Chief of Party – Nigeria USDA Food for Progress Project at Lutheran World Relief

The Chief of Party provides overall vision, technical, and administrative leadership and expertise for the program. The COP is responsible for management of all aspects of the program implementation in meeting the objectives of the initiative, including, but not limited to, technical, administrative, operational, and logistical management interventions. The COP will take a leadership role in coordination among the program team, consortium members, other implementing partners, public and private sector partners, and government stakeholders, and will liaise with USDA as necessary. S/he is responsible for ensuring that programmatic implementation meets expected standards of technical quality in compliance with USDA requirements, including monitoring, evaluation, and learning. S/he also will ensure completion of reports, evaluations, analyses, assessments, and deliverables in compliance with USDA quality standards.

Actual hiring is contingent upon successful Activity award and USAID approval; the anticipated start date will be around October, 2022.

Nationals of Nigeria are highly encouraged to apply.

Duties

Leadership, Vision, and Strategy

• Has leadership, supervisory, and management responsibility for all program staff, including consortium member program staff, and will work closely with LWR management and support staff (including finance, administration, and program)
• Plans, organizes, and supervises the overall program activities
• Ensures that all activities conform to the terms and conditions of the donor agreement and meet the expected technical quality standards, and that the strategic objectives and results of the program are accomplished
• Ensures appropriate representation of the project to national and state authorities in Nigeria, USDA and the U.S. Government, and other private and public stakeholders

Program Management and Administration

• Manages all operations related to the project according to the work plan, project documents, and implementation strategy
• Develops and manages relationships with the public and private sectors
• Provides overall supervision for the implementation and integration of all program activities, and provides overall direction to daily implementation plans to ensure all program goals are met
• Manages program funds and other resources for the program
• Prepares status reports, budget information, and other documentation as needed, and ensures timely reporting to USDA

Program Quality

• Oversees the design, monitoring, evaluation, and learning of the project in accordance with M&E requirements
• Ensures that program activities are implemented, and monitors the achievement of results, ensuring compliance with project indicators
• Ensures that program activities and approaches adopt best practices in gender-responsiveness, protection, governance, and participant accountability
• Ensures the delivery of quality training, technical assistance, and administrative and financial support to all partner governments and agencies, including the selection and coordination of sub-grantees and consultants

Representation

• Provides leadership and oversight to the consortium, ensuring that all members work cooperatively and that sub-grantees’ targets for their portion of program activities are fully met according to their scopes of work and sub-award terms
• Serves as primary contact to USDA, the public and private sectors, and the Government of Nigeria, taking responsibility for addressing all matters related to the program
• Strengthens linkages with existing partners and develops linkages with potential partner agencies
• Oversees communication strategies for the program in compliance with donor’s branding and marking requirements, as well as LWRs internal procedures

Human Resources Management

• Manages the recruitment of a team of skilled, competent, qualified, and innovative program staff, in collaboration with LWR regional and country program management
• Ensures staff compliance with all USDA and LWR administrative and operational procedures and policies, as well as applicable donor regulations
• Leads and manages LWR’s program team, including staff with administrative related duties, and consortium staff, to ensure that they are able to successfully implement efficiently all program operations and achieve program objectives
• Encourages a culture of learning, innovation, and creativity, and contributes to an environment conducive to professional development among program staff

Qualifications:

• Deep commitment to LWR’s core values and ability to model those values in relationships with colleagues and partners
• Minimum of a Master’s degree in economics, business, international development, agricultural economics, agribusiness, or a related field; doctorate level degree is desirable
• Minimum of 10 years of increasingly higher levels of responsibility working in international development, preferably in commercial cocoa value chains, food security, climate smart agriculture, traceability, and economic growth, with an emphasis on development and marketing of agricultural products
• Chief of party level experience on USDA-funded economic growth, livelihoods, rural agriculture, or food security projects is preferred
• Demonstrated knowledge and experience in supply chain and sustainable sourcing of commodities, including traceability systems and processes
• Demonstrated knowledge and experience in creating sustainable business models for auditing and compliance; familiarity with local and international agriculture certifications schemes and policy frameworks is desirable
• Demonstrated experience developing national public awareness campaigns across a range of platforms (e.g., radio broadcasts, schools, publications, social media, stakeholders’ conferences, etc.)
• Knowledge of, and experience in incorporating climate smart agricultural solutions and approaches; experience implementing climate smart agriculture solutions for increased productivity in cocoa preferred
• Demonstrated capabilities in managing complex consortium or partnership relationships, institutional capacity building, high level strategic vision and leadership, and experience working effectively with private sector, civil society, local, regional, and central-level government authorities, and with USDA and other development partners is required
• Demonstrated experience working with farmer cooperatives in market development, value added processing, and the formation of market linkages to private sector actors
• Knowledge or understanding of social, economic, and political context governing rural economic development and food security in Nigeria
• Knowledge of U.S. Government regulations, policies, and procedures, preferably USDA, or those of an equivalently complex international government funding organization
• Demonstrated ability to successfully lead and manage donor funded programs of a similar scope and scale required, and experience leading U.S. government funded programs a plus
• Familiarity with and commitment to gender integration in programming
• High level of leadership, interpersonal, technical, and analytical skills, including a demonstrated ability to interact effectively and collaboratively with a broad range of public and private sector counterparts and other key stakeholders
• Ability to travel up to 50% of the time, nationally and internationally as required
• Proficiency in MS Outlook, Microsoft Office (including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access), and Outlook
• Fluent verbal and written English language skills required

Note: This job description is not an exhaustive list of the skill, effort, duties, and responsibilities associated with the position.