Statement of Duties to be Performed.
The Major Duties and Responsibilities include:
A. Project Development and Management (50%)
The job holder’s primary responsibility is as Activity Manager for BHA awards, as assigned, and as alternate AOR/COR for Mission awards, as assigned. With support from the BHA Regional Advisor in Bangkok, the jobholder advises the Mission’s technical teams on nexus opportunities, shock-responsive award design, where appropriate, as well as resilience and risk design processes, providing technical guidance in documenting learning on resilience and humanitarian-development nexus programming, developing evaluation scopes of work of resilience strategies, and advising on relevant indicators and M&E processes that support the Mission’s overall resilience-building objectives. A key focus of the position is advancing the Mission’s priorities for inclusive humanitarian and development programming that directly addresses the needs of Nepal’s most vulnerable and marginalized populations including women, youth and members of disadvantaged groups.
The jobholder will at times be responsible for coordinating high-level visits, including for the Ambassador, Mission Management and/or Congressional Delegations. For these visits, the jobholder will be responsible for developing comprehensive briefing materials, providing in-person briefings in advance of travel, and otherwise coordinating the details of these visits in coordination with the Control Officer, relevant security officials, Embassy support offices, and local stakeholders within the government, civil society and the private sector.
B. Monitoring and Reporting (30%)
The jobholder is responsible for planning and executing field visits to monitor development and emergency assistance activities to ensure that program implementation is effective, on schedule and reaching the intended beneficiaries, and adhering to USAID compliance regulations. For BHA activities which the Specialist is Activity Manager, the job holder should conduct program monitoring regularly, at least twice a fiscal year. The jobholder must regularly interact with Chiefs of Party and other implementing partner personnel to monitor implementation progress, solicit quarterly accruals and pipeline estimates and ensure data quality. The jobholder must coordinate closely with ERO management, relevant technical offices, and the relevant Contracting/Agreement Officer Representative to provide updates on performance challenges and ensure timely corrective action. The jobholder monitors and reports on humanitarian issues, to include changes in the humanitarian situation resulting from small- and medium-scale disasters including landslides, earthquakes, floods, wildfires, and other events, and closely tracking donor pledges and programs to prevent duplication.
The jobholder must produce high-quality site visit reports for all monitoring trips and convey key findings to the BHA Regional Office ERO and Mission Management in a timely manner. The jobholder is also responsible for reviewing and approving Activity Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) plans, ensuring their alignment with the Mission’s Performance Monitoring Plan and all relevant initiative guidelines and reporting requirements, and for closely monitoring activity implementation to ensure full adherence to the MEL plan. The jobholder must draft reports, briefings and cables as requested and must ensure that relevant project milestones and accomplishments are well reflected in the Mission’s weekly reporting to USAID/Washington.
C. Coordination, Communication and USG Representation (20%)
The jobholder must regularly liaise with BHA Regional Office, senior Mission Management, inter-agency colleagues, other donors, and officials to ensure strong internal and external coordination. This includes representing the USG at donor coordination meetings the jobholder may also be responsible for coordinating Joint Sector program reviews, field visits and coordination forums with other USAID technical offices, GON staff, and humanitarian and development partners. In particular, the incumbent helps lead USAID’s engagement within the humanitarian clusters. This involves collaborating with multilateral agencies such as the UN agencies, other humanitarian donors, and red cross movements, to align programs and strategies for optimal impact.
The Specialist must effectively communicate, orally and in writing, project progress and challenges to diverse audiences to include irrelevant officials in BHA and Embassy and Mission management. The jobholder engages in USAID initiatives and strategy development to ensure that BHA and early recovery, resilience, and disaster risk reduction (ER4) programming is effectively integrated into Mission strategies, operational plans and reporting requirements. This requires an ability to work effectively with other technical teams, including the Environment and Energy Teams within the ERO Office, as well as other technical offices in the Mission, such as Health. The jobholder is responsible for developing high-quality briefings, presentations, success stories and other communication products for internal and external consumption. The jobholder will represent the USG at public events and donor coordination fora and will often interact with mid-level and senior GON officials. As such, the jobholder must possess excellent oral communication abilities in both English and Nepali.
The jobholder may also be assigned to coordinate workshops and other learning events of relevance to the broader Mission, representing the Mission and BHA at relevant conferences and regional events, and serving as the Acting BHA Country Lead.
Reduction principles, frameworks, and programmatic approaches; and provides field management and oversight of BHA activities. The jobholder also provides technical input to the design of new projects and activities, Mission strategies, evaluations and assessments related to resilience and inclusive economic growth. The jobholder advises on the development of resilience in the Mission’s Country Development and Cooperation Strategy (CDCS), as requested.
The jobholder’s primary project development and management responsibilities include: 1) overseeing BHA disaster risk reduction (DRR) and preparedness activities in the country; 2) liaising with humanitarian actors and implementing partners to ensure coordination in DRR and preparedness approaches; 3) advising the supervisor, Mission and BHA Regional Office in Bangkok on changes in the humanitarian context and challenges with program implementation; 4) liaising with BHA program team and Technical Program Quality (TPQ) staff in Washington DC on co-creating BHA programs and ensuring adequate information flow; 5) chairing and/or serving on technical evaluation committees to review and select the most sound and cost-effective proposals. The job holder is also responsible for serving alternate AOR/COR for Mission activities; drafting scopes of work and ensuring activities are implemented according to them; reviewing vouchers and tracking expenditures against the approved budget; reviewing and approving partner deliverables such as work plans and progress reports; monitoring partners’ performance progress, issuing technical direction and ensuring data quality; communicating with implementing partners, relevant technical teams, the Office of Acquisition and Assistance, and Mission management to ensure that all stakeholders are well informed of activity implementation progress and challenges; and developing and reviewing scopes of work for evaluations and overseeing activity close-outs.
The jobholder must devote significant attention to supporting activity designs and sound activity management across the Mission’s broad humanitarian and development portfolio, which includes substantial investments in the health, education, agriculture, water and sanitation, earthquake reconstruction, and disaster risk management sectors. This may include participating in the bi-annual portfolio reviews for all Mission offices, providing technical inputs for a variety of Mission. The jobholder will also serve in planning or program positions on USAID BHA response teams, assessment teams, or to provide coverage for field offices within the region as well as on temporary details within the office to meet operational needs during staff shortages. Duties performed while detailed will be aligned with the Team’s existing duties and responsibilities and will be directly related to the Position Description.
As needed, the jobholder will also serve on Disaster Assistance Response Teams (DARTs) and participate in BHA on-call roster once a year. During deployment on DARTs, and during site visits, there may be some additional physical exertion including long periods of standing, walking over rough terrain, or carrying of moderately heavy items (less than 50 pounds). Work is primarily performed in an office setting. During deployment on DARTs, and during site visits, the work may involve special safety and/or security precautions, wearing of protective equipment, and exposure to severe weather conditions.
MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS REQUIRED FOR THIS POSITION
a. Education: A Bachelor’s degree in fields related to Disaster Risk Management, Humanitarian Assistance, International Relations, Development Economics, Natural Sciences, or a closely related field is required.
b. Prior Work Experience: Minimum of five years of progressively responsible experience in the design, management, and evaluation of humanitarian assistance programming, to include humanitarian response, resilience, risk reduction, and early recovery programming (ER4), working familiarity with the humanitarian response architecture, food security monitoring, disaster and needs assessments, and situation reporting is required.
c. Language Proficiency: Level IV English reading, writing and speaking ability is required. Fluent reading, writing and speaking ability in Nepali (Level IV) is required. Must be able to speak in a concise, articulate and thoughtful manner on development programs and issues.
d. Job Knowledge:
A thorough knowledge of humanitarian assistance, host government, international NGOs, foreign government and donor agency policies, laws, regulations, disaster risk reduction, donor project documentation, design and implementation procedures; and Government of Nepal disaster risk management policies. Knowledge of gender and climate change in development principles and demonstrated experience in their application.
e. Skills and Abilities:
The position requires a high degree of competence, professional maturity and experience in the understanding of humanitarian assistance, with a focus on BHA’s ER4 programming and nexus opportunities. Requires excellent technical, managerial and interpersonal skills with an in-depth understanding of the inner workings of the GON, particularly of the livelihood security improvements and disaster risk management sectors. Additional required skills include:
● Ability to prepare and deliver formal, high-quality power-point presentations on cross-cutting issues such as resilience, gender in emergencies, M&E, disaster risk reduction, climate change and food security, to internal and external audiences.
● Able to prepare short papers on sector strategy, performance and progress on program implementation. Must be able to quickly review and comment on reports, studies and other documents prepared by implementing partners.
● Ability to discuss issues and negotiate with government officials on humanitarian assistance and disaster risk reduction.
● Computer skill spreadsheet and PowerPoint including ability to obtain, analyze and evaluate a variety of data and to organize and present meaningful terms to others is required.
● Excellent social and professional judgment, strong interpersonal skills and cross-cultural communication abilities and the ability to navigate in potentially insecure or hazardous situations in remote areas of Nepal.
CLOSING DATE/TIME FOR RECEIPT OF OFFERS: 12/31/2024 (11:30 PM Nepal time)