Millennium Challenge Account
The Millennium Challenge Account (MCA-Lesotho II) is an entity established by the Government to act as the accountable entity to implement the Compact, with the authority to bind the Government with regard to all Program activities.
The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) awards eligible countries with fixed-amount, fixed-term (five year) grants (“compacts”) for a defined set of projects aimed at reducing poverty through economic growth. Country ownership of compacts is a core part of MCC’s model and influences a great deal of MCC’s work. MCC supports this through the assembly of a local team of professionals for each compact, typically called a “Millennium Challenge Account” or “MCA”, charged with compact implementation and overseen locally by a Board of Directors. MCC believes that the performance of MCA-Lesotho II staff has a significant impact on the efficiency, effectiveness, quality of compact implementation, and ultimately on the results that the compacts achieve.
Lesotho Compact
The Lesotho Health and Horticulture Compact aims to benefit 2.5 million people by growing, strengthening, and organizing the private sector in Lesotho and improving the government’s coordination to deliver critical services necessary to support private sector development. It will achieve this goal through investments in Health System Strengthening and Market Driven Irrigated Horticulture, providing sustainable income for smallholders and increasing climate resilience by replacing rain-fed subsistence farming with irrigated commercial horticulture in select locations. The GOL committed to passing several key reforms that will help make this compact successful, including reforms that address gender equality, working conditions and worker safety, as well as land and water rights. Each of the compact’s four projects focus on overcoming barriers to the economic inclusion of women, youth, and the rural poor.
Position Objective
The Contract Management Specialist will be responsible for overseeing contracts and overall project performance. Specifically, the incumbent will coordinate with various departments and stakeholders to ensure that project activities are completed according to plan, on time, within budget, and in line with the contract. They will be working with project leads on planning; creating project schedules and timelines; budgeting; communicating project progress with stakeholders; and risk management. In addition, they will use project management tools and software to support project performance and to monitor project progress.
Duties and Responsibilities
• Build and maintain project schedules and critical project information, using project management tools to integrate activities across key functional areas.
• Proactively identify risks, and ensure clear and effective communication with project leads, key team members, management, and cross-departmental stakeholders.
• Monitor project progress compared to plans via engagement with sub-teams and key support functions.
• Develop, utilize, and deploy standard project management tools.
• Leverage relationships and networks, with guidance from management and project leads, to proactively identify and remove obstacles to drive project performance and results.
• Schedule, prepare for and facilitate key team performance review meetings including creating thoughtful agendas, ensuring appropriate participation, contributing project management insights, and following up to ensure the team continues to make progress.
• Participate in departmental initiatives and workstreams aimed at improving project implementation, processes and finding new efficiencies; and connect the teams with required project information.
• Train MCA-Lesotho II project staff to be proficient in the use of relevant software packages and developed standard project management tools.
Requirements (Education, Experience, Technical Competencies)
• Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering, Project Management or Business Management.
• Project Management Professional (PMP) certification and/or formal coursework/training in Project Management from a credible institution is strongly preferred.
• Minimum of three (3) years of experience in Project Management or a related role is required.
• Demonstrable experience in at least one project where you monitored project performance in a development project involving large infrastructure.
• Demonstrated ability to create and analyze detailed, cross-functional project plans (including Gantt charting) and manage execution and change against those plans.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills in both Sesotho and English.
• Demonstrated ability to work independently to effectively accomplish goals in a team setting.
• Ability to succeed in a dynamic environment, demonstrating flexibility to respond to changing priorities.
• Effective interpersonal skills and ability to work collaboratively across diverse teams and networks; able to foster cooperation amongst other professionals, using the diverse perspectives of others to generate ideas.
• Highly organized and capable of working with attention to detail.
• Excellent problem-solving skills and ability to build alignment around complex situations.
• competency in digital tools such as MS Teams, Power Bi, MS Project, Spotfire, Sharepoint.
• Knowledge and use of FIDIC is strongly preferred.
This Position Description is subject to revisions/updates as necessary to ensure alignment to the organization’s strategic direction and structure. Revisions to the description are subject to applicable Human Resources policies and procedures, and Human Resources maintain official versions of each Position Description.
How to apply
Complete applications must be submitted on-line, on or before 3rd January 2025
Follow the following steps to apply:
Go to: https://mcalesotho.org.ls/jobs/
