Summary:
Save the Children is seeking a Chief of Party (COP) to lead the upcoming 5-year, $25-$50 million USAID-funded Renda Verde Activity in Mozambique. This Activity aims to boost communities in leveraging the benefits of living in nature across key biodiversity conservation areas and benefit local people through sharing nature-based revenue. In addition to ongoing enforcement to dissuade and punish destruction of natural resources and habitats, this Activity will focus on the tangible incentives of living with nature, seeking to catalyze the market and community benefits of human coexistence with wildlife in harmony across conservation areas, buffer zones and key biodiversity corridors.
The COP will provide overall strategic, technical, and management leadership for the successful implementation of this project. This individual will serve as the primary liaison between USAID, the Mozambican government, local partners, and other stakeholders to ensure the program meets its objectives on time and within budget.
This is a Key Personnel position, subject to USAID approval. It is also subject to project award and funding. The program is anticipated to start in mid to late 2025.
The role will be based most likely in Maputo, Mozambique. National candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.
What You’ll Be Doing (Essential Duties):
- Provide overall leadership in the planning, coordination, and implementation of all project activities, ensuring that the program’s goals and objectives are met.
- Build and maintain strong relationships with USAID, government entities, local communities, private sector partners, and civil society organizations to foster collaborative efforts.
- Ensure high-quality project performance, including the timely submission of reports, budgets, work plans, and other deliverables. Implement robust monitoring and evaluation mechanisms to track progress and results.
- Strengthen the capacity of local government authorities, community-based organizations, and private sector actors to sustainably manage natural resources and implement conservation-based revenue models.
- Promote biodiversity conservation and the sustainable use of natural resources, guiding communities toward environmentally responsible practices while creating economic benefits.
- Lead a Collaborating, Learning, and Adapting (CLA) approach to ensure that the program remains responsive to changing local conditions and emerging opportunities.
- Ensure all activities comply with USAID regulations and Mozambican laws, focusing on safeguarding the environment and upholding social inclusion principles.
Qualifications:
- University degree in environmental science, natural resource management, development studies, or other relevant field required. Graduate degree preferred.
- 10-12 years of senior-level experience leading and managing complex, multi-sectoral, donor-funded programs, serving as Chief of Party (COP), Deputy Chief of Party (DCOP), or in other senior leadership roles.
- Technical experience in and understanding of forestry, biodiversity, and/or natural resource management. Expertise in cross-sectoral programs addressing food security, conservation, and natural resource management.
- Strong leadership and management skills, with experience managing multi-disciplinary teams.
- Experience managing USAID cooperative agreements preferred.
- Strong financial management, compliance, budgeting and project operations/ administrative oversight abilities.
- Experience recruiting, developing, and managing staff and teams.
- Demonstrated skills building and maintaining relationships with host governments, donors, other donor-funded projects and stakeholders, local organizations, and partners.
- Excellent oral and written communication and presentation skills in English.
- Portuguese or Spanish a strong advantage. Must be willing to learn Portuguese.
- Experience implementing development programming in Mozambique and/or Southern Africa.
- Experience with participatory community-led approaches to project design and implementation.
- Experience with adaptive management and learning and reflection-based programming approaches.
- Strong oral and written communication skills; excellent demonstrated inter-cultural, interpersonal, and negotiation skills.
- Experience overseeing M&E systems for donor-funded projects.
- Commitment to child rights and to the aims and objectives of Save the Children.
About Save the Children
Save the Children believes every child deserves a future. In the United States and around the world, we give children a healthy start in life, the opportunity to learn and protection from harm. We do whatever it takes for children – every day and in times of crisis – transforming their lives and the future we share.
Our work for children and their families requires that we commit—at every opportunity—to work together to identify and dismantle persistent systemic and structural racism, inequality, and any other forms of discrimination in this country and beyond. As an anti-racist organization, Save the Children will not tolerate discrimination in any form—in our employment practices, amongst our staff, in our leadership or toward the people we serve. We stand in solidarity with all people to fight for equal rights, justice, inclusion, and belonging.
Save the Children is committed to conducting its programs and operations in a manner that is safe for the children it serves and helping protect the children with whom we are in contact. All Save the Children representatives are explicitly prohibited from engaging in any activity that may result in any kind of child abuse.
Save the Children is committed to minimizing safety and security risks for our valued employees, ensuring all are given training, support and information to reduce their risk exposure while maximizing the impact of our programs for children and families. Our shared duty, both agency and individual, is to seek and maintain safe working conditions for all.
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