Chief of Party

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) responds to the world’s worst humanitarian crises and helps people to survive and rebuild their lives. The IRC has been one of the largest providers of aid in South Sudan for over 20 years, delivering emergency relief and post-conflict assistance since 1989.  Today, we provide services for more than 900,000 people across five states—Central Equatoria, Northern Bahr El Ghazal, Unity, Jonglei, and Lakes. 

Position Summary:

The IRC is seeking a Chief of Party (COP) for a three-year, multimillion dollar USAID-funded livelihoods project in South Sudan aimed at promoting recovery with resilience in the most heavily conflict-affected areas of South Sudan. The project will focus on four sub-objectives: 1) infrastructure; 2) agriculture, livestock, and fisheries; 3) economic opportunity, and 4) water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH). The project will have a flexible implementation model that will integrate conflict sensitive and peacebuilding approaches throughout all its interventions. The COP will lead a consortium of NGOs and other partners in managing and implementing all aspects of the project, providing overall technical, administrative, operational, and logistical management, with a focus on achieving the project’s objectives/results.

The successful candidate will demonstrate her/his capacity to be a key decision-maker and will bring significant experience in recovery, agriculture/livestock, economic development, and conflict sensitive programming in South Sudan and the region. The successful candidate will also be adept manager capable of leading a diverse team of direct reports and coordinating among partner organizations to ensure operational and programmatic efficiency and success. The COP will be responsible for developing a strong, coherent vision within and initiating innovative strategies across the project. The COP will lead and/or participate in strategic, high-level policy forums and meetings and work with key stakeholders across government, non-government, and international communities.

This position will report to the IRC Country Director and is contingent on the IRC being awarded funding. It is anticipated to begin in July 2015.

Specific COP responsibilities include the following:

• Provide overall leadership and strategic direction in all aspects of project implementation.
• Oversee project planning and quality assurance, including ensuring the quality and timely achievement of all deliverables.
•  Manage a solid cooperation with partner organizations and government officials and represent IRC at relevant events in the field.
• Report to USAID through both formal and informal debriefings, annual and semi-annual reports.
• Maintain an on-going dialogue with the USAID AOTR and respond timely to AOTR's inquiries.
• Provide strategic direction in diverse technical areas including small-scale infrastructure development, agriculture and livestock, private sector development, hygiene and sanitation (including behavior change), community-led management of water resources, integration of peacebuilding approaches, and capacity development.
• Ensure that the design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of all activities are in accordance with IRC standards and meet the goals and objectives of the target communities and USAID, in collaboration with the technical advisors and M&E units.
• Ensure that cross-cutting themes such as safe programming, do no harm, youth, and gender are fully integrated into the project.
• Ensure that the findings of ongoing conflict and security assessments are continually integrated into project design and implementation, working with the Conflict Advisor and technical coordinators.
• Provide oversight and consolidation of the project’s financial management and reporting requirements, including the submission of timely and accurate performance and financial reports, working in collaboration with project Operations/Finance Manager.
• Monitor budget utilization and ensure proper financial management and utilization of funds.
• Coordinate with program and operations staff to ensure operational systems are in place to support project activities including logistics, procurement, security, and human resources.
• Oversee implementation of a common monitoring, evaluation, and learning system among all partners and analyze the data it generates to inform project management, technical programming, and development of best practices and applied research, in collaboration with the technical advisors and the M&E unit.
• Facilitate and document lessons learned and best practices within and outside of the consortium such that all participating institutions, USAID, and beneficiary communities may realize improved livelihood outcomes. 
• Organize learning and sharing opportunities between project-based and external stakeholders on a regular basis as appropriate.
• Support project staff by creating and maintaining a work environment that promotes teamwork, trust, mutual respect, and empowers staff to take responsibility;

Required Skills:

• Technical proficiency in livelihood/economic development program design, implementation, and M&E.
• Demonstrated experience managing similarly complex projects in emergency contexts similar to South Sudan, involving management of multi-million dollar budgets/portfolios and coordination with multiple programs and partner institutions.
• Demonstrated knowledge and application of conflict sensitive approaches within project design.
• Knowledge and prior application of participatory methodologies.
• Solid experience implementing both emergency and long-term development programs with a focus on recovery with resilience.
• Strong leadership, analytical and organizational skills.
• Demonstrated ability to quickly assess priorities and effectively manage a variety of activities at a time while paying appropriate attention to detail.
• Excellent interpersonal skills and ability to interact professionally with donor, project stakeholders, in-country collaborators and staff at all levels of the organization. Proven ability to convene/chair high profile meetings and ability to productively interact with a wide range of organizations (e.g. government, private sector, NGOs, and research institutions).
• Skills in the area of results-based management and the use of M&E frameworks as a primary management tool.
• Understanding of USAID procurement processes and procedures.
• Strong MS Office skills, including Word and Excel.
• Strong written and oral presentation skills in English.

Experience/Qualifications:

• Master’s Degree in a relevant field.
• A minimum of ten (10) years of  senior-level management experience in the development sector, including at least five (5) years of experience in livelihood programming in conflict-affected areas.
• A minimum of five (5) years of progressively responsible supervisory work experience including direct supervision of professional and support staff and assembling teams working on multi-faceted international development programs, including USAID experience.
• Experience in the area of quality control and timeliness of deliverables, work plans, quarterly reports, and other USAID reporting deliverables.
• Experience implementing in East Africa required; experience in South Sudan preferred.
• Fluent in English.