El Niño Readiness Program Lead

Catholic Relief Services; Baltimore, Northern (MD, KY); Hybrid; USD 65,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

Catholic Relief Services seeks a Program Manager I to provide program management, technical, and coordination support for EMPOWER partners in South America, strengthening El Niño preparedness and rapid response readiness. The role translates hazard and partner data into ready-to-activate plans across priority locations and hotspots.

Working with various teams, the manager will accompany partners, address bottlenecks, and maintain country-level materials for rapid adaptation when an EMPOWER/RAPID

Responsibilities

• Support implementation of the El Niño preparedness workplans across assigned South America countries or hotspots in coordination with EMPOWER partners, country teams, RAPID counterparts, and technical and operational colleagues.
• Maintain detailed activity plans, deliverable trackers, meeting records, and follow-up actions that connect program, MEAL, partnership, cash and voucher assistance, supply chain, finance, safeguarding, and operational readiness tasks.
• Compile and synthesize available hazard, vulnerability, exposure, seasonal, and scenario information to help identify priority locations, population groups, likely needs, access constraints, and preparedness triggers for drought, floods, food insecurity, wildfires, and related El Niño impacts.
• Support stakeholder and service mapping with partners, including government authorities, Caritas structures, humanitarian coordination bodies, community actors, technical services, financial service providers, and other response stakeholders.
• Facilitate partner working sessions to develop or update country- and hotspot-specific contingency plans, response strategies, sector and modality options, targeting approaches, geographic priorities, and scalable response scenarios.
• Gather technical inputs and support documentation of minimum program quality standards, intervention packages, eligibility and prioritization criteria, referral pathways, assistance quantities or transfer values, and safe adaptation or substitution rules.
• Coordinate routine follow-up with supply chain and operations colleagues so proposed relief kits, in-kind assistance, and cash or voucher options reflect assessed needs, market capacity, cultural appropriateness, protection considerations, delivery feasibility, lead times, and cost drivers.
• Incorporate validated market and logistics findings into program drafts, implementation schedules, modality recommendations, delivery sequencing, contingency options, and procurement inputs.
• Support partner readiness for cash and voucher assistance, including participant-data requirements, accountability and complaints mechanisms, protection and inclusion measures, reconciliation processes, monitoring, and failed-payment follow-up.
• Prepare and update activation-ready program materials, including rapid assessment tools, response concept drafts, targeting and registration approaches, implementation plans, staffing assumptions, budget inputs, procurement requests, risk registers, and donor narrative inputs.
• Monitor assigned preparedness activities and any activated response tasks, flag delays or quality concerns, and support timely corrective action in line with CRS program quality principles and standards, donor requirements, and humanitarian good practice.
• Work with MEAL and information-management colleagues to adapt practical indicators, data-collection tools, monitoring plans, feedback and response mechanisms, and learning questions for partner use.
• Support integration of safeguarding, protection mainstreaming, gender, age, disability inclusion, accountability to affected populations, conflict sensitivity, and disaster risk reduction across assessments, designs, partner tools, simulations, and readiness plans.
• Assist with partner readiness assessments and partner-specific action plans, ensuring that agreed actions, responsibilities, deadlines, support needs, risks, contingencies, and escalation points are clearly documented and followed up.
• Organize and co-facilitate coaching sessions, workshops, simulations, tabletop exercises, and readiness tests, and prepare agendas, materials, participant records, and follow-up notes.
• Provide day-to-day accompaniment and practical technical support to partners, adapting tools and guidance to partner priorities and promoting sustainable local ownership of preparedness systems.
• Contribute to proposal development and resource mobilization through research, technical inputs, drafting, budget inputs, staffing assumptions, and compilation of supporting documentation.
• Document decisions, lessons, tested approaches, readiness gaps, good practices, and recommendations, and maintain orderly shared files for knowledge management and handover.
• Compile the final El Niño preparedness package for assigned countries or workstreams, including analyses, plans, tools, MEAL materials, partner action plans, training resources, ownership arrangements, and maintenance recommendations.

Job description

Catholic Relief Services seeks a Program Manager I to provide program management, technical, and coordination support for EMPOWER partners in South America, strengthening El Niño preparedness and rapid response readiness. The role translates hazard and partner data into ready-to-activate plans across priority locations and hotspots.

Working with various teams, the manager will accompany partners, address bottlenecks, and maintain country-level materials for rapid adaptation when an EMPOWER/RAPID