USAID is the world’s premier international development agency and a catalytic actor driving development results. USAID works to help lift lives, build communities, and advance democracy. USAID’s work advances U.S. national security and economic prosperity; demonstrates American generosity; and promotes a path to recipient self-reliance and resilience. We operate in five regions of the world: Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Europe and Eurasia.
You are encouraged to read the entire announcement before you submit your application package. Your application may not receive full consideration if you do not follow the instructions as outlined.
This is a Foreign Service announcement. Worldwide availability is a requirement of the position. Successful candidates must be available to work in any country in the world where USAID has a presence. Here is the link to the current list of countries.
Position Title: Program Officer
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is seeking Program Officers who will be responsible for country strategy development, policy formulation and execution, performance reporting, programming/budgeting of resources, coordination with other donors and U.S. government agencies, and public communications and outreach. Program Officers serve in Foreign Service assignment rotations around the world and at USAID’s headquarters in Washington, D.C.
DUTIES:
Program Officers are responsible for successfully implementing the USAID Program Cycle at overseas field missions and headquarters in Washington, D.C. The Program Cycle is USAID’s operational model for planning, delivering, assessing, and adapting development programming in a given region or country to advance U.S. foreign policy.
Program Officers carry out a full range of activities such as the following:
- Lead teams in operationalizing USAID’s development assistance goals and priorities, ensuring that our work integrates diversity, equity and inclusion
- Analyze and assess the cooperating country’s development potential, economic, political, and social problems and needs.
- Develop country development cooperation strategies, including defining development objectives, critical assumptions, and obstacles to strategy implementation.
- Formulate program policy, define the role and objectives of U.S. assistance to the cooperating country, and select alternative courses of action to achieve goals.
- Prepare, design, justify and implement project and activity proposals, including integration of assistance efforts into the cooperating country’s programs.
- Negotiate project agreements and implementation authorizations
- Assess and evaluate cooperating country and U.S. development assistance program objectives.
- Plan and manage program budgets, including preparing annual reports and analyses as part of USAID’s program budget cycle.
- Prepare and negotiate program agreements with host country governments.
- Build alliances with clients and partners and maintain contacts with a wide range of officials, community leaders, and nongovernmental donors and entities, including those representing underrepresented or marginalized groups, to gain understanding and insight into the country’s social and economic needs and to interpret and gain support for U.S. assistance policies and goals.
- Support senior management decision-making by providing recommendations on priorities among ongoing and proposed program activities based on evidence and alignment with the country’s strategy.
- Monitor and evaluate performance and help ensure organizational learning.
- Evaluate the respective contributions and the interrelationships of individual sector programs and projects toward the achievement of overall development objectives of the country.
- Manages outreach and communication efforts, including preparing speeches, press releases, social media postings and events.
Program Officers ensure that priority cross-cutting issues such as gender, climate change, food security, youth, corruption, inclusive development, private sector engagement, partnering with local actors and nontraditional development partners to drive change, and others are included in projects as appropriate and that programs comply with federal law and agency policy.
How to apply
The following instructions outline our application process. You must complete this online application process and submit any applicable required documents by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time (ET) on the closing date of this announcement. If applying online poses an extreme hardship, you must contact the human resources office no later than two business days before the closing date of this vacancy announcement. Our Office will provide an alternative application method upon approval of the hardship notification. After the advertisement has closed, we will not grant requests to apply via alternative plans.
Please note, we must receive all required documents by the closing date via online or alternative methods. We will determine your eligibility and qualifications based solely on the material received by the closing date.
Step 1 – Review the Job Announcement (https://apply.usastaffing.gov/ViewQuestionnaire/11583689) Before you apply, we suggest you review the entire job announcement. Pay close attention to the Major Duties section and the How You Will Be Evaluated section, where you will see the areas upon which an HR Specialist or Subject Matter Expert will evaluate your application and a link for previewing online questions.
Step 2 – Create or Upload a resume with USAJOBS (www.usajobs.gov) Create or upload a resume in USAJOBS. You may wish to customize your resume to ensure it supports your responses to the online questions and addresses the Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities listed in the How You Will Be Evaluated section of the job announcement. For resume tips, click here.-Although you must enter your Social Security Number (SSN) for USAJOBS, we will only see the last four digits for identification purposes.
Step 3 – Apply Online Click the “Apply Online” button on this announcement and then select the resume you wish to submit with your application. You will be redirected to the OPM’s USA Staffing website to complete the application process.
Step 4 – Answer the Online Questions and Submit Your Online Application If this is your first time on OPM’s USA Staffing website, the system will prompt you to register by answering questions about your eligibility for Federal employment. Select “Take me to the assessment” and click on the “Next” button to answer the job-specific questions. The system will save these responses and take you back to the main screen so that you can answer the job-specific questions. You must answer all the questions and click the “Finish” button.
Step 5 – Review and Confirm Your Submission You will now have the option to upload a document or print fax cover sheets for documents (see Step 6 for details). Once you click “Done,” you will see a summary of your application for your review, and you may also print a copy for your records. When you click “Finish” at the bottom of the page, our system will then direct you back to USAJOBS, where you can confirm that you correctly submitted your application, and you can track your application status.
Step 6 – Submit Documents You can submit any applicable required or optional documents (see below) by document upload, fax, or e-mail. Whichever method you choose, please include the job announcement number with your records. To protect your privacy, we encourage you to remove your SSN from any documents that you submit.
Document Upload: You may upload documents in one of two ways:
- Once you finish answering the questions in the job announcement, the system will prompt you to upload your document(s) to your application. You will be given a choice to either upload the document as part of the application process or select a copy that you’ve already loaded on USAJOBS. Or
- You can upload a document to an existing application by logging into your USAJOBS account profile. Click on “My Applications” and search for the vacancy. Once you’ve located the vacancy, click on the vacancy and select “Apply Online.” Move through your existing application to the Documents page and select upload to add a document to your application. Be sure to review your complete application for confirmation that you uploaded the document.