Deputy Chief of Party 1 (DCOP 1) at Catholic Relief Services

Department: Programming (Restore 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, education, microfinance, and peacebuilding.

CRS’ Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation Portfolio

Under the Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation strategic priority area, CRS aims to ‘drive uptake and scaling of nature-based solutions and novel financing mechanisms to support national and community level efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change’. CRS currently has three projects which fall explicitly under this strategic priority area, and is in discussions with other donors to start additional and related programs:

• Restore Africa, which aims to restore 560,000 hectares of land with 352,500 smallholder farmers across 31 districts (Climate Asset Management funded)
• Accelerating and Scaling Climate Smart Jobs within Restore Africa - Market Linkages for Livelihoods and Land Restoration (M4R – FCDO funded) in 17 districts, focusing on 60,000 small-holder farmers and 40,000 hectares also engaged in Restore Africa.
• Mixed-Use Agroforestry in Refugee Hosting Districts (World Bank / MinWE funded), targeting 17,550 hectares and 87,782 smallholder farmers

These projects aim to assist smallholder farmers, with an average landholding of 2 hectares (minimum 0.5 hectares, maximum 20 hectares) to diversify production within their agroforestry systems, including through payments for carbon sequestration through integration of trees into their plots. The projects also aim to incentivize smallholder farmers to be able to invest in activities which restore health to their soil and increase productivity over time, as well as meet their own food security and economic needs.

Job Summary:

As the Deputy Chief of Party I, you will be a key member of the Restore Africa team, supporting the effective implementation of land restoration initiatives in Uganda. Your strong management and technical expertise will contribute to high-quality program delivery and reinforce CRS's reputation as a leading agency in land restoration and climate finance. As a senior leader, you will also play a proactive role in overseeing security management and mitigating security risks.

Project Leadership and Implementation

• Manage key aspects of the development, implementation, and consolidation of Restore Africa in Uganda. Serve as a primary point of contact for GEA and, when needed, for public, private, and non-government stakeholders.
• Ensure all project approaches and activities align with Government of Uganda (GoU) priorities, plans, and policies.
• Address bottlenecks, communicate security-related adaptations, recommend programmatic shifts with the COP and technical experts, and scale up best practices to achieve high-quality program implementation.
• Regularly review the project strategy to ensure continued relevance and recommend adjustments or alternative approaches to technical working groups and senior management.

Program Quality and Standards

• Oversee key project functions to meet donor/investor expectations related to timely results, quality implementation, and budget performance.
• Support coordination between program and operations teams for harmonized and effective delivery.
• Ensure compliance with CRS program quality standards, including CRS policies, MEAL procedures, and project management requirements.

Talent Management and Supervision

• Provide effective leadership, supervision, and talent management for project staff.
• Foster positive team dynamics and promote staff well-being.
• Provide coaching and mentoring, tailor individual development plans, and complete performance assessments for direct reports.
• Contribute to staffing plans and support recruitment processes for senior project staff.

Risk Management and Security

• Monitor national and regional developments that may affect staff or programming and manage associated risks.
• Ensure staff understand and adhere to CRS safety and security policies and support regular updates to security plans.
• Communicate security responses and adaptations as required.

Resource Stewardship and Compliance

• Promote and model the responsible use of agency and donor resources.
• Ensure financial compliance, including tracking and oversight of partner budgets, financial management, administration, and reporting.

Partnership and Stakeholder Engagement

• Maintain strong relationships with consortium partners and support coordination of roles and activities in line with CRS partnership principles.
• Ensure programme staff effectively engage federal, regional, and district authorities.
• Support partners in preparing quarterly and annual reports, addressing capacity gaps to improve reporting quality.

Learning, Improvement, and Capacity Strengthening

• Create and maintain an enabling environment for learning by encouraging open sharing of ideas, solutions, and challenges.
• Identify performance gaps and recommend capacity-building interventions for CRS and partner staff.
• Ensure mechanisms are in place for continuous learning, adaptive management, and timely response to implementation deficiencies.

Key Working Relationships:

Supervisory Responsibilities: Project Management Unit (PMU) Project Managers (Implementation).

Internal: Project-Specific: Finance and Operations Deputy Chief of Party, Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, and Learning Project Manager, Technical Unit Project Manager. Other: CRS/Uganda Country Representative, Head of Programming, Head of Operations, and US/Regional Technical Advisors.

External: Implementing partner managers, the Government of Uganda, organisations, representatives from for-profit and other non-profit organisations, representatives of non-traditional public donors including the private sector, financial service providers, and others.

Applications will only be accepted electronically via the following link: https://form.jotform.com/253233163021543