Stephen Terravecchia

Stephen Terravecchia is a lawyer, widely respected Chief of Party and democracy, rights and governance practitioner. He brings 30 years’ of related experience, including 13 years leading democracy, rights and governance projects at national, provincial and municipal levels focused on: parliamentary strengthening; citizen engagement with sub-national and national duty bearers including Parliament; improved government accountability and transparency including strengthened public financial management and procurement capabilities and public service delivery; civil society institutional strengthening; grants design and management; and monitoring, evaluation and learning. He has over eight years’ experience as a legislative counsel in the legislatures of New Hampshire, Chuuk State Federated States of Micronesia and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. He has 11 years’ experience leading parliamentary strengthening projects in Ghana, Palestine, Jordan, and Sri Lanka. During that time, he designed and managed activities establishing parliamentary research and budget offices and training institutes. Currently, Mr. Terravecchia is the Chief of Party for the five-year, $20 million USAID Feed the Future Tanzania Advancing Youth (AY) Project. As such, he provides strategic vision for a project that leverages USAID investments in economic growth and work force development, governance, education, agriculture, and health into an approach that addresses Tanzanian youth holistically. AY incorporates a Positive Youth Development (PYD) framework that builds the capacity of Tanzanian youth, with a focus on young women, to be leaders in their communities in both the private and public sectors and to engage with policymakers to advocate for pro-youth policy changes at the national and sub-national levels. Mr. Terravecchia manages a robust $3.5 million grant portfolio and a staff of 35 in four offices, AY’s Dar es Salaam hub and field offices in Mbeya, Iringa and Zanzibar. Mr. Terravecchia joined the project in the second quarter of project year 2 and provided a steadying hand to a project that had undergone disruptive staff turnover, including five COPs. Upon taking the helm, he restructured and increased the project’s staffing to ensure monitoring, oversight and guidance of grantees and that ultimately results would be met in a compliant manner. Previously, Mr. Terravecchia was Acting Chief of Party and Deputy Chief of Party for the $13.1 million USAID-funded Strengthening Democratic Governance and Accountability Project (SDGAP) in Sri Lanka. Among other responsibilities: he has supervised the design and implementation of public finance management and public private procurement trainings with key GoSL governmental institutions; the design, management, monitoring and evaluation of a $1.8 million small grants budget that includes 18 small grantees. These grants are designed for CSOs to engage with local, provincial, and national governmental institutions to strengthen open and accountable government and improve service delivery and policy reform. Mr. Terravecchia is also responsible for managing the research component of the project, especially political economic analyses (PEA), whereby the research informs evidence-based activity design, implementation and adaptability. Finally, Mr. Terravecchia has been responsible for managing key relationships with GoSL Ministries, Parliament and key independent commissions. In Zambia he led the DFID funded, PEA-driven, cross-departmental, £25.5 million five-year Zambia Accountability Programme, working with civil society organizations and national, provincial and municipal government representatives to improve local government responsiveness and accountability, from policymaking to local service delivery, in the governance, health, education, environment and inclusive growth (including extractive industries) sectors and to ensure free and fair elections. Recently Mr. Terravecchia led a complex, $42 million USAID Land Reform project (LARA) in Afghanistan working with multiple national and municipal stakeholders to improve government’s institutional capacity to improve property rights delivery (with a special focus on women’s land and inheritance rights), strengthen dispute resolution processes and facilitate institutional policy and legal reform. He worked closely with community and local (Jalalabad) governmental leaders to ensure support for land formalization and community-based dispute resolution processes. He managed a nationwide public awareness campaign promoting women’s land inheritance rights and strengthened key CSOs capacity to administer USAID sub-grants and become effective actors in the land sector. Mr. Terravecchia has led multiple USAID-funded programs including legislative and civil society strengthening projects in Ghana, Palestine and Jordan where he designed, implemented, and monitored small grants programs and oversaw monitoring and evaluation plans capturing project impact. In Jordan, he led efforts to design small grant projects to engage youth, women and persons with disabilities in parliamentary and local elections. In Ghana, Mr. Terravecchia designed and implemented public awareness and advocacy activities with CSOs and Parliament on the rights of children and women. As Democracy and Governance Specialist for USAID/Jordan, he was a key team member responsible for contributing to the overall strategic vision, design and guidance of the democracy, rights and governance portfolio including engaging youth, women and persons with disabilities.