Chief of Party (COP)

ORGANIZATIONAL DESCRIPTION:

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) is one of the largest humanitarian agencies in the world, providing relief, rehabilitation and post-conflict reconstruction support to victims of oppression and violent conflict. IRC has worked for over eight decades and today is involved in over 40 countries. We address both the immediate, lifesaving needs of conflict affected people in an emergency and the reconstruction needs in post conflict societies. IRC is committed to a culture of bold leadership, innovation, creative partnerships, and thorough accountability to those we serve. The IRC has HQ offices in London, New York, Berlin and Geneva.

IRC’s International Programs focus on various relief, rehabilitation, and development programs for refugees, internally displaced persons and those affected by conflict in different regions worldwide. Each region is managed by a regional team that oversees the region’s country programs, which focus on different sectors, including health; water and sanitation; children and youth protection and development; protection; gender-based violence protection; economic development; civil society development; community-driven reconstruction; and refugee camp management. The IRC’s Latin America region is IRC’s newest and with the ambition of substantially increasing its portfolio across the three country programs which cover seven countries (Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico). IRC’s country programs work closely with the Airbel Impact Lab, a center within IRC that combines on-the-ground expertise with disciplines like research, human-centered design, costing analysis, and behavioral insights. Within Airbel, the Evidence to Action (E2A) team specializes in reviewing and synthesizing multiple kinds of research evidence to support decision-making across the IRC.

Background:

Led by the International Rescue Committee (IRC), the potential USAID Research Utilization to Advance Education Evidence for Youth Violence Prevention (RUTA) in Northern Central America (NCA) project aims to assist key education stakeholders in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, to access, understand, and better utilize evidence in order to design, implement, and communicate about effective education programs and policies that contribute to violence prevention. Outcomes will be achieved through a multi-country and multi-sectoral integrated approach that achieves behavior change in key stakeholders’ use of evidence and tools to positively impact youth through education to reduce violence. The objectives include:

1.Gathering and curating existing evidence and knowledge on education’s role in violence prevention to address expressed needs of key stakeholders including local governments and civil society partners including local researchers;

2.Translating and disseminating evidence for use by key stakeholders;

3.Providing customized, demand-driven technical assistance to key stakeholders to help them utilize research findings and related best practices; and

4.Strengthening knowledge systems within countries in order to improve the use of evidence in decision making around education for youth violence prevention.

RUTA will leverage the IRC’s strengths in violence prevention, education programming, and evidence-based research, and will work primarily through partnerships across the NCA countries. RUTA’s project staffing and management structure will consist of a small, decentralized team with a Chief of Party based in San Salvador and technical program teams in Tegucigalpa, San Salvador, and Guatemala City. The project is expected to be implemented for three years, from 2021-2024.

Please note: This position is contingent upon award. Within the current COVID context, deployment actions will be conducted remotely, until the resumption of travel for the position is approved by the RVP.

Major Responsibilities:

The COP will be responsible for ensuring that the proposed project is implemented in accordance with the cooperative agreement, USAID regulations, and internationally recognized quality of assistance standards. The COP will work closely with IRC country program, regional, and HQ leadership to ensure that the project is implemented in accordance with IRC policies and principles. In addition, the COP will be the primary representational link with USAID staff and will liaise USAID to provide project updates, discuss strategies, obstacles, performance plans, and progress against targets. The COP will liaise with USAID agreement officers, technical support staff, partner organizations, outside contractors, and implementers of other USAID-funded initiatives as required. The COP will represent the project to all key stakeholders, government officials, and donors at coordination fora and other related meetings. The COP will ensure that project initiatives achieve the expected results.  

Job Responsibilities:

• Provide strategic and technical leadership and direction, define and implement activities to achieve the greatest impact toward project goals and objectives;
• Develop, review, and monitor in coordination with key project staff, annual work and performance plans to ensure long-term and short-term priorities are on track;
• Oversee all administrative aspects of management of all sub-awardees and programmatic and strategic aspects of the program. This includes, in close consultation with the AOR, ensuring procedures are established and complied with for subaward worthiness, development, implementation and close-out, funds liquidity, procurement, and administrative actions. Ultimately, s/he is responsible for all sub-awards made under this agreement though s/he may delegate day-to-day management to appropriate staff.
• Oversee technical direction and project delivery to ensure activities are in line with the performance framework and meet all standard operational policies and procedures;
• Oversee the Deputy COP in managing partners/stakeholders and providing financial and operations support that optimizes resources through sound budgets, consistent financial tracking, and timely submission of reports to the donor;
• Supervise the overall program operations, including administration, logistics, procurement, budgeting, and financial accounting (expenditures and reporting)
• Report to USAID through both formal and informal debriefings, annual and semi-annual reports;
• Maintain active and cooperative relationships with all key stakeholders, including government officials, project partners/stakeholders, other implementing agencies, and related institutions;
• Represent the project and the organization in public and ensure distribution of information about project achievements and lesson learned;
• Support project staff by creating and maintaining a work environment that promotes teamwork, trust, mutual respect, and empowers staff to take responsibility.
•       Hire staff and make sure that program operations comply with applicable laws