Technical Advisor - Agriculture, Livelihoods & Landscapes

Title: Technical Advisor - Agriculture, Livelihoods & Landscapes
Job Description:

Job Title: Regional Technical Advisor (TA II) – Agriculture, Livelihoods and Landscapes, West Africa
Job Location: West Africa or telecommuting
Job Type: Regular, Full Time
Reports To: Deputy Regional Director- Program Quality, West Africa

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 of emergency response, HIV, health, agriculture, natural resources management, education, microfinance and peacebuilding.
The vast majority of people living in developing countries depend on agriculture for their food and income. 80% of smallholder farmers rely on rain-fed agriculture and are especially vulnerable to environmental changes affecting water and soil, with women and girls often disproportionately affected. As climate changes, poor farming practices, and other drivers degrade productive land, more and more people live on fragile and degraded land that cannot produce sufficient crops to meet their food, nutrition and livelihood needs. By exacerbating resource scarcity, land degradation leads to food insecurity and poverty, escalates conflict and triggers migration and displacement
CRS’s overall 2030 agency strategy has a primary goal that All People Achieve Dignified and Resilient Livelihoods in Flourishing Landscapes. Laudato Si, Pope Francis’ groundbreaking encyclical, underscores this connection between human poverty and environmental degradation. CRS has a strong partnership commitment to see transformational outcomes, through partners that including the Catholic Church, civil society organizations, governments, the private sector and local communities. CRS’ experience working with communities and local partners affirms their connection, and experience linking livelihoods and natural solutions to address the increasing impact of climate change within agricultural landscapes, including water catchments.
Job Summary: The RTA will prov ide technical advice, guidance, and support to a wide range of strategic and programmatic design and implementation issues in the area of agriculture, livelihoods and landscapes in line with Catholic Relief Services (CRS) program quality principles and standards, donor guidelines, and industry best practices to regional and Country Program (CP) teams to advance the delivery of high-quality programming to the poor and vulnerable. The RTA’s technical knowledge, advice and guidance will contribute to effective, adaptive and innovative agriculture, livelihoods and landscapes programming in the West Africa region, with particular focus on climate smart agriculture and nature-based solutions, market systems, and resilience.
The RTA II Agriculture, Livelihoods and Landscapes (ALL) position is part of the West Africa Regional (WARO) team supporting program quality in the region and is also linked to the global agriculture and livelihoods team and the Livelihoods and Land scapes Strategic Change Platform (SCP3). The advisor will support the WARO ALL community of practice and provide leadership to country-level strategic, programming and project development, program quality and evaluation for 11 countries (8 country programs) in the WARO region: Burkina Faso (including outreach to Cote d’Ivoire), Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Senegal (including outreach to Guinea-Bissau and the Gambia), and Sierra Leone. The RTA II will supervise and closely collaborate with the RTA II for Financial Inclusion and Business Services as well as collaborate closely with RTA II, Water Environment & Sanitation (WES) to ensure coherent technical support for agriculture, livelihoods, nature-based solutions, youth, SILC and microfinance programming in the region. Recognizing that youth are an increasing important demographic in West Africa, there is a preference for a candidate that has previous experience with youth livelihoods.
Roles and Key Re sponsibilities:

• Contribute to the development and implementation of agency-wide and regional strategies, standards, tools, and best practices in agriculture, livelihoods and landscapes that effectively engage partners, donors, governments and the private sector. Facilitate connections between HQ and CP technical staff, including supporting the agency’s Strategic Priority Areas for Livelihoods and Landscapes, Youth Empowerment, Social Cohesion and Governance, and the WARO Climate Smart Agriculture Livelihoods and Landscapes priority area, to influence and catalyze impact at scale.
• Provide technical solutions to regional and country program teams, remotely and on-site, for strategic planning and how to best apply program design and implementation standards, best practices, partnership principles, tools, and M&E, ensuring high-quality implementation.
• Provide technical advice and guidance to increase country programs’ knowledge and understanding of agricultural landscape planning and spatial analysis to implement sustainable land management and nature-based solutions to restore vital ecosystems services and improve livelihoods.
• Provide technical advice to country programs to understand the climate change, environment and agricultural policy and strategies, map key stakeholders and identify entry points to dialogue with government, private sector and civil society

Required Languages – Advanced or native fluency in written and oral English required, professional proficiency in French required.
Travel - Must be willing and able to travel up to 30%.

Supervisory Responsibilities: Supervises the Regional Technical Advisor for Financial Inclusion and Business Services
1https://www.ipbes.net/news/media-release-worsening-worldwide-land-degradation-now-?€˜critical?€™-undermining-well-being-32

Catholic Relief Services carries out the commitment of the Bishops of the United States to assist the poor and vulnerable overseas. Our Catholic identity is at the heart of our mission and operations. We welcome as a part of our staff and as partners people of all faiths and secular traditions who share our values and our commitment to serving those in need.

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