Job description
PURPOSE OF POSITION:
World Vision seeks a Chief of Party (CoP) for the proposed USAID funded Highland Resiliency Activity in Ethiopia. The Highland Resilience Activity will support the graduation of Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) clients by linking them with new on-farm, off-farm, and employment opportunities. The Activity will have a strong focus on improving access to finance for vulnerable highlands households and will be integrated into USAID’s Resilience Food Security Activities (RFSAs) in five regions of Ethiopia. This activity is expected to be a 5-year program in the $50-100M range. The solicitation is expected to be released in November 2021 and awarded in June 2022.
The Chief of Party (CoP) is responsible for the overall management and representation of the activity. S/he will be responsible for technical leadership and administrative oversight of the program and will serve as the principal institutional liaison to the donor and local government entities. For management, the COP must have proven leadership skills managing projects of a similar size and scope in developing countries. The COP must have prior experience effectively managing USAID development activities.
The COP must have prior experience working in Ethiopia or the Eastern Africa region, familiarity with the country’s social landscape, and demonstrated ability to build and maintain relationships with host governments, donors, other donor -funded projects and stakeholders, local organizations, and partners.
The COP must have demonstrated experience recruiting, developing, and managing staff, as well as experience managing programmatic and financial reporting. S/he must understand and demonstrate commitment to the importance of gender and youth issues in food security programming and within staff and management of the activity. Demonstrate experience in adaptive management and learning techniques is highly encouraged.
S/he also provides strategic leadership and supervision of sub-grantees and sub-contractors while ensuring the security, feasibility, and sustainability of the program and contribution to Child wellbeing outcomes.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:
- Direct and oversee grant implementation, ensuring that all strategic objectives are met through proper design, staffing, implementation and quality assurance.
- Build and maintain relationships with host governments, donors, other donor-funded projects and stakeholders, local organizations, and partners.
- Ensure appropriate project quality support to consortium members through purpose leads.
- Oversee that bottlenecks and challenges to project impact are addressed at various levels of stakeholders using forums such as Technical Working Groups, donor/government led coordination meetings and meetings with consortium member project managers.
- In collaboration with partners’ Project Managers, design and facilitate regular project learning events with consortium partners and other key stakeholders, ensuring that lessons of sound practice are documented and disseminated through project implementation and review.
- Supervise a team of senior level international and national staff with skills across a diverse set of technical areas.
- Ensure proper technical capacity of staff to manage complex donor funded projects.
- Lead grant staff and short-term consultants.
- Establish and maintain effective project reporting, evaluation, and communication systems. Submit timely accurate and professional reports that meet donor requirements.
- Ensure grant/project budget is managed within approved spending levels and ensure accurate and timely financial reports to donors and SO IPG staff.
- Ensure grant/project expenses are reasonable, allocated as per assigned budget, prudent and spent in accordance with donor rules and regulations to ensure low risk audits.
- Escalate grant management issues early and openly; resolve grant management issues quickly and fully.
Perform other duties as required.
KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS & ABILITIES:
- A master’s degree in development studies, international relations, agriculture, nutrition, public health, business administration, or a related field.
- Minimum of 10 years of progressively increasing management responsibility in international development projects is required.
- Knowledge of and familiarity with international assistance program requirements, preferably USAID Office or Food for Peace (FFP) policies, rules and regulations.
- Familiarity with USAID FFP Development Food Security Activities (DFSA) programs, to include Market System Development, as well as experience managing programmatic and financial reporting.
- Proven ability in the management of large integrated grant-funded projects in developing countries.
- Proven ability to manage technical teams and to integrate teams of professionals around common goals.
- S/he must understand and demonstrate commitment to the importance of gender and youth issues in food security programming and within staff and management of the activity.
- Demonstrate experience in adaptive management and learning techniques is highly encouraged.
- Demonstrated ability to build and maintain relationships with host governments, donors, other donor-funded projects and stakeholders, local organizations, and partners.
- Experience working/living in countries in Eastern Africa. Familiarity with the context of Ethiopia.
- Strong verbal communication skills, strong presentation and report writing skills.
- Ability to achieve results through partners.
- Fluency in English. Fluency in Amharic will be an added advantage.
- Professional licenses, as required in the field and by the donor.
- Experience in managing inter-agency consortiums is preferred.
- Demonstrated experience in adaptive management and learning techniques is highly encouraged.
Preferred Skills, Knowledge and Experience:
- Experience of leading large and diverse teams.
- Experience in leading and managing large grants in a complex environment.
- Experience as a CoP/PD or senior expert advisor required.
- Experience managing sub grants and contracts under grants for complex projects.
- Previous experience with Development Food Assistance Programs (DFAP)s, Multi Year Assistance Programs (MYAP)s, and/or Development Assistance Programs (DAP)s is preferred.
- Demonstrated experience in developing and managing alliances with the private sector is desirable.
- Familiarity with and commitment to addressing gender equality in project sectors is required, as demonstrated by at least two years of senior-level experience working on projects that addressed gender-related constraints.
- English. Other local languages are preferable.
Work Environment/Travel:
Work environment: Office-based with regular travel to project sites.
Travel: The position requires ability and willingness to travel domestically and internationally up to 25 % of the time.
On call: as required.