Chief of Party for URBAN WASH Activity

The USAID-funded Urban Resilience by Building and Applying New evidence in WASH (URBAN WASH) project, implemented by Tetra Tech International Development (www.tetratech.com/intdev), is currently accepting expressions of interest for a Chief of Party. This position is preferably based in Arlington, VA.

Position Description/Summary: The Urban Resilience by Building and Applying New evidence in WASH (URBAN WASH) project is in its second year of supporting USAID’s goal of promoting impactful, sustainable, equitable, and climate-resilient water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) and water resources management (WRM) policy and programming in urban and peri-urban areas through strengthening evidence-based decision making of partners and host governments at the local, regional, state, and national levels. The COP provides technical vision and managerial oversight for URBAN WASH and assumes primary responsibility for ensuring that implementation across Components and research focus areas aligns with USAID’s expectations for URBAN WASH and all program deliverables are high quality and submitted on time.

Responsibilities:

* Assumes primary responsibility for ensuring that implementation across Components and research focus areas aligns with USAID’s expectations for URBAN WASH, including the program’s Engagement Strategy;

* Manages the establishment and execution of strategic engagement and partnerships to ensure local and broader relevance of research and use of evidence;

* Leads the provision and management of short-term and on-demand technical assistance (TA) to support USAID/Mission WASH and WRM research, learning, evaluation, and analytics across the program cycle;

* Leads engagement with USAID, subcontractors, and external partners; manages all project personnel to assure highest standards of performance are achieved;

* Oversees the integrity of the desk and implementation research activities being managed by the Deputy Chief of Party (DCOP);

* Provides technical direction and oversight for the annual work planning process for all tasks and deliverables; manages the Annual Work Plan to ensure optimal project execution within the contract period of performance; provides quality assurance/quality control of all program deliverables;

* Oversees preparation of the annual project budget plan;

* Ensures that URBAN WASH adheres to established principles of promoting diversity, gender, inclusion, and equity into the program’s operations and research design and implementation;

* Serves as the primary point of contact and institutional liaison for USAID and key URBAN WASH stakeholders;

* Oversees the MEL processes, including reporting on program achievements to Tetra Tech and the client organization and leading regular pause and reflect analysis to ensure the entire team ascribes to an adaptive management approach; and

* Provides leadership, supervision, and direction to the project’s implementation team and additional short-term technical assistance (STTA) resources.

Qualifications:

* A Master’s degree or higher in economics, urban planning engineering, public health, global development, environmental science or another related field;

* Minimum of fifteen (15) years of demonstrated technical expertise, including in research and learning programs, with substantial developing country context experience, in two or more of the following technical areas: urban WASH and WRM, governance or regulation, institutional development, and ecosystem services (previous USAID Chief of Party or Deputy Chief of Party experience preferred);

* At least five (5) years of demonstrated experience in a management position in international WASH, WRM, or other relevant development program context;

* Minimum of five (5) years of project management experience (supervising staff and budgets). Proven track record of achieving development impacts in a similar context. Demonstrated ability to manage an activity of this size and scope and work with a wide range of government, civil society, donor, and multilateral counterparts;

* Demonstrated knowledge of USAID and other international donor rules and regulations;

* Experience and/or knowledge of USAID’s “Collaborating, Learning, & Adapting (CLA)” approach and facilitative, “light touch” approaches with a focus on sustainable impacts

* Excellent team building and leadership skills;

* Outstanding communication, management, and reporting skills;

* Strong MS Office skills, including Excel;

* Fluency in written and oral English required; and

* US work authorization required.