Senior Project Officer for Policy and Advocacy

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 Philippines, established in 1945, is the longest running, continuous CRS country program in the world with extensive programming in emergency response, early recovery and disaster risk reduction, climate resilience and peace governance. The Philippines country program has over 55 staff members in Manila, Davao, and Cotabato City offices. CRS Philippines is committed to collaborating with our strong network of church partners, national and subnational government agencies and secular NGOs throughout the country.

Job Summary:

The Senior Officer on Policy and Advocacy will coordinate, and monitor project activities and relationships with partners and other project stakeholders to assist the achievement of the CRC-NURTURE project’s objectives, which aims to institutionalize and scale NbS in the Philippines through the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) by strengthening national and local frameworks, validating and enhancing decision-support tools, and generating a mechanism for identifying and prioritizing bankable NbS proposals that drive climate resilience at national and local levels.

Responsibilities

Roles and Key Responsibilities:

• Lead policy analysis and development: conduct policy and regulatory analysis and identify gaps, barriers and opportunities affecting the integration and scaling of locally led NbS at national and subnational level.
• Develop policy briefs/position paper/technical notes and recommendations while ensuring these briefs align with national policies such as the NAP, NCCAP, NbS Framework and other DENR policies.
• Facilitate policy dialogues and multistakeholder consultations and support coordination with other NbS stakeholders of other national climate adaptation and resilience programs.
• Contribute to donor reports, learning reviews, and project evaluations related to policy and advocacy outcomes

Qualifications

Basic Qualifications

• Master’s degree in environmental science, environmental policy, economics, social development, or other relevant fields; or a bachelor's degree in similar fields with an additional two years of relevant experience may be considered in lieu of the master’s degree requirement.
• Minimum of 2-3 years of work experience in climate change adaptation, nature-based solution and policy advocacy work, preferably for an INGO.
• Additional experience may substitute for some education.

Required Languages – English and Filipino.

Travel - Must be willing and able to travel up to 30 % of the time in the project locations

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

• Critical thinking and creative problem-solving skills with ability to make sound judgment.
• Strong relationship management skills and the ability to work effectively with local stakeholders. Representation abilities. Ability to contribute to written reports.
• Proactive, results-oriented, and service-oriented.
• Attention to details, accuracy and timeliness in executing assigned responsibilities.
• Exemplary project management and communication skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Relevant experience in working on climate change policy and advocacy is a plus.
• Experience facilitating multi-stakeholder dialogue generating policy briefs and recommendations
• Experience analyzing data and contributing to evaluation reports.
• Experience using MS Windows and MS Office packages (Excel, Word, PowerPoint).

Supervisory Responsibilities: None

Key Working Relationships: TBD

Agency-wide Competencies (for all CRS Staff)

These are rooted in the mission, values, and guiding principles of CRS and used by each staff member to fulfill his or her responsibilities and achieve the desired results.

• Integrity
• Continuous Improvement & Innovation
• Builds Relationships
• Develops Talent
• Strategic Mindset
• Accountability & Stewardship

Organization context

General Requirements

CRS offers are contingent on the selected candidate’s ability to legally work where the position is to be performed. Every government has a unique set of work permit eligibility requirements. All positions requiring residence or frequent travel outside a home country must undergo and clear a pre-employment medical clearance; some work permit processes require clearing a separate government administered medical examination.

CRS prioritizes candidates who are citizens/ permanent residents of the countries where we have CRS offices.