Chief of Party – USDA Food for Progress – Ecuador

Position description

Lutheran World Relief (LWR) seeks a Chief of Party (COP) to lead an anticipated four to five year, $28 million USDA Food for Progress project in Ecuador. The project will improve agriculture trade systems, strengthen sanitary and phytosanitary oversight, and align more closely with international standards. These reforms aim to advance food safety, expand access to diverse and affordable food products, and increase the competitiveness of agrifood supply chains. 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 directly with USDA and other USG entities as appropriate. 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 on successful Activity award and USDA approval; the anticipated start date will be around October 2026.

Duties

Leadership, Vision, and Strategy

• Has leadership, supervisory, and management responsibility for LWR program staff and consortium member program staff. Works closely with LWR headquarters and regional management and technical staff.
• Leads, plans, organizes, and supervises the program activities and sub-grantees.
• Ensures that activities conform to the terms and conditions of USDA Food for Progress agreement and meet the expected technical quality standards to ensure strategic objectives and program results are accomplished.
• Ensures appropriate LWR and project representation to national and state authorities in Ecuador, USDA and the U.S. Government, and other private and public stakeholders.

Program Management and Administration

• 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 according to the approved project proposal, agreement, workplan, and implementation strategy.
• Develops, manages and maintains relationships with stakeholders (public and private).
• Responsible for adherence to LWR and donor requirements on management of program funds and other resources for the program.
• Works with project staff and headquarters on the preparation and timely submission of status reports, budget information, and supporting documentation to LWR and donor.

Technical Program Delivery and Quality

• Leads on the technical delivery with judicial use of project resources for use of grants management and consultants. Works closely with Corus Technical Business Unit staff on technical approaches to apply/adopt best practices.
• Ensures that program activities are implemented, and monitors the achievement of results, ensuring compliance with project indicators.
• Oversees the MEL staff on design of MEL systems to track project performance and use learning from baseline, midterm and final evaluations in accordance with M&E requirements.
• Ensures that program activities and approaches adopt best practices in participant accountability.
• Ensures the technical delivery of quality training, technical assistance, grants under contract management, consultancies, and other administrative and financial support to partner governments and agencies,
• Ensures the selection, coordination and performance of sub-grantees and consultants to high standards, and addresses challenges as they arise.

Representation

• Serves as primary contact to USDA, the public and private sectors, and the Government of Ecuador at all levels, taking responsibility for addressing all matters related to the program.
• Acts as LWR’s primary country representative, including with project partners, grantee recipients, consortium members, and local communities. Oversees communication strategies for the program in compliance with donor’s branding and marking requirements, as well as LWR’s internal procedures.
• Strengthens linkages with existing partners, and initiates and maintains linkages with potential partner agencies.

Human Resources Management

• With collaboration with HQ / regional Human Resources staff, takes the lead on quickly recruiting and hiring a team of skilled, competent, qualified, and innovative program staff, and maintaining a team throughout program implementation.
• Ensures staff compliance with USDA and LWR administrative and operational procedures, regulations, and policies, as well as applicable country national laws.
• Leads and manages LWR’s project team across technical and operational areas to ensure efficient project implementation and the achievement of program objectives.
• Encourages a culture of learning, innovation, and creativity, and contributes to an environment conducive to professional development among program staff, aligning with Corus and LWR values.

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. Experience with SPS and trade facilitation preferred.
• Minimum of 10 years of increasingly higher levels of responsibility working in international development, preferably in SPS and trade facilitation. Demonstrated experience in private sector-led agricultural finance and trade, including extension services.
• Prior Chief of Party or Project Director-level experience on USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS)-funded Government-funded projects is required.
• Strong staff supervision and management skills and demonstrated ability to coordinate programs with partners from a broad range of backgrounds and experiences;
• Demonstrated ability to lead multi-disciplinary teams and rapidly identify and address problems.
• Demonstrated capabilities in managing complex consortium or partnership relationships, institutional capacity building, high level strategic vision and leadership, and experience interacting effectively and collaboratively with a broad range of stakeholders and counterparts, including private sector, civil society, local, regional, and central-level government authorities, and with USDA and other development partners is required.
• Knowledge of USDA and wider U.S. Government regulations, policies, and procedures is essential.
• Ability to travel up to 50% of the time, as required.
• Excellent proficiency in MS Outlook and Microsoft Office (including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access).
• Ability to conduct official business in English (both written and verbal) skills required.

Application instructions

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