PROJECT DESCRIPTION

The USAID Africa Trade and Investment (ATI) program is designed to bolster the U.S. Government’s ability to boost trade and investment to, from, and within the African continent. The continent-wide program is USAID’s flagship effort in support of the Prosper Africa initiative and will expand and accelerate two-way trade and investment between African nations and the United States.

Driven by market demand, ATI embraces innovative approaches to achieve its goals. ATI is designed as a small, core set of centrally coordinated technical and institutional support activities, and a large, flexible performance-based subcontracting and grants under contract facility designed to support the needs and opportunities that USAID Missions and the private sector identify.

ACTIVITY BACKGROUND

The ATI trade objective seeks to mobilize trade, including two-way between the U.S. and Africa, through a proactive approach that identifies and/or improves private sector awareness of opportunities, information sharing, and direct facilitation of new and existing business relationships. Building on almost two decades of successful Trade Hub work, the mechanism will have a particular focus on supporting African exports, intra-Africa and to the U.S. Activities must also accelerate the implementation of the existing Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) export strategies and trade preferences with the U.S.

In Southern Africa, USAID Southern Africa seeks to sustain the significant progress made on the USAID Southern Africa Trade and Investment (USAID TradeHub) through a buy-in program activity under ATI from October 2022 to September 2026, titled Southern Africa Trade Market Systems Activity. Specifically, the buy-in activity will focus on increasing exports from targeted Southern African countries to South Africa and boosting sustainable utilization of AGOA opportunities in the agriculture and agribusiness sector by targeted Southern African countries. To do this, ATI will deepen the market systems approach initiated under USAID TradeHub to tackle the root causes that limit Southern Africa’s agricultural market system – addressing incentives, behaviors, and relationships that impede the region’s trade competitiveness in three market systems:

• Trade promotion system refers to mechanisms linking supply with demand and helping exporters identify and meet these demands. Trade promotion activities are about raising awareness of agricultural trade opportunities among market actors.
• Trade enhancing services system, encompasses the sets of services that increase export competitiveness and functional ability to export. Trade enhancing service include all activities that build the export firms’ capacity to respond to the demand in the end markets in South Africa and the U.S.; and
• Supply chain management system deals with linking buyers to a robust supplier/exporter base and support to meet buyer needs. The activities in this market system relate to the core market functions of linking export firms to buyers with their products and services.
• While ATI will initially focus on these three market systems, this list may be modified as opportunities and needs emerge and as USAID funding allows. The activity will operate primarily in the following Southern African countries: Angola, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, and Zambia.

KEY DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

The Country Program Associate for South Africa will work closely with the Country Representative (CR) for the country and the ATI Southern Africa Buy-In technical teams on the management and implementation of work plan activities to achieve key results. The Country Program Associate will be responsible for providing administrative, communications, event management, payment requisitions, report writing, budgeting, monitoring and evaluation support to the ATI Southern Africa Buy-In’s technical components: The Country Program Associate will also support the country representative by supporting activity data collection, analysis, and entry.

The Country Program Associate will support information management and reporting as well as perform administrative tasks assigned by the country representative, and will:

• Support data entry by compiling field reports for programmatic activities and reporting.
• Draft reports or other communication products for review by the country representative/technical staff.
• Provide coordination support on the communications, monitoring, and evaluation (M&E) teams.
• Work with the Communications team in organizing webinars, zoom, and other virtual meetings, coordinate the ATI Southern Africa Buy-In events.
• Undertake technical literature reviews, a compilation of country profiles, and sector summaries.
• Attend technical meetings and take minutes of deliberations, including follow-up communications.
• Assist in conducting performance reflection, learning, and review meetings with technical leads.
• Make appointments and maintain a group calendar coordinating with ATI Southern Africa Buy-In.
• Handle calls, mail, and electronic communications for the country representative.
• Keep office supplies in stock, ensure that staff has data, work with vendors, and ensure timely payments.
• Keep the records of the timesheet and submit them timely for payroll processing.
• Provide support to all travelers in/out of the country including relevant information required for coordination of country clearance processing and dissemination of field activity information to respective countries for bilateral mission collaboration and participation, hotel reservations, airport pick up, and travel logistics.
• Follow up with the country representative to submit technical and trip reporting deliverables, prepare weekly activities and events tracker, and ensure compliance with USAID regulations, project policies, practices, and regulations.
• Where required, oversee and manage the physical office space management in the country. Make sure that office facilities are clean, orderly, and safe.
• Monitor aspects of procurement in the country ensuring compliance with policies and standards. Oversees vendor relations, negotiates service contract agreements, and maintains accurate documentation. Ensure that all items are invoiced and paid on time.
• Work closely with Human Resources (HR) and Administration Manager to maintain local staff personnel files, leave, and any HR updates, ensuring that the country employee manual is consistent with policies and local laws.
• Maintain project petty cash as per DAI guidelines.
• Maintains inventory records, property allocation and conducts physical checks for accuracy of the country office.
• Other duties as assigned by the Country Representative and the ATI Southern Africa Buy-In technical teams.

QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor’s degree in business administration, development, economics or similar field related to SOW and a minimum of 6 years of relevant professional work experience.
• Ability to respond effectively to the most sensitive inquiries or complaints.
• Demonstrated knowledge of internal controls and audit processes (e.g. procurement, local subcontract agreements, etc.)
• Demonstrated report writing skills in English is required.
• An articulate individual who possesses excellent communications and personnel management skills and who can relate to people at all levels of an organization.
• An extremely well organized and self-directed individual with sound technical skills, analytical ability, good judgment, and strong operational focus.

ABOUT DAI

DAI is a global development company with corporate offices in the United States, the United Kingdom, EU, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Palestine and project operations worldwide. We tackle fundamental social and economic development problems caused by inefficient markets, ineffective governance, and instability. DAI works on the frontlines of global development. Transforming ideas into action—action into impact. We are committed to shaping a more livable world.

DAI and its employees are committed to confronting racism and holding ourselves accountable for positive change within the company and in the communities, cultures, and countries in which we live and work. DAI is committed to attracting and retaining the best employees from all races and backgrounds in our continued effort to become a better development partner.

DAI upholds the highest ethical standards. We are committed to the prevention of sexual exploitation, abuse, and harassment as well as other ethical breaches. All of our positions are therefore subject to stringent vetting and reference checks.