EnCompass seeks Chief of Party (COP) candidates for an anticipated five-year United States Agency for International Development (USAID) monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) program in Malawi – USAID Malawi Learn to Perform (L2P) Activity. This anticipated project will provide USAID/Malawi with services focused on supporting and facilitating USAID’s capacity to utilize MEL approaches in service of improving development outcomes, and on strengthening the organizational capacity of USAID/Malawi’s strategic partners.
In addition to providing overall leadership, management, and technical direction, the COP will have experience working in performance management, organizational development, strategic decision-making, quality control, and project learning, preferably in the USAID context and with Collaboration, Learning and Adapting (CLA) practices.
The COP will bring experience facilitating learning and building relationships with a variety of project stakeholders, including USAID, Government of Malawi, academic institutions, private sector organizations and civil society organizations. The COP will have high political acumen and strong leadership and management skills, with experience leading multi-cultural teams and a variety of work streams simultaneously. S/he must be an inclusive leader, who can navigate change with flexibility and emotional resilience. The ideal candidate will have demonstrated experience achieving results, with strong strategic vision and an understanding of systems approaches to programming. S/he will understand how to foster a culture of continuous improvement and learning and will maintain high self-awareness and personal improvement skills.
The position will be full-time and be based in Lilongwe, Malawi with travel throughout the country.
The recruitment is subject to award.
Position Duties and Responsibilities
The COP will lead the activity, providing technical guidance to and supervising both international and national staff and consultants. The COP will be the primary point of contact with USAID staff, including the Contracting Officer and Contracting Officer’s Representation (CO/COR).
Essential functions include:
- Provide technical, operational, and managerial oversight to all aspects of the project, ensuring activities and deliverables are executed with quality and within time and budget requirements.
- Establish and maintain highly collaborative working relationships with the Government of Malawi, USAID/Malawi and USAID/Washington as required, along with relevant in-country stakeholders; serve as the primary point of contact for USAID and as the principal liaison with USAID staff, institutions, and country partners to exchange information and develop professional relationships.
- Manage the EnCompass Learn to Perform (L2P) Activity team, and as appropriate subcontracting partners, providing technical guidance and direction for staff and consultants and facilitating collaborative and open exchanges; provide backstopping of positions and deliverables when required.
- Promote sustainability of project activities with effective networking, linkages to other programs, capacity building of project staff, and institutional strengthening in support of the journey to self-reliance.
- Ensure documentation and dissemination of findings, impact, innovations, and lessons learned.
- Ensure that all activities are undertaken in full compliance with EnCompass’ standard operating procedures, USAID policies and regulations, and local policies and laws.
- Other duties as assigned
Position Requirements
Qualifications
- A graduate degree in a social science, economic, development studies or a related field
- Minimum of ten (10) years of progressively increasing responsibility in managing large, comprehensive contracts of similar nature, size and complexity, preferably in Malawi or Sub-Saharan Africa.
- Minimum of five (5) years of experience in monitoring and evaluation and/or organizational capacity building. Former supervisory experience is required
Experience and Skills
- Prior experience as a senior leader or COP working on complex USAID-funded projects, as well as managing sizeable USG-funded contracts and budgets strongly preferred
- Significant experience with monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) standards and practices required
- Experience building MEL capacities of USAID staff, implementing partners, and government counterparts, as well as operational capacities of organizations highly preferred
- Experience managing complex relationships with a variety of stakeholders and ability to work with host-country governments at different levels required
- Strong familiarity with USAID collaborating, learning and adapting (CLA) practices
- Familiarity with USAID/Malawi Mission is preferred
- Excellent communication, both verbal and written English skills
More Information
- Job City Lilongwe