Role overview
What you'll be stepping into
The Uganda Climate Smart Agricultural Transformation Project (UCSATP) aims to increase productivity, market access, and resilience of selected value chains in 69 districts, including refugee-hosting areas, while strengthening capacity to respond to crises. Aligned with Uganda’s inclusive refugee policy and the CRRF, the program supports refugees and host communities through climate-smart agriculture, market development, and enhanced food and nutrition security. Interventions focus on improving yields, expanding sustainable land management, strengthening value chains, and creating livelihood opportunities across priority sectors such as crops, livestock, and apiculture.
Job Summary:
As a Program Manager II, you will manage and provide technical oversight and implementation of the UCSATP program, ensuring effective systems and processes are in place that support high-quality, accountable programming advancing Catholic Relief Services’ (CRS) work in serving the poor and vulnerable. You will oversee the integrated implementation of humanitarian response and climate-smart agricultural interventions—including crop, livestock, and sustainable land management value chains—to strengthen food and nutrition security, resilience, and self-reliance among refugees and host communities. Your management skills and knowledge will ensure that the CP delivers high-quality programming and continuously works towards improving the impact of its emergency response, resilience and agricultural programming.
Roles and Key Responsibilities:
Provide management, guidance, and technical oversight of the UCSATP program throughout the project cycle to ensure project start-up, implementation and close-out are in line with CRS quality principles and standards, donor guidelines, and industry best practices, with a specific focus on integrated humanitarian and climate-smart agricultural programming in refugee and host community settings.
Effectively manage talent for UCSATP and supervise a multidisciplinary team across crop, livestock, and sustainable land management value chains operating in refugee contexts. Manage team dynamics and staff well-being. Provide coaching, including strengthening capacity for delivery in complex humanitarian-development settings, strategically tailored individual development plans, and complete performance management for direct reports.
Lead the development of program learning – identify opportunities for learning, research and publications for UCSATP, including evidence generation on resilience, food and nutrition security, and self-reliance outcomes among refugee populations, as well as implementation of MEAL policy. Facilitate the dissemination of promising practices and lessons learned to contribute to the agency’s knowledge management agenda. Ensure integration of climate-smart agriculture innovations and context-appropriate humanitarian approaches.
Contribute to the proactive pursuit of opportunities for new funding to ensure growth of the CP emergency response, resilience and agriculture sector portfolios in line with agency, regional, and CP strategic priorities, with emphasis on refugee response and integrated livelihood systems. Serve as the technical lead and technical writer to ensure quality proposals per agency and donor standards. Contribute to budgeting and staffing plans and activities for proposals.
Oversee technical assistance and capacity-strengthening activities for staff and partner organisations to enhance program quality and impact and to deliver high-quality, inclusive, and conflict-sensitive programming across agricultural value chains and humanitarian response interventions in refugee settlements.
Oversee the identification, assessment and strengthening of partnerships relevant to UCSATP, including government, private sector and community-based actors engaged in refugee and host community service delivery and the appropriate application of partnership concepts, tools and approaches.
Ensure timely and appropriate project expenditures in line with financial plans and efficient use and stewardship of project material sources.
Basic Qualifications
Bachelor’s degree in agriculture, food science, social sciences or agricultural extension required and at least a postgraduate diploma in project management.
A minimum of 5 years’ experience in field-based project management is required, with preferably at least 3 years’ working experience in the area of refugee context management.
Experience in managing moderately complex projects
Preferred Qualifications:
Master’s Degree.
Experience in an international NGO is an advantage.
Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities
Science
MEAL skills and experience required.
Staff management experience and abilities that are conducive to a learning environment.
Experience using MS Windows and MS Office packages (Excel, Word, PowerPoint), web conferencing applications, and information management systems.
Good experience in project grants management, including project design, preferably for grants from multiple public donors.
Demonstrated ability to write high-quality technical proposals.
Experience engaging with partner organizations.
Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with ability to make sound judgements and decisions and offer innovative solutions
Strong relations management abilities. Ability to relate to people at all levels internally and externally. Strategic in how you approach each relationship.
Good presentation and facilitation skills.
Proactive, resourceful, solutions-orientated and results-orientated.
Kampala.
Agency REDI Competencies (for all CRS Staff):
Agency competencies clarify expected behaviors and attitudes for all staff. When demonstrated, these practices create an engaging workplace, help staff achieve their best, and assist CRS in achieving agency goals. These are rooted in the mission, values, and guiding principles of CRS and used by each staff member to fulfil his or her responsibilities and achieve the desired results.
Personal accountability: consistently taking 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 Learning: Seek 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 the role of translating, communicating, and implementing agency strategy and team priorities.
Key Working Relationships
Supervisory: Project officers, project MEAL staff.
Internal: Head of Programming, Program Managers, MEAL Manager, Partnership Capacity Strengthening Program Manager, Operations colleagues.
External: Donors, government representatives, church representatives, private sector actors, local partners, peer agencies, and others.
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