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Job Title: Project Manager – Policy and Advocacy

Organisation: Catholic Relief Services (CRS)

Duty Station:  Kampala, Uganda

About US:

Catholic Relief Services (CRS) is an international non-governmental organization (NGO) supporting relief and development work in over 100 countries around the world. CRS carries out the commitment of the Bishops of the United States to assist the poor and vulnerable overseas. CRS’ Catholic identity is at the heart of our mission and operations, serving people on the basis of need, regardless of creed, ethnicity or nationality. CRS works through local church and non-church partners to implement its programs.

CRS has worked in Uganda since 1965, initially providing emergency assistance to Sudanese refugees living in the north. Over the years, CRS has expanded its programming to also address development needs in western, central, and eastern Uganda. CRS’ projects in Uganda currently include agriculture, health, microfinance, peace building, and youth. CRS Uganda implements its programs through partnerships with local organizations, including the Catholic Church, other faith-based organizations and community entities for maximum impact and sustainability.

Project Summary: The Vines Project, implemented by CRS Uganda, is a five-year, $13 million Food for Progress project that will make Uganda the world’s next leading supplier of high-quality vanilla. Vines will leverage the expertise of CRS and its partners to enhance the production of safe, pure vanilla and develop sustainable market links with US vanilla companies, directly transforming the lives of 16,200 farmers, 836 supply chain actors and create 15,820 new jobs to reach 32,856 vanilla stakeholders. The Vines strategy reflects best practice in sustainable development and will leave Uganda with a robust vanilla farming community resilient to the boom/bust nature of the market and a cadre of private sector agricultural extensionists to support more sophisticated production, processing, and marketing needs.

Job Summary:  As the Policy and Advocacy Manager, you will be responsible for two major project activities:

• Strategy development, capacity building, and implementation of project activities to support the private sector and government in improving and establishing policy and regulatory frameworks that provide incentives and attract investors to the national vanilla sector
• Strategy development, capacity building and implementation of project activities to prevent child labor in the vanilla value chain. You will coordinate with partners on policy development and advocacy. You will oversee the design and delivery of relevant training.

Key Duties and Responsibilities: 

• Under the guidance of the Chief of Party (COP) and in coordination with vanilla farmers, exporters and government, provide strategic leadership and oversight of all program activities that seek to improve agriculture policy and advocacy for Uganda’s vanilla sector, establish a more conducive enabling environment for all market actors and increase investment in the sector. This will include support to the  development of a national vanilla policy framework, establishment and enforcement of local/district ordinances, and prevention of child labor in the vanilla value chain.
• Work with the COP and MEAL Manager to develop project work-plans with clear objectives and achievable benchmarks, reflecting a mix of strategic short-term and long-term priorities.
• Ensure efficient and effective project implementation and the timely completion of program activities and key deliverables, delivery of targets and accurate reporting.
• Develop and implement plan to build capacity of implementing partners and other vanilla stakeholders in the area of agriculture policy and child labor prevention in the vanilla value chain.
• Contribute to knowledge management and learning, capturing and sharing lessons learned and best practices, supporting communication strategies, research and internal report development.
• Use data to understand obstacles to uptake and related enabling environment/policy constraints. Build partner advocacy and representational capacity to connect local action to national goals to influence change. Support programmatic team to evaluate and address issues related to the enabling environment.
• Provide technical leadership to program activities related to agriculture policy and advocacy, including a national vanilla policy framework and the prevention of child labor.
• Collaborate with the MEAL Manager to the design and roll-out of a feedback and response mechanism
• Work with partners to ensure protection policies are in place and aligned with CRS Protection Policies and Procedures
• Identify and mitigate program risks
• Ensure the quality and appropriateness of activities to achieve the target indicators in a cost-effective, timely, and sustainable manner
• Assist with the hiring, orientation, and training of key staff to build a technically strong, well supported, motivated team.
• Provide direction and technical advice through quarterly coaching sessions and daily support.
• Perform any other duties as assigned by the CoP

Qualifications, Skills and Experience:

• The ideal applicant must hold a Master’s degree in a relevant field including agriculture policy or law or economic policy.
• At least eight years’ demonstrated experience with USG or other similar development projects focused on agriculture sector policy and capacity building.
• At least five years’ experience in projects or other relevant experience related to preventing child labor.
• Demonstrated ability to work and coordinate effectively with a wide variety of stakeholders, including national and local government, donors, community-based organizations, farmers and other community members, and the private sector
• Strong strategic, analytical, systems thinking, and problem-solving skills, with capacity to see the big picture and ability to make sound judgment and decisions.
• Experience engaging partners and strengthening partnerships. Knowledge of CRS partnership strategy a plus.
• Critical thinking and creative problem-solving skills with ability to make sound judgment.
• Proactive, results-oriented, and service-oriented.
• Strong Microsoft Word and Excel skills.
• English, total fluency with strong written capacity
• Must be willing and able to travel up to 50% within Uganda

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

How to Apply:

All suitably qualified candidates please Email a cover letter and CV only to ug_recruitment@crs.org

Note:

• Large files and/or scans of documents will lead to rejection of your application, in the subject line of the email, copy and paste – PROJECTMANAGERPOLICYANDADVOCACY only
• All applications that do not contain this exact subject line will be rejected and not read

Deadline: 8^th November 2021 at 5:00pm

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