Chief of Party / Chef de projet - Proposal
Location:     Yaoundé, Cameroon
Hours: Regular/Full-time
Salary: Commensurate with required experience and qualifications
Reports to: GLW Regional Team Lead
Job Grade: Cameroon, A
University Research Co., LLC (URC) :
Guided by a strong vision of equitable and resilient systems that respond to people’s needs and emerging threats, URC helps countries and local actors to build, implement, and sustain science-driven, scalable solutions. Established in 1965, URC offers a range of technical expertise to empower governments, communities, and service providers toward strengthening their own health and social systems and improve service quality. We aim to expand access to and improve the quality of services, addressing maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health; global health security and infectious diseases, including HIV/AIDS, TB, and malaria; reproductive health and family planning; nutrition and water, sanitation, and hygiene. In our interactions with each other and our clients, we stay true to our values for transformative change by focusing on:
Creativity: by unleashing our creativity, we enhance engagement and interaction to improve problem-solving.
Collaboration: not only our work towards the same vision and mission instill staff with a strong sense of purpose, but also enables us to complement each other’s skills and allocate work to maximize everyone’s strengths.
Accountability: we hold ourselves responsible for accomplishing goals, completing assignments, and making decisions.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion: we embrace the importance of a diverse, equitable, and inclusive environment, where our leadership and staff model behavior that enriches our organization, demonstrates respect for all people, and supports opportunities for all staff.
Transparency: we understand that when employees deeply trust one another and their leaders, they will be more engaged in their roles because they will not be worried about unfair treatment.
Overview:
URC is searching for an experienced Chief of Party (COP) for the anticipated USAID President Malaria Initiative (PMI) Activity in Cameroon. The PMI is a U.S. Government initiative designed to drastically reduce malaria deaths and illnesses with a long-term vision of a world without malaria. In Cameroon, PMI’s goal is to support the Government of Cameroon to improve access to and use of timely, quality, and well-documented malaria testing and treatment by providing facility- and community-based health workers with training, supervision, and malaria commodities to provide quality, effective care. The Cameroon PMI Activity will focus on malaria service delivery, including system strengthening and community-based interventions. The Activity interventions will target Adamaoua, North, and Far North regions with some components of the technical support implemented at the national level.
Responsibilities:

• The COP will provide overall strategic direction and technical, financial, and operational oversight to the Cameroon PMI Activity. The position combines technical leadership with management support for Activity implementation, technical assistance (TA), and documentation and sharing of results. S/he will have the primary responsibility of liaising with USAID and other key health and non-health public and private sector stakeholders. As part of overseeing and ensuring successful implementation, the COP is expected to lead the Activity’s technical vision and approach along with managing team and consortium members. S/he also will safeguard the Activity’s and URC’s resources by complying with contract terms and conditions, USAID, and all other applicable policies and regulations for mitigating risks of fraud, waste, and abuse in all aspects of Activity operations and administration.

Specific responsibilities include the following:

• Responsible for technical leadership and managerial oversight in the Activity design and implementation in alignment with the Activity’s key objectives and expected outcomes.
• Provide overall support during Activity implementation, including overseeing key and non-key personnel, technical support, and all other sub-contractors.
• Provide high level coordination and promote partnership and multi-sectoral collaboration within countries.
• Assume accountability for the achievement of results, ensuring that the quality of activities is maintained at the highest standards, and Activity technical objectives and deliverables are met in a timely manner and are compliant with donor regulations
• Design and oversee annual Activity planning cycle to develop comprehensive annual work plans, assure timely disbursement of funds and results reporting for the project.
• Develop innovative technical strategies for improving impact of activities.
• Ensure timely submission of high quality and comprehensive Activity reports and other deliverables, according to agreed upon deadlines and respond promptly to other informational requests by USAID, as needed.
• Recruit and supervise staff to meet evolving Activity demands, as required.
• Oversee efficient function in administrative and financial processes in full compliance with URC’s standards, protocols, guidelines, and processes ensuring maintenance of adequate internal controls.
• Report regularly to USAID to ensure transparency and awareness of activities development and implementation, remaining cognizant of problems or issues as they arise.
• Ensure effective compliance with USAID/USG rules and regulations, and URC policies and procedures, as well as in-country laws, and regulations.
• Serve as a spokesperson and advocate, representing the Activity to the USG, donors, relevant stakeholders, cooperating agencies, and others.
• Engage partners, consultants, and technical experts at URC home office strategically to support achievement of the Activity objectives in a timely manner.
• Contribute to URC’s overall knowledge management strategies through demonstrative thought leadership and participation at senior levels of influence to strategically direct funding and investments at the local, country, regional and global level.
• Maintain close working relationships and partnerships with Chiefs of Party of other URC-implemented projects globally.
• Perform other related duties as assigned and/or agreed upon with the supervisor/HQ.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

• Ability to work under pressure in a complex environment and deliver under tight deadlines on a continual basis.
• Strong verbal, written, and presentation skills.
• Strong management, interpersonal, communication, mentoring and facilitation skills.
• Excellent leadership skills and demonstrated ability to coach, mentor, and develop capacity in staff and stakeholders as well as manage and work effectively with teams.
• Demonstrated ability to lead problem analyses to develop evidence-based creative and innovative approaches to improve program design, implementation, and results reporting.
• Demonstrated ability to lead others to translate technical materials into practical tools and approaches.

Required Experience and Qualifications:

• Master’s degree or advanced degree in public health, business administration, or related field.
• At least 12 years of progressive work experience, including senior leadership experience on USG-funded health projects, preferably in malaria control.
• USAID contracts experience strongly preferred.
• Francophone Africa experience required
• Experience with health service delivery, system strengthening, and community-based interventions, preferably related to malaria programming.
• Demonstrated experience working with local governments and other key actors at all levels,
• Experience using a Collaborative Learning Plan to inform activity implementation.
• Experience working with diverse public and private sector stakeholders, partners, and donors.
• Fluency in English and French (oral and written) is required.

Citizens of Cameroon are encouraged to apply.

Applications and CVs must be in English. Les candidatures et les résumés doivent être soumises en Anglais.