Portfolio Assistants for Agriculture & Trade, Biodiversity and Economic Governance (m/f)

Description

• The Portfolio Assistants (PA) for Agriculture & Trade, Biodiversity and Economic Governance will support the Portfolio Managers (PM) and activities under their portfolios 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, recently shared with BioFund and CTA 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 win 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
• Help ensure sectoral technical and administrative obligations of the contract are being met in a timely and results-oriented fashion
• Help coordinate all sectoral technical aspects of the project and participate as indicated in technical aspects of the project (advisory, assessment, analysis, training, etc.)
• Help ensure good relations with donor agencies and local implementing partners
• Develop and maintain strong working relationships with the appropriate government ministries’ staff, and business associations, and others active in policy advocacy and articulation for Mozambique’s tourism sector
• 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

Requisites

• Bachelor’s degree in economics, agronomy, sociology, development studies, biology, biodiversity conservation, environment 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