Deputy Project Director – USAID ACCESS

Various Global Opportunities

This vacancy is now closed

Description

About Us

MSI Reproductive Choices is one of the world’s leading providers of sexual and reproductive healthcare. We believe that everyone should have the right to choose. From contraception to safe abortion and life-saving post-abortion care, we are committed to ensuring access to compassionate, affordable, high-quality services for all.

Today, our organisation has over 9,000 team members working in 37 countries across the world. Our success lies in the fact that MSI teams are locally led, entrepreneurial, and are passionate about delivering high quality, client-centered care in their own communities. We focus on sustainable delivery, efficiency, and funding models that are built to last, so that the women and girls we serve today will have a choice in the future too.

MSI is an equal opportunity employer and offers a competitive salary and employee benefits. We support a work-life balance and an individual’s desire to learn beyond the experience gained at work through both personal and professional development and growth opportunities.

About the Role

MSI Reproductive Choices seeks an exceptional Deputy Project Director to lead an anticipated five-year, USAID-funded global family planning activity, Accelerating ChoiCe, Equity, and Sustainability for Services (ACCESS).

ACCESS will focus on advancing equitable, affordable, and sustainable access to family planning and reproductive health (FP/RH) information, products, and services in ways that ensure client dignity, agency, choice, and good health, particularly for youth. Through local capacity strengthening and substantial engagement of local partners and stakeholders in the innovation and scale-up of evidence-informed and rights-based FP/RH service delivery, ACCESS will achieve significant FP/SRH outcomes at the system, facility, provider, community, and client levels. The Deputy Project Director will be responsible for ensuring a smooth and efficient start-up for ACCESS, the effective day-to-day management of ACCESS core activities, and oversight of buy-in activities. They will lead the development and implementation of annual work plans, budgets, and reports, and oversee the monitoring and evaluation of results. They will play a key role in managing project partners and supporting individual projects under ACCESS to succeed.

In addition, as part of the leadership team of a global flagship project, the Deputy Project Director will play a key role in supporting MSI’s USAID engagement strategy, fundraising goals, and programme management expertise. They will be expected to support strategic engagement with USAID at country and global level and provide technical assistance to MSI’s broader USAID programme portfolio as required.

We anticipate this role requiring travel for up to 25% of the time. 

 Key responsibilities include:

  • Support the Project Director to provide technical direction, oversight and quality control for project activities, and ensuring coordination and collaboration across all result areas and country-level projects.
  • Provide functional guidance to project staff to ensure deliverables are met within timelines and budgets as needed.
  • In the absence of the Project Director, represent MSI and the ACCESS project to the AOR, USAID’s Office for Population and Reproductive Health in Washington D.C. and USAID country missions.
  • Support the Project Director and MSI country programmes to secure country-level buy-ins to ACCESS and ensuring efficient and smooth start up of activities.
  • Promote sustainability of project activities through effective networking, linkages to other programs, capacity building of project staff, and institutional strengthening of implementing partners.
  • Ensure regular engagement with relevant technical specialists, including thematic team meetings both within the project, Missions, and host country governments.
  • Provide leadership and technical assistance, as delegated by the Project Director, to country and regional-level leaders, technical experts, and senior administrative staff.
  • Support the Project Director and program staff in the management of administrative functions, in accordance with USAID and MSI guidelines and policies. Identifying and mitigating risks associated with USAID funded programming.
  • Identify any additional technical assistance needs required to achieve the expected project results and taking the lead on developing and implementing solutions.
  • Oversee the development, review, and finalization of project documents including but not limited to – work plans; quarterly, semi-annual and annual reports; project assessments and evaluations; project briefs, presentations, and other documentation for knowledge management.

About You

We recruit talented, dynamic people with diverse backgrounds and experiences, all united by a belief in our mission and a focus on delivering measurable results. We’re proud to be an equal opportunities employer and are committed to creating a fully inclusive workplace, where everyone feels able to participate and contribute meaningfully. You must be open-minded, curious, resilient, and solutions-oriented, and committed to promoting equality, and safeguarding the welfare of team members and clients alike. You must be a strong supporter of the cause of family planning and a woman’s right to safe abortion (pro-choice).

To succeed in this role, you must have:

Skills and experience

  • At least ten (10) years’ experience in international health programming, including at least seven (7) years’ experience in senior-level management positions in large ($30M+) and complex projects and with a focus on family planning and sexual and reproductive health.
  • Master’s degree or other advanced degree (PhD, MD) in a relevant field, such as medicine, public health, social sciences, or management.
  • Demonstrated understanding of, and experience in, managing sexual and reproductive health service delivery programmes. Experience in youth-focused sexual and reproductive health programmes highly desired.
  • Expertise in gender transformative programming.
  • Proven senior expertise in developing and implementing effective partnerships with partners, government entities, and donors.
  • Knowledge and proven experience in technical leadership, strategy development, and staff oversight
  • Demonstrated leadership, management, coordination, teamwork, and planning skills, with proven ability to liaise effectively with and collaborate with diverse stakeholders, including global, regional, national, local, public and private partners.
  • Demonstrated experience in effectively engaging partners and managing multi-partner consortia.
  • Demonstrated knowledge and experience of USAID planning and reporting systems, operations, programming, structure, and family planning compliance regulations. Experience of working with other major donors is also desirable.
  • Strong project and personnel management skills
  • Fluent English oral and written communication skills; French oral and written communication skills highly desired.

This position is contingent upon funding being awarded to MSI Reproductive Choices and on approval of the candidate by USAID. Candidates must have the legal right to work in either the United States, United Kingdom, or a country where MSI Reproductive Choices currently works.  

Location: Washington DC, USA; London, UK; or any city/country where MSI Reproductive Choices has a country office. 

Full/Part time: Full time

Salary:  A competitive salary and benefits package will be provided in line with the national context, dependent on location of the successful candidate.

Salary band: BG 10

Closing date: 25th February 2024 (midnight GMT). Interviews may take place before this date for exceptional candidates


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