Senior Project Officer (Partner Safeguarding) – Harare – Catholic Relief Services

Job Summary

 

CRS has been supporting program activities in Zimbabwe since 1989 and has long-standing relationships with Church and non-Church partners and communities throughout the country. Zimbabwe program implements projects through 14 local partners in 30 districts in the areas of health, OVC, education, food security and agricultural livelihoods, and peacebuilding.

As a member of the Partner Capacity Strengthening team, you will provide support to Catholic Relief Services (CRS)’ project activities, serving the poor and vulnerable. Your thorough and service-oriented approach will ensure that the project consistently applies best practices and constantly works towards improving the impact of its benefits to those we serve. You will oversee and coordinate the roll-out of the forthcoming partner safeguarding procedures and minimum standards to implementing partners at the Country Program level.

Duties And Responsibilities

 

Implementation of Partner Safeguarding Procedures
• Conduct a mapping of implementing partners and develop Country Program (CP) partner safeguarding annual workplan in collaboration with other relevant CP staff
• Organize orientation sessions for senior partner staff on the minimum standards and assessment process and tools
• Coordinate and conduct partner safeguarding assessments according to the procedures
• Coordinate with other relevant CP staff and departments supporting the partner assessment process and collating their contributions (if applicable)
– Ensure partners submit improvements plans following the outcome of their assessment as per procedure
– Conduct partner follow-up visits within the required timeframe
– Coordinate all partner safeguarding capacity strengthening activities in line with the partner’s improvement plan. This includes:
– Provide partners with relevant templates and tools
– Organise and conduct online or face-to-face training to partners and technical accompaniment on relevant minimum standards (as per training materials and guidance provided by the Ethics Unit)
– Coordinate technical support of other CP staff and departments (e.g., Investigation Focal Point, HR, MEAL) to partners
• Consult with the Regional Partner Safeguarding Advisor, to contextualize and make necessary adaptations of partner safeguarding training materials and tools provided by the Ethics Unit
• Coordinate, conduct and communicate the re-assessments of partners as per the Partner Safeguarding Procedure
• Ensure that documentation from the assessments, re-assessments and follow-up visits are safely stored in the office and relevant documents are uploaded onto Gateway
• Collate partner complaints or safeguarding issues and assist partners to address them.
• Support the development of Safeguarding Policies for all the Partners.
• Support partners in monitoring safeguarding processes before anything happens to ensure that the safeguarding measures are being implemented.

Coordination and Communication at CP level

• Be the first point of contact for partners in relation to the partner safeguarding procedures and provide partners with appropriate information and technical resources
  • Be the first point of contact for CP staff in relation to the partner safeguarding procedures and other partner safeguarding requests and questions
  • Write regular (e.g., monthly/quarterly) progress reports on the roll-out of the partner safeguarding procedures and share with supervisor, SMT, partnership staff and regional partner safeguarding advisor
  • Organise regular meetings with key program, risk and compliance, operations, partnership staff (if applicable) and any other relevant CP staff to provide updates on the status, progress and challenges of rolling out partner safeguarding procedures at the CP level
  • Ensure the coordination of all partner safeguarding activities with other CP staff involved in partner capacity building activities or assessments, including SRFMP and HOCAI
  • If applicable, serve as the point of contact at the CP level for Empower and other CRS initiatives on partner safeguarding
  • If applicable, serve as the point of contact at the CP level on ensuring compliance with partner safeguarding procedures within Humanitarian Response Department’s emergency responses

Regional Coordination and Learning

• Participate in a series of Training of Trainers (ToT) events on the partner safeguarding procedure/framework and minimum standards.
  • Act as a liaison between the CP and the Regional Partner Safeguarding Advisor on partner safeguarding.
  • Participate in relevant learning events and a regional partner safeguarding community of practice and share experiences and lessons learnt with other partner safeguarding staff.

Qualifications And Experience

 

• Bachelor’s degree in Social Work, Development, Project Management, Organizational Development, Psychology, Business or Public Administration
  • Minimum of five (5) years of experience in the humanitarian or development sector
  • Minimum of three years of experience in designing and conducting trainings and/or implementing partnership capacity strengthening initiatives
  • Experience of having worked directly with senior staff of implementing partners
  • Previous experience in the field of protection or safeguarding
  • Experience in conducting assessments (preferred)