Portfolio Assistant (PA) for the Private Sector Development & Access to Finance

Description

• The USAID Supporting the Enabling Environment for Development (SPEED) program supports the Government of Mozambique (GRM) to develop and implement policies that improve the country’s business enabling environment, thereby enhancing the role of the private sector in agriculture, trade facilitation, health, energy, and biodiversity conservation. The program also strengthens economic governance and public financial management and enhances the role of civil society in supporting Mozambique’s ability to plan, manage, and finance its own development. The Portfolio Assistant (PA) for the Private Sector Development & Access to Finance portfolio will support the Portfolio Manager (PM) and activities under the portfolio by establishing, administering, overseeing, and following-up on short-term technical assistance (STTA) special assignments; supporting monitoring and evaluation (M&E); and administering portfolio activities, events, and reporting. They will play a range of roles and will be a very important addition to the USAID SPEED capacity to define and act on policy reform and implementation ideas and to implement grants under contract

Duties

• Familiarize themselves with the history of SPEED and other donor generated policy reforms in the USAID SPEED areas of interest through the library of SPEED reports (including CTA, Gapi, economic analysis partners, private sector health service providers, Private Sector Working Group, Multi-stakeholder platform, MSME Resilience Fund Advisory Board) and ensure that SPEED proposed reforms build on prior efforts; (i.e., act as research assistants to the PMs)
• Prepare documentation for small assignments based on prior SPEED initiatives or writing easy SOWs for supplementary revisions of policy work or grants
• Assist with writing background statements in major SOWs, grant RFAs, proposals, and technical memos required for grants administration; Attend and take notes at all donor coordination events and ensure that initiatives and ideas from other donors feed into SPEED SOWs and grant proposals and that SPEED reform and implementation initiatives are captured in donor coordination documents via the secretariat function
• Attend meetings and take notes when PMs are unavailable because of conflicts or other duties
• Contribute to success stories, weekly notes and quarterly report writing within their areas of concentration
• Monitor technical and communications activities and develop required reports and improvement methodologies to ensure effective implementation of the work plan
• Manage everyday workflow, internal and external communications, problem resolution, reports and techniques of decision making, conflict resolution, work planning and feedback
• Be available to travel throughout Mozambique to support implementation of technical activities
• Support organization and implementation of workshops, seminars, and conferences
• Assist in setting up meetings with counterparts
• Work closely with the SPEED Gender and Youth Advisor to ensure comprehensive gender and youth integration across SPEED's work on private sector development and access to finance

Requisites

• Bachelor’s degree in economics, business, accounting, finance, development studies, or any other relevant field required. Advanced degree preferred
• Ability to effectively manage and deliver technical assistance on time and within budget
• Experience working on USAID-funded projects is preferred
• Ability to respond effectively to time sensitive demands & inquiries
• Excellent organizational skills with a willingness to take initiative
• Ability to manage and prioritize multiple concurrent tasks
• Excellent communications and personnel management skills and ability to relate to people at all levels of an organization and of different multi-cultural backgrounds
• Extremely well organized and self-directed individual with sound technical skills, and analytical ability
• English (reading and writing) is required

Notes

• Only shortlisted applicants will be contacted
• Interested candidates must submit their CV in English