Technical Advisor II – Emergency Program Response Generalist

Position duration: (Tentative July 1, 2026 – December 31, 2027)

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. 

 The Humanitarian Response Department (HRD) provides leadership and support to CRS emergency programming. The HRD strengthens CRS’ impact through high quality, innovative programs; improved technical and management capacity at the field level; and active engagement in global efforts to promote excellence and learning in humanitarian response. The HRD has technical staff that supports emergency program planning, rapid response, and capacity strengthening of staff and partners worldwide.

You will provide technical advice, guidance, and support to a wide range of program design and implementation issues with a focus on larger projects in the area of Emergency Response and Recovery 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.

This includes:

• Providing rapid deployment program quality, management and leadership capacity for breaking and ongoing humanitarian responses;

• Guiding CPs and partners on humanitarian funding opportunities and supporting humanitarian proposal design/development, in coordination with the regional teams and the HRD sectoral technical advisors;

• Supporting emergency program quality/management knowledge management, capacity building and sharing as requested to ensure best practices and learning are shared across country programs/partners; and

• Engaging with the regional/CP teams to bring a humanitarian lens to discussions on broader program quality initiatives

Your technical knowledge, advice and guidance will contribute to determining how effective, adaptive and innovative CRS’ Emergency Response and Recovery programming is across the globe.

• →Contribute to the development and implementation of agency-wide strategies, standards, tools, and best practices in Emergency Response and Recovery that effectively engage partners, donors and governments. Help ensure a cross-sectoral approach integrating gender, safe and dignified programming, and disaster risk reduction.

• →Provide technical solutions to regional and CP 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. Take on acting emergency leadership roles (e.g., Emergency Coordinator, Head of Office) and support the set up and/or management of emergency field offices, teams, and relief operations as requested during field deployments.  Support may also be provided in other response functions such as security, staffing, supply chain/logistics, finance, IT/communications and administration, as needed.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities  

• →Demonstrated application of technical principles and concepts in Emergency Response and Recovery. General knowledge of other disciplines to ensure a proper cross-sectoral approach. 

• →Experience in business development, project design and proposal development in emergency response, including technical writing. 

• →Experience in mentoring, coaching, facilitation and training, applying adult learning practices. 

• →Experience with program monitoring and evaluation, including applying data collection tools and methodologies, data analysis, and data presentation. 

• →Experience and skills in networking and relations with donors, peer organizations, and faith-based civil society partners. Understanding of partnership principles. 

• →Strong written and oral communication skills

• Master's Degree in International Development, Disaster Response, or a related field is an advantage.

• Located in or able to cover UTC +0 – UTC +4 time zones.

• Knowledge of Humanitarian principles, standards and system, with specific knowledge of CRS and Caritas Internationalis emergency programming and standards a plus.

• Knowledge of design requirements and regulations of major emergency donors, including the US Government, EU/ECHO and UN agencies

• Highly proficient in security protocols and management of emergency programs in insecure environments

• Experience with and enthusiasm for coaching, mentoring and on the job training

• Ability to maintain performance expectations and strong working relationships in diverse cultural contexts, psychologically and physically stressful environments

Required Languages – Proficiency (verbal and written) in English and at least one of the following languages:  French, Spanish, Arabic. Proficiency in additional languages a plus.

Travel - Must be willing and able to travel up to 50% (i.e., 6 months out of the year); duration of a deployment will generally be from 3 to 8 weeks, depending on the needs of the country program. Candidates should have the capacity to live and work in difficult/stressful environments and serve wherever agency needs dictate.

Supervisory Responsibilities

• May be assigned temporary supervisory responsibilities during field deployments, as needed

• Bachelor’s Degree in International Development, Disaster Response or a related field required. 

• Minimum of eight years relevant international working experience in an advisory or management role with progressive responsibilities, ideally with an international NGO, with minimum of three years working for programming interventions in Emergency Response and Recovery program management. 

• Previous experience providing technical assistance and developing successful proposals for external donor funding is required.