Senior Advisor, Economic Resilience

• Location: Based in Canada (Ottawa preferred)
• Reports to: Project Director
• Position Type: Permanent, Full-Time

• Classification: Bargaining Unit, Band 5
• Language Requirements: English and French fluency essential
• Compensation: CA$ 68,450 - CA$ 83,399 per annum

• ABOUT CUSO INTERNATIONAL
• Cuso International (Cuso) is a Canadian-founded and led global development organization dedicated to addressing poverty and creating opportunities for equity. At Cuso, we believe in the transformative power of collaboration and action. For over six decades, we have worked alongside communities - in Canada and around the world – to create sustainable change, fostering g economic growth, social well-being, and resilience.

Cuso’s partnership model helps build bridges between governments, community organizations, private sector actors, volunteers, investors and equity-deserving groups. Through our innovative programs, dedicated volunteers, and strong partnerships, we support communities with the tools, education, and resources to build brighter futures for everyone.

• ABOUT THE ROLE
• Cuso International is undergoing a period of renewal and growth. To respond to a rapidly evolving international cooperation landscape, the organization is integrating its program development and implementation functions more closely, strengthening portfolio leadership, and aligning systems for greater impact and scale.

The Senior Advisor, Economic Resilience provides high-level technical leadership and strategic direction to design and implement programs that strengthen economic resilience, livelihoods, and access to dignified work. Leveraging deep technical expertise, the role informs and guides program development, program delivery, and volunteer cooperation programming across the full program lifecycle. By ensuring that sector knowledge, evidence, and implementation learning shape both strategic decisions and operational approaches, the Senior Advisor helps ensure that programs are technically sound, responsive to partner needs, and designed for effective and sustainable delivery.

The Senior Advisor, Economic Resilience plays a key role in translating Cuso's program and volunteer cooperation strategy into high-quality international development programs and projects. Reporting to the Project Director, the Senior Advisor is responsible for providing technical guidance and direction to integrate economic resilience across all international development programs, projects and volunteer cooperation. They are responsible for leading the technical design and preparation of competitive funding proposals and supporting partnerships with institutional donors, local organizations, and the private sector.

Working closely with the Project Director country teams, technical specialists, implementing partners, and corporate functions, the Senior Advisor contributes to portfolio growth, program quality, volunteer cooperation integration, organizational learning, and continuous improvement.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Proposal Development, Funding Growth & External Engagement:

Play a key role in the preparation of technical and financial proposals and quality assurance contributing to the development of innovative and successful approaches

Manage end-to-end proposal development, including technical design, partner engagement, consortium coordination, work planning, budgeting, quality assurance, and submission.

Identify and assess funding opportunities and provide recommendations to the Project Director to strengthen the program development pipeline.

Coordinate technical inputs from internal and external contributors to ensure high-quality, competitive proposals.

Develop and maintain effective working relationships with donors, governments, implementing partners, consortium members, private sector partners, and other stakeholders to support program development and delivery.

Develop and deliver compelling technical presentations and pitches that communicate Cuso's approach, expertise, and value proposition to donors, partners, and consortium members.

Lead technical discussions, partner consultations, co-creation processes, and solution design workshops with donors, partners, and private sector stakeholders throughout program and project design and proposal development.

Identify opportunities to leverage private sector partnerships, market-based approaches, and innovative financing mechanisms to strengthen program and project design and sustainability.

Technical Assistance & Project Implementation:

Serve as Cuso’s expert and MEAL for Economic Resilience projects and partnerships.

Provide technical support, training, and tools on economic resilience to other Cuso staff.

Provide technical and budgeting support to team members working on economic resilience projects.

Support cross-country learning, collaboration, and knowledge exchange on economic resilience.

Contribute to organizational learning and thought leadership related to economic resilience.

Support partner assessment and capacity building for programmatic and volunteer-sending relationships.

Support with volunteer placement design, training and support.

Supporting design and delivery of special project funds for partner capacity building under Cuso’s volunteer cooperation program.

Provide advice and recommendations to the Project Director on program performance, emerging opportunities, risks, and resource requirements.

Program and Volunteer Cooperation Delivery:

Manage the successful implementation of assigned (if any) international programs and volunteer cooperation initiatives, ensuring achievement of expected results, donor compliance, and high-quality delivery.

Lead project planning, implementation, financial management, monitoring, reporting, and learning activities of assigned (if any) programs and volunteer cooperation initiatives.

Support economic resilience-related partner assessment and capacity building for programmatic and volunteer-sending relationships.

Support with economic resilience-related volunteer placement design, training and support and special project funds.

Strengthen relationships with governments, regional institutions, civil society organizations, and private sector stakeholders on economic resilience.

Represent Cuso in technical discussions, project meetings, partner consultations, and donor engagements, as appropriate.

Build and maintain strategic relationships with institutional donors, governments, implementing partners, consortium members, private sector organizations, and strategic partners to advance Cuso's integrated portfolio of projects and volunteer cooperation.

Integration of Bilateral Programs and Volunteer Cooperation:

Ensure that volunteer cooperation activities are integrated within assigned projects and partnerships.

Ensure the strategic integration of bilateral programs and volunteer cooperation.

Develop multidimensional partnerships spanning programming, volunteer cooperation, co-financing, joint thought leadership, and other opportunities.

Represent Cuso in donor meetings, sector forums, technical working groups and partnership discussions.

QUALIFICATION

University degree in international development, international relations, business, public administration, or a related field. A master's degree is considered an asset.

Minimum seven years of experience managing complex international development projects, including project design, proposal development, implementation, and donor management.

Strong expertise and experience working on economic resilience projects and partnerships.

Demonstrated experience leading proposal development and securing funding from institutional donors, including Global Affairs Canada. Experience with other bilateral and multilateral donors is an asset.

Demonstrated ability to develop high-quality technical proposals, facilitate co-creation processes, and present project concepts to dono