Deputy Chief of Party At Partners of the Americas

The DCOP is responsible for supporting the Chief of Party (COP) to lead the overall delivery of the project, providing oversight for project implementation, and ensuring project deliverables are delivered on time, within budget, and with high technical quality. Other duties include supervising personnel, ensuring the project is aligned with Partners of the Americas strategic priorities, and ensuring the project operates with minimal financial, contractual, and reputational risk.

The ideal candidate brings deep experience administering USDA programs and has a strong command of grants management and compliance aspects of multi-year projects. They will serve a key role ensuring effective implementation of a strong and cohesive workplan that is developed through inclusive processes that bring in design contributions and include monitoring evaluation and learning feedback from consortium members and the movement leaders at the core of this project. The DCOP will also ensure that processes followed are fully adapted to reflect and embody an inclusive approach that gradually transfers greater ownership and roles to local partners and movement ecosystem support organizations across the globe throughout the program cycle.

The DCOP will be based in Nouakchott, Mauritania. This position will report to the Chief of Party.

Essential/Primary Functions

• Co-leads the development of key deliverables such as the Work Plan and the Project Monitoring Plan (PMP) for the USDA Food For Progress Mauritania Project through the exchange of ideas, strategies and collection of inputs through meetings and work sessions with the implementing partners and key stakeholders, where the project strategy and the expected results for each component will be reinforced.
• Work closely with the Chief of Party (COP) to provide technical and administrative supervision and high quality products of the project: field operations, administration, logistics and procurement and technical aspects.
• Manage, in coordination with the COP, relationships and work with implementation partner organizations and key stakeholders, including, but not limited to, USDA, Ministry of Agriculture, Secretaries of Mauritanian government, and others.
• Support the development, design and implementation of interventions in target areas, including the management of implementing partners and stakeholders, recurrence and selection of consultants, programming and mobilization, field implementation, among others.
• Drafting, making substantial edits and contributions to key project documents, including but not limited to weekly reports, quarterly and/or annual progress reports, presentations, work plans, documents, studies and other related tasks around Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL).
• Coordinate events, technical forums, conferences and round tables in alliance with the implementing partners.
• Guarantee and supervise the development of deliverables for the Government of Mauritania and ensure compliance with any government requirements with the support of the COP, the operations team and the headquarters staff.
• Represent the project and POA in meetings with key stakeholders, as requested by the COP.
• Work with the COP and the Director of Finance and Administration to monitor project funds and field expenditures to de-risk and overspend the Project and comply with US government regulations.
• Facilitate knowledge management, communications and the flow of information for the project and collaborate with the monitoring of project activities to guarantee the quality of interventions in the field.
• Ensure compliance in the presentation of reports to USDA, POA and stakeholders in the time and manner stipulated in the Cooperation Agreement between USDA and POA.
• Provide quality assurance of programmatic work and support the organizational development of lead partners that adapt quickly to changing environments.
• Directly supervise Administration and Finance and Monitoring and Evaluation personnel, promoting the professional development of all personnel.
• Contribute directly to the institutional strengthening of project partners and key actors in the Government of Mauritania.
• Serve as interim COP when COP is unavailable.
• Other duties as assigned.

Qualifications

• Minimum eight (8) years of experience, including as a DCOP, or project lead in another related technical area relevant to Agriculture & Food Security including: agricultural value chains, agribusiness, rural development, and grants oversight, amongst others. Non-project-based experience can be replaced with ten (10+) years of working within USDA and demonstrating competency to lead complex programs in all aspects of regulation and compliance quality control and delivery.
• Minimum five (5) years of experience in senior management or leadership positions.
• Demonstrated knowledge of USDA project management including USDA rules and regulation and reporting requirements.
• Demonstrated ability to implement projects with rigorous timelines and deliverables and to track program quality through donor approved monitoring and evaluation systems.
• Experience working and collaborating with diverse sets of stakeholders, such as local NGOs, government officials, donor representatives, local and international staff.
• Strong oral and written communication skills.
• Fluency in written and spoken English and French, required.