The Technical Advisor for Resilience (TAR) provides technical advising on resilience-related programming and proposals, represents Corus International externally in resilience and climate-related communities of practice, and provides resilience thought leadership. Internally, the TAR works in collaboration with other members of the Quality, Innovation and Learning (QuIL) team to ensure that resilience is considered throughout REAL strategy programming and incorporates best practices and innovations. The TAR manages the organization's resilience framework and its effective adoption. The TAR works principally within the Rural Economies and Agricultural Livelihoods strategy but given the cross-cutting nature of resilience will also collaborate with the Humanitarian Assistance and Health teams as appropriate.
Responsibilities
Technical support to on-going programs:
Leads resilience technical oversight in high priority projects funded by USAID FTF , USDA programs, and other donors.
Provides technical advising on resilience and climate change to other programs as needed.
Provides capacity building resources and training to programs staff.
For the REAL Strategy, acts as a co-lead on REAL Strategy activities as needed.
Provide resilience technical support for strategic health or humanitarian assistance programs
Business Development and Learning: Advises on technical aspects of high-priority proposals with a resilience focus
Acts as technical lead on high priority donor bids that have a strong resilience focus under the REAL Strategy. Provides technical advising to proposals with a more limited resilience focus in any Corus sector. Ensures technical excellence in resilience and sufficient technical staffing for proposals.
Supports as necessary the technical design and technical excellence in climate change and the environment work.
Serves as or sources technical writers and content provider for key program designs.
Stays apprised of donor strategies in resilience and climate change; and disseminates this information to Corus staff and engages regularly in external resilience communities of practice.
Supports regional and country teams with the development and analysis of resilience-focused risk assessments to inform proposal development and project design.
Manages the resilience Technical Profile, related cape statements, and project approaches.
Representation
Manages annual identification, prioritization and participation in resilience related conferences. Presents, or supports project teams to present, lessons learned from Corus' resilience programming in external fora (events, publications, blogs, etc.)
Represents Corus in high visibility meetings with donors, governments and peer agencies when positioning for high priority resilience focused donor opportunities.
Leads the resilience and climate change communities of practice within the organization, including internal and external learning agendas.
Develops and cultivates external alliances with technical excellence partners such as WRI, WWF, CI, TANGO Intl., target Foundations and others.
Thought Leadership
Stays apprised of the latest donor and peer thinking on resilience through regular review of resilience technical publications and attendance of resilience focused events.
Leads the development of thought leadership products for internal learning agenda, external writing, and dissemination of REAL strategy lessons learned on resilience & climate change.
Manages Corus' resilience framework and provides regular internal updates and training.
Participates actively in the Environmental Stewardship Committee of Corus.
Qualifications
Master's degree in related field (Resilience, Sustainability, Anthropology, Sociology, Public Administration, etc.), and at least 5 years' experience in international development required. Experience in agriculture, livelihoods, community development, and/or DRR preferred.
Demonstrated experience working with international donors including USAID, USDA, FCDO, BMGF, OFDA.
Demonstrated successful proposal writing and design skills with public bilateral donors, especially USG donors.
Demonstrated command of resilience as concept and concrete area of programming in international development.
Strong working knowledge of USG and other international donor funding mechanisms required.
Strong English writing skills and analytical abilities.
Second language fluency preferred, particularly French, Spanish, or Arabic.
Cross-cultural sensitivity required; experience living and/or working in less developed countries preferred.
Experience working with professional and support staff in a multicultural, multi-linguistic environment.
Experience building resilience capacity of staff through formal and informal platforms.
Experience working with international partners and NGO/FBO/CBO partners.
Able to travel up to 50% of time annually; including to contexts with limited access to conveniences present in the United States.
Proficiency in Microsoft Office applications including MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint
Ability to facilitate technical trainings with subject experts and non-experts
Strong oral and written communication skills, especially to non-expert decision-makers, peers, donors, and colleagues
Ability to lead a diverse group (across regions, hierarchy, specialties, departments, etc.) to achieve a common goal.
Ability to support decision-makers to use internal or external data for evidence-based decision-making, including apprising decision-makers of new developments.
Strong relationship-building skills, including the ability to persuade colleagues to try new tools or approaches.
