Chief of Party, USDA Food for Peace

Build Your Future, Brighten Theirs

At Save the Children, you'll join a centurylong legacy of leading meaningful impact when it matters most. We empower you to innovate, collaborate and grow alongside people who share your commitment to kids and each other. You bring the drive - and together, we'll build a better world for children.

The Role

Save the Children is seeking Chief of Party (COP) candidates for the anticipated USDA Title II Food for Peace Non-Emergency Program. The non-emergency Title II Food for Peace program will enhance and complement existing international emergency food assistance programs in recipient countries by targeting resources to increase food security, nutrition, and overall resilience. The multi-year Food for Peace Non-Emergency Programming will target people and places that experience recurrent food crises with a Graduation through Agriculture-led Development Approach and by utilizing U.S. agricultural commodities. This approach combines the Graduation model with targeted Market Systems Strengthening focused on agricultural value chains to build resilience, improve food security, and reduce dependence on emergency food assistance.

The COP will be responsible for the overall management and representation of the activity and will be ultimately accountable for the delivery of desired program results, an effective adaptive management approach, relationships with a range of stakeholders, and management of the program team and consortium. This position will be based in the country of implementation for the duration of the anticipated two-to-five-year period of performance.

Hiring is contingent upon USDA approval of the candidate and award of the project to Save the Children.

What You'll Be Doing (Essential Duties)*

• Lead overall program planning, putting in place team structures, technical and operational approaches, infrastructure, monitoring and evaluation (M&E), and feedback loops required for program delivery and success.
• Lead partnerships within the program consortium, as well as with external stakeholders as needed, to create the teamwork required for program success.
• Represent the program to donor officials, host government officials, partner representatives, local stakeholders, and team members.
• Provide oversight and quality control to the program's thematic approaches and implementation, leading course corrections as required.
• Lead annual planning processes and associated donor resource requests; monitoring implementation progress as compared to these plans.
• Submit high-quality, timely reports to the donor, capturing project outcomes, impact, and key performance indicators. Provide senior oversight of U.S. agricultural commodity management and monetization, where applicable, ensuring effective coordination, risk management, compliance and appropriate use of proceeds in accordance with USDA requirements.
• Ensure sound program financial management and reporting.
• Ensure sound program logistical and operational structures and management.
• Ensure compliance with donor, host government, and Save the Children policies and procedures, including robust financial controls, risk management and proactive anti-fraud measures in the program.
• Recruit, develop and manage the program team, ensuring that adequate and appropriate capacity building plans are in place and that Human Resources policies are appropriate for team retention and high performance.
• Ensure that the program deploys an effective collaborating, learning and adapting approach, such that the activity can evolve in a changing context to achieve desired outcomes.
• Oversee the program's security management approach, working with country office counterparts.
• Train, develop, coach, lead, and supervise staff, clearly communicating organization, division and department priorities, and how their work contributes to our mission, ensuring that the working environment continually fosters belonging - supporting Save the Children values

Required qualifications for the role

• Bachelor's degree in a relevant field (e.g., development studies, international relations, agriculture, economics, public health, business administration) and a minimum of 10 years of progressively increasing management responsibility in agriculture, market systems development, food security, livelihoods, graduation programming or related field is required. Master's degree preferred.
• Proven senior-level experience designing, managing and implementing large projects of a similar size, scope and complexity in developing countries, ideally in conflict-affected and non-permissive environments.
• Demonstrated experience leading consortia, building and maintaining partnerships, including with government institutions, donors, local organizations, private-sector actors and other key stakeholders.
• Demonstrated experience recruiting, developing, and managing staff, as well as experience managing programmatic and financial reporting.
• Demonstrated experience with commodity management.
• Professional proficiency in spoken and written English, as well as either Portuguese or Spanish.
• Excellent communication, representation, negotiation and stakeholder-management skills.
• Demonstrated commitment to fostering and maintaining an environment of belonging.

Join a Culture of Collaboration, Creativity and Inclusion

At Save the Children, you'll find nonprofit jobs with purpose. Whether you're working in advocacy, fundraising or operations, you're part of a mission-driven organization that's giving kids a healthy start in life, opportunities to learn and protection from harm.

Every role supports lifesaving humanitarian and development programs anchored in safeguarding children's rights, dignity and well-being - across the U.S. and around the world.

We invest in our people with competitive compensation, comprehensive employee benefits, a deep commitment to employee health and wellness, generous paid family leave and an inclusive culture where everybody belongs.

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.

If you require disability assistance with the application or recruitment process, please submit a request to applicantsupport@savechildren.org