Job Title:          Country Manager, Chad

Job Location:   N’Djamena

Reports to:       Country Representative – Cameroon/Chad

Salary Grade:   11

About CRS

Catholic Relief Services (CRS) 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 of emergency response, HIV, health, agriculture, education, microfinance and peacebuilding.

Background

CRS has been working in the Chad since 1984. With funding from different donors including USG, German, UN, and Caritas donors (including CRS private funding), the CRS portfolios in Chad are focused on emergency response, resilience and stabilization, livelihoods, social cohesion, and protection programming. Soon, CRS/Chad will have around 50 staff operating out of 5 offices in N’Djamena (main office), Bol, Adré, Farchana and Abéché.

Job Summary

As Country Manager you will manage and represent the country program office, advancing programming and operations objectives and the mission of Catholic Relief Services to serve the poor and vulnerable. Your strategic leadership, management and representation skills will enable you to advance CRS’ reputation and impact while you proactively manage security and mitigate security risks and liabilities.

Roles and Key Responsibilities:

• Champion and lead the vision, mission, and strategy. Lead the design of medium and long-term goals. Ensure program and operations leads coordinate their objectives in alignment with the strategy.
• In collaboration with the Country Representative (CR) provide strategic direction for the design of the Chad strategic frameworks and plans, including the development of resource mobilization strategies to optimize the impact of programming interventions in line with regional and agency strategic priorities.
• Ensure that all projects meet and exceed donor expectations and are designed and implemented for maximum impact and reach. Ensure the CRS program quality standards are adhered to per MEAL policy and procedures.
• Provide management oversight and guidance of the German funded projects’ resilience and recovery activities with interventions in community infrastructure; agriculture & rural livelihoods, social cohesion and local governance that are intended to contribute to stabilization and reconciliation in the Lake Province (Lake Chad Basin) and in Ouaddai province (East Chad).
• Monitor security, especially the evolving situation in the Lac province and East Chad in collaboration with the Chad Security Focal Point.
• Effectively manage senior talent and supervise. Manage team dynamics and staff well-being. Provide coaching and mentoring. Strategically tailor individual development plans and complete performance assessments for direct reports. Manage the development of staffing plans and the recruitment process of senior staff.
• Lead the development of strategic partnerships with national and international organizations that leverages resources, reputation, and expertise in line with CRS partnership principles. Ensure strong representation to key stakeholders, including Church partners, local & national government, US government and international donors.
• 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 in operations functions including a successful roll-out of Project Insight. Provide oversight and analysis regarding monthly expenditures.
• Lead the pursuit of strategic growth opportunities, prepositioning and capture planning.
• Create and maintain proper conditions for learning. Establish a safe environment for sharing of ideas, solutions, and difficulties and the capacity to detect, analyze and respond quickly to deficiencies. Promote accountability, learning and knowledge management overseeing application of the MEAL policy, as well as cross-sectoral and cross-department learning.

Basic Qualifications

• Master’s degree in international development, International Relations or a related field.
• Minimum of 5 years’ experience managing high value relief and development programs.
• Experience in complex development settings preferred.

Required Languages – English and French.

Travel – Must be willing and able to travel up to 30 %.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities 

• Excellent strategic, analytical, systems thinking, and problem-solving skills, with capacity to see the big picture and ability to make sound judgment and decisions.
• Excellent relations management abilities. Ability to relate to people at all levels internally and externally. Strategic in how you approach each relationship.
• Team leadership abilities with diverse/ multi-disciplinary teams. Coaching/mentoring skills.
• Strong communications and presentation skills; able to develop tailored and persuasive messaging for varied audiences.
• Proactive, resourceful, solutions-oriented and results-oriented.

Preferred Qualifications

• At least 10 years demonstrated experience successfully managing high-value projects from multiple international donors, including USAID, KfW and UN agencies, knowledge of relevant donor regulations.
• Experience engaging partners and strengthening partnerships. Experience working with Church partners a plus.
• Staff management experience and abilities that are conducive to a learning environment.
• Ability to represent the agency at high levels.
• Experience in MS Office package (Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Visio), Web Conferencing Applications, and information and budget management systems.

Agency REDI Competencies (for all CRS Staff):

Agency competencies clarify expected behaviors and attitudes for all staff. When demonstrated, they create an engaging workplace, help staff achieve their best, and help CRS achieve agency goals. 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.

• Personal Accountability – Consistently takes responsibility for one’s own actions.
• Acts with Integrity – Consistently models values aligned with CRS Guiding Principles and mission.  Is considered honest.
• Builds and Maintains Trust – Shows consistency between words and actions.
• Collaborates with Others – Works effectively in intercultural and diverse teams.
• Open to Learn – Seeks out experiences that may change perspective or provide an opportunity to learn new things.

Agency Leadership Competencies:

• Lead Change – Continually looks for ways to improve the agency through a culture of agility, openness, and innovation.
• Develops and Recognizes Others – Builds the capacity of staff to reach their full potential and enhance team and agency performance.
• Strategic Mindset – Understands role in translating, communicating, and implementing agency strategy and team priorities.

Supervisory Responsibilities: Head of Operations (HoOps), Risk & Compliance Manager, Chief of Party (CoP) East Chad Resilience Project, co-management of STaR PM, PCS/LL & Safeguarding PM, SILC Cohesion PM, Child Protection PM

Key Working Relationships: 

Internal: Country Representative Cameroon/Chad, STaR Chief of Party, Head of Programming/Cameroon &Chad, Finance Manager/Cameroon, Central Africa Regional Office Leadership and other Regional Technical Advisors and CRS Sudan/Darfur Cross-border Senior Leadership.

External: Chad government officials at all levels, Chad Catholic Church leadership, donors, heads of international agencies, partners, etc.

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 of emergency response, HIV, health, agriculture, education, microfinance and peacebuilding.

CRS’ talent acquisition procedures reflect our commitment to safeguarding the rights and dignity of all people – especially children and vulnerable adults – to live free from abuse and harm.

CRS welcomes candidates from the countries and regions in which we work. In the event the successful candidate is an expatriate or global telecommuter, the anticipated duration of the assignment is informed by a term limit, based on the type and level of the job and the needs of the agency.

CRS is an Equal Opportunity Employer