El Niño Readiness Program Lead

Catholic Relief Services; Northern (KY); Hybrid; USD 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

Catholic Relief Services is seeking a Program Manager II to lead El Niño preparedness efforts for EMPOWER partners in South America. The role focuses on coordinating cross‑functional preparedness activities, designing activation‑ready response plans, and ensuring alignment with CS program quality standards.

The candidate will work remotely with travel to priority countries, coordinating with MEAL, supply chain, and technical teams to ensure timely and effective donor‑ready programming.

Qualifications

• Strong program management and technical skills across emergency preparedness, response design, and close‑out.
• Strong analytical and problem‑solving abilities synthesizing hazard, vulnerability, market, and partner information.

Responsibilities

• Lead the El Niño preparedness process across South America priority countries with EMPOWER partners and stakeholders.
• Develop a joint workplan linking program, MEAL, partnership, cash/voucher, supply chain, and operations activities.
• Coordinate hazard, vulnerability, exposure analyses to identify priority needs, triggers, and preparedness actions.
• Lead stakeholder mapping with government authorities, Caritas structures, humanitarian bodies, and community actors.
• Support partners to develop contingency plans, response strategies, and scalable scenarios.
• Define minimum program quality standards, transfer values, and referral pathways in collaboration with sector leads.

Skills

Program management

Analytical thinking

Grants management

MEAL

Stakeholder engagement

Planning & coordination

Communication skills

Tools

MS Excel

MS Word

PowerPoint

Web conferencing

Job description

Catholic Relief Services is seeking a Program Manager II to lead El Niño preparedness efforts for EMPOWER partners in South America. The role focuses on coordinating cross‑functional preparedness activities, designing activation‑ready response plans, and ensuring alignment with CS program quality standards.

The candidate will work remotely with travel to priority countries, coordinating with MEAL, supply chain, and technical teams to ensure timely and effective donor‑ready programming.