Project Officer – Accountability at Catholic Relief Services (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 are accomplished through programs of emergency response, HIV, health, agriculture, education, microfinance and peacebuilding.

CRS has been supporting program activities in Nigeria for over 30 years and has long-standing relationships with Church and non-Church partners and communities throughout the country. The Nigeria country program has a diverse funding base with projects in health, nutrition, food security and agricultural livelihoods, microfinance (SILC), emergency response and peacebuilding. CRS/Nigeria currently has over 210 national and 8 international staff. With an FY22 annual budget of over USD $100 million, coupled with strong donor interest in supporting CRS’ work in the country, significant growth opportunities exist for the CP. The CP has been supporting emergency activities in the NE states since 2015 with offices in Damaturu, Maiduguri and Yola.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Project Officer – Accountability

Job ID: 2200003M
Location: Maiduguri, Borno
Job Type: Full-time
Shift: Standard
Schedule: Regular
Job Level: Day Job
Travel: Yes, 20 % of the Time
Job: Program Management

Job Summary

The Accountability Officer will be the primary support person on Accountability, will build capacity, monitor performance against accountability standards, and, crucially, will, in the first instance be the first point of contact for beneficiary complaints.
As such the Accountability Officer will maintain a role and mechanisms based on the highest integrity which beneficiaries will trust. Your service and community relations skills ensure that the local partners and communities feed into and benefit from the project that consistently applies best practices and continuously works towards improving its impact.

Roles and Key Responsibilities
Periodic review of accountability practices:

In collaboration with programming and MEAL staff, review and refine accountability practices on a periodic basis and address any gaps or challenges that arise.
Build capacity of all staff, partners and project participants on accountability standards
In coordination with Program Managers, develop training and refresher modules that ensure that all participants have an in-depth understanding of Accountability and are equipped to apply it in their working lives.
Facilitate training for all required personnel using appropriate language, adult learning methodologies and materials.
Establish orientation curriculum on accountability for new staff in CRS.
Maintain records of training participation and submit to MEAL Program Manager as required.
Work with the rest of the Response Team to ensure CRS accountability standards are included in staff orientation sessions, with a particular focus on CRS Program and Operational staff, and all staff members from partner organizations.

Ensure all beneficiaries are aware of the key elements of CRS’ accountability policy and procedures and the expectations and standards required of CRS staff and partner staff, and how this should be applied within their roles:

Develop Accountability IEC materials in language that can be widely understood (including people with low levels of literacy) by CRS’ program participants in NE Nigeria
In coordination with Project Managers, facilitate, or support others to facilitate, awareness sessions and promotion of Accountability in a way that can be widely understood by program participants
Maintain records of Accountability awareness raising and promotion activities, including numbers of participants, and submit to Program Manager as required

Maintain and strengthen the Feedback Response Mechanism (FRM) which ensures all beneficiaries can make confidential complaints and be confident in response processes:

In coordination with program staff and partners and in consultation with program participants, design FRM that all beneficiaries can safely access. The FRM could be used to promote accountability to beneficiaries of CRS and partners staff behavior against the CRS’ values as well as HAP standards
Develop standard talking point and Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) align to nature of feedback in collaboration with MEAL Coordinator and Program Managers.
Monitor complaints received and response (follow up) processes through developing and maintaining a logging or tracking mechanism
Adapt and improve the CRM based on monitoring of its effectiveness
Remembering confidentiality, with the Program Managers, analyze patterns and trends in complaints to help CRS improve its programming
Prepare weekly and Quarterly reports presenting the learnings from the feedback receive, per project
Ensure that feedback is routinely recorded, reviewed and responded timely align with feedback mechanism guidelines.
Communicate and disseminate complaints handling procedures, policies and tools as appropriate to beneficiaries, project staff and other stakeholders.
Support and mentor/coach Accountability Assistance and Hotline Assistance in CRM and database management/reporting.
Ensure maintenance of feedback database
Support the coordination and monitoring of project activities at the field level, ensuring implementation schedules are met as per the detailed activity plan, and that adherence to systems for quality project implementation are strengthened.
Coordinate communication and facilitate information sharing among the project team, implementing partners, and project beneficiaries at the community level to assist local partners in strengthening the community interest, involvement and support networks.
Liaise with various community stakeholders and mobilize them to ensure full involvement of community leaders, community representatives, and local government representatives in the overall implementation and improvement of project activities.
In coordination with the project team support capacity building events for community representatives.
Coordinate, monitor, and report on volunteer activities.
Compile data provided at the community level as per project requirements and contribute to the preparation of reports.

Supervisory Responsibilities:

Accountability Assistant.

Key Working Relationships:

Internal: Feedback Officer, Feedback Assistant, MEAL Officers, Program Manager.
External: Community Members, Partner Staff.

Basic Qualifications

Bachelor’s Degree required. Experience may substitute for education
4 to 6 years of work experience in project support. Experience in the field of Accountability and for an NGO would be a plus.
Additional education may substitute for some experience.
Experience in participatory action planning and community engagement.
Experience monitoring projects and collecting relevant data preferred.
Experience using MS Windows and MS Office packages (Excel, Word, PowerPoint).

Preferred Qualifications:

Experience in participatory action planning and community engagement.
Experience monitoring projects and collecting relevant data preferred.
Experience using MS Windows and MS Office packages (Excel, Word, PowerPoint).

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

Observation, active listening and analysis skills with ability to make sound judgment
Good interpersonal skills and the ability to interact effectively with diverse groups
Proactive, results-oriented and service-oriented.

Required Languages:

English and Hausa required. Kanuri is strongly preferred.

Travel:

Must be willing and able to travel up to 20%.

Agency-wide Competencies (for all CRS Staff):
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.