity to deliver high quality and innovative programming. Along with the sub-regional business development specialist and South Asia Head of Programming, s/he will be responsible for leading proposal development initiatives and ensuring the quality of final documents, including cost and narrative applications. The position requires an individual with strong, demonstrated experience in the areas of team and staff management, program implementation, and communication.

SPECIFIC RESPONSIBILITIES:
*Program Quality and Management*

• Provide strategic program leadership and creative program guidance to program staff in India for project design and implementation.
• Support adherence to CRS program quality standards, including comprehensive implementation of MEAL policy and procedures for specific projects in India.
• Guide program staff to incorporate innovative practices into new or existing programs as appropriate.
• Ensure timely quality reporting to donors, and ensure timely communication to donors on project spending and changes to budgets or implementation.
• Contribute to effective systems for financial/budget management oversight (including budget development, compliance, cost allocations, monitoring of spending rates) and work closely budget managers to ensure sound project budget management.
• Regularly travel to the field to visit projects and support programming staff to implement, monitor and evaluate projects according to CRS and donor standards.
• Support cross learning between projects within and across the country program, particularly as related to PQ processes and tools.
• Support the quality development of scopes of work for technical assistance, collaborate with relevant sectoral RTAs to share program updates and identify areas for program quality improvement, and participate in RTA visits.

Growth and Representation

• Work with the South Asia Representative (CR), South Asia HoP, and Business Development Specialist to target and diversify funding sources for the India country program.
• Lead staff and partners in the development of high-quality, responsive and evidence-based proposals for funding.
• Work with program teams and the BD specialist to keep the Gateway system regularly updated with opportunities and project documents based on assigned projects.
• Collaborate closely with the South Asia HoP, BD specialist, and program teams in the identification of potential funding and development of strong marketing tools;
• As needed, represent CRS at relevant interagency, sector coordination, donor, government, and network meetings.

Staff Mentoring and Supervision

• Supervise technical advisors and program managers working in specific sectors in the India program.
• Work with direct reports to develop and implement progressive but realistic staff development plans and annual performance plans using the CRS Performance Management System.
• Provide necessary and timely feedback to all direct reports; ensure program managers follow the same process for performance management of their direct reports.

Partnership

• Establish and maintain effective partner relations and engage in the identification of new potential partners with whom CRS has a shared vision and strategy and where program opportunities are present.
• Together with the South Asia HoP, state heads of office, programming staff and partners, identify capacity building needs for partners, and work together to address capacity building needs.
• In collaboration with Heads of Office and PMs, ensure that partners are closely involved in the development of projects; create tools with partners and programming staff that will facilitate communication and relationship building.
• In collaboration with the HoOs and PMs, ensure all partner programming staff is aware of CRS partner principles, overall guiding principles/Catholic Social Teaching and are applied consistently.
• In collaboration with finance and operations staff, support the implementation of the SRFM policy and institutional strengthening of implementing partners.

Other duties: Any other duties as required to meet overall position objectives as listed in the position overview.

Agency-wide Competencies (for all CRS Staff):These are rooted in the mission, values, and principles of CRS and used by each staff member to fulfill his or her responsibilities and to achieve the desired results.

• Serves with Integrity
• Models Stewardship
• Cultivates Constructive Relationships
• Promotes Learning

Head of Programming Competencies:These are rooted in the mission, values, and principles of CRS and used by each head or programs to fulfill his or her responsibilities and to achieve the desired results.

• Builds and leads effective teams
• Supervises and develops staff
• Applies program quality standards to project design and organizational learning
• Manages financial resources with integrity
• Sets clear goals and manages toward them

MEAL Competencies for HoPs:These are based on CRS' MEAL policies and procedures, and basic competencies for staff holding leadership positions in programming.

• MEAL in Design and Evaluation: Proficient in developing project-level Theories of change, results frameworks, Proframes, related MEAL system tools and competencies, and accompanying MEAL narratives.
• Monitoring: Proficient in implementing monitoring activities, including timely collection of quality data, set up and maintenance of databases, facilitation of participatory reflection on monitoring results, and submission of timely progress reports.
• Accountability: Proficient in improving our accountability to a range of stakeholders through increased participation, transparent communication, responsive feedback mechanisms, and adherence to internal and external quality standards and requirements
• Learning: Proficient in promoting excellent knowledge management and collaborative learning processes at the project, program and institutional levels, generating robust evidence for project and programmatic learning that leads to action, decision-making and influence
• Analysis & Critical Thinking: Proficient in engaging with data, challenging biases and assumptions, posing thoughtful questions, pursuing deeper understanding of evidence through reflection and perspective-taking, and making informed programming decisions.
• ICT for MEAL: Knowledgeable in applying information and communication technologies (ICT), both hardware and software, for opportune and accurate data collection, database management, conducting analyses, and making information easily accessible
• MEAL in Management: Knowledgeable in managing financial and human resources in a way that optimizes the quality, effectiveness, and utility of MEAL systems

Supervisory Responsibilities: Technical advisors and program managers - up to 6 direct reports.

KEY WORKING RELATIONSHIPS:

Internal*:* South Asia Representative, South Asia Head of Programming, South Asia Head of Operations, South Asia MEAL Manager (PM 2), South Asia BD Specialist II, Program staff and Heads of Office in India, Deputy Regional Director - Program Quality, East South Asia Technical advisors.
External: Partner representatives, donor representatives, local government representatives, Catholic Church representatives.

QUALIFICATIONS:

• At least six years of experience working in the development sector.
• M.A. in development related field
• Demonstrated knowledge of CRS program quality standards, guiding principles, and policies.
• Experience in participatory program design/development and implementation (design, monitoring, evaluation & reporting), including activity and budget management
• Strong proposal development, writing, budget development and report writing required.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills; ability to represent CRS in high-level meetings with donors, local government officials and local Church.
• Excellent organizational, planning and analytical skills; detail-oriented, adaptable, and flexible.
• Ability to build capacity, lead and mentor, effectively supervise and develop strong working relationships with senior national staff.
• Ability to work collaboratively and effectively in a multi-cultural environment.
• Minimum of five years overseas work experience in developing country.
• Demonstrated ability to provide leadership in strategic planning initiatives.
• Willingness to travel and spend a minimum of 40% of time in the field.
• Fluency in oral and written English.

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

CRS' talent acquisition procedures reflect our commitment to protecting children and vulnerable adults from abuse and exploitation.

Equal Opportunity Employer

Apply through the CRS Career Portal: https://www5.apply2jobs.com/CRS/ProfExt/index.cfm?fuseaction=mExternal.showJob&RID=2725&CurrentPage=1