Senior Humanitarian Program Officer (SHPO) Job Vacancy in Nairobi, Kenya - USAID

Position Title: Solicitation for Resident Hire U.S. Personal Services Contractor (U.S. PSC) Senior Humanitarian Program Officer (SHPO) - Somalia, GS-13

GENERAL INFORMATION

  1. SOLICITATION NO.: Mission Notice 22-138
  2. ISSUANCE DATE: September 19, 2022
  3. CLOSING DATE AND TIME FOR RECEIPT OF OFFERS: October 07, 2022 1630 hours Nairobi time)
  4. POINT OF CONTACT: Executive Office/Human Resources, Patrick Bii, HR Assistant, email at pbii@usaid.gov
  5. POSITION TITLE: Resident Hire U.S PSC Senior Humanitarian Program Officer - Somalia, GS-13
  6. MARKET VALUE: $81,216 to $105,579 annually equivalent to GS-13. Final compensation will be negotiated within the listed market value. As a resident hire position, it does not include offshore benefits such as housing, post differential, relocation benefit and post allowance.
  7. PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE: Two (2) year base period, with three one-year options subject to funding availability and satisfactory performance or better.
  8. PLACE OF PERFORMANCE: Nairobi, Kenya. Overseas U.S PSCs may be authorized to telework or remote work only from a location within Kenya, in accordance with the Mission policy. Telework or remote work from outside Kenya may only be authorized in certain situations in accordance with the terms and conditions of the contract.
  9. ELIGIBLE OFFERORS: Open to U.S. Nationals (U.S Citizens and/or U.S Resident Aliens[1]) residing in Kenya. Citizenship, if dual, must be clearly stated. This is a resident-hire position and therefore all offerors must be residing in Kenya.
  10. SECURITY LEVEL REQUIRED: Secret
  11. STATEMENT OF DUTIES/POSITION DESCRIPTION

Background

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID)’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA) is responsible for facilitating and coordinating U.S. Government (USG) humanitarian assistance overseas in response to all types of international disasters, including slow-onset disasters such as droughts or famine, natural disasters such as earthquakes or floods, or human-made disasters such as conflict or war. BHA is responsible for planning, coordinating, developing, achieving, monitoring, and evaluating international humanitarian assistance falling into two conceptual areas:

  • Humanitarian Response activities comprise needs-based humanitarian assistance provided to save lives, alleviate suffering, and protect human dignity during and in the aftermath of emergencies. Humanitarian assistance is grounded in humanitarian principles and is directed toward the most vulnerable populations.
  • Early Recovery, Risk Reduction, and Resilience (ER4) activities will set the initial foundations for longer-term recovery as appropriate, and will work in close conjunction with humanitarian assistance. Early recovery is an approach that supports communities impacted by crises to protect and restore basic systems and service delivery. Early recovery builds on humanitarian response efforts and establishes the initial foundations of long-term recovery. Early recovery activities are implemented for a specified, appropriate timeframe that assists populations recovering from an identifiable shock. Risk reduction is the prevention of new and reduction of existing disaster risk and management of residual risk, which contributes to strengthening resilience and to the achievement of sustainable development. Resilience is the ability of people, households, communities, countries, and systems to mitigate, adapt to, and recover from shocks and stresses in a manner that reduces chronic vulnerability and facilitates inclusive growth.

Introduction

BHA is committed to fostering an equitable and inclusive workplace with a diverse workforce. BHA encourages qualified candidates of all races/ethnicities, genders, cultural backgrounds, abilities, and socioeconomic statuses to apply.

The Office of Africa (OA) designs, provides, and assesses humanitarian assistance, including assistance related to responding to, recovering from, and reducing the risk of human-induced and natural disasters, while linking with other USAID investments that build resilience. OA consists of five (5) geographic divisions: East Africa; Central Africa; Sudans; West Africa; and Southern Africa. These divisions are responsible for the provision of emergency humanitarian assistance through grants and cooperative agreements to non-governmental organizations (NGOs); international organizations (IO) including United Nations (UN) agencies; and to other partners. These divisions also oversee BHA OA’s nonresponse efforts in disaster risk reduction (DRR), resilience, and humanitarian transition.

The Senior Humanitarian Program Officer (SHPO) plays a major role in the OA’s effort to promote excellence in humanitarian assistance and meet BHA’s mandate to save lives, alleviate suffering, and reduce the social and economic impact of disasters. Under the guidance of the Team Leader, the SHPO supports the coordination and management of BHA disaster response, preparedness, mitigation, and training programs in the region of responsibility. The SHPO will ensure that BHA’s objectives for disaster response and assistance, strategic reporting, and analysis are met.

Objective

BHA requires the services of a Senior Humanitarian Program Officer for Somalia based in Nairobi, Kenya, in order to meet its objectives for programming, coordinating, monitoring and evaluating USG humanitarian assistance in Somalia. BHA has been responding to the complex emergency in Somalia for decades and provided more than $368 million for the Somalia humanitarian response in Fiscal Year (FY) 2021; USAID anticipates significant additional humanitarian programming in Somalia in 2022 and beyond.

MAJOR DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

The Senior Humanitarian Program Officer will ensure the effective management of BHA programs in Somalia. Working under the guidance and supervision of the BHA Somalia Team Lead or designee, s/he is responsible for planning, assessing, reporting and documenting program activities and making informed recommendations on strategy and operational priorities.

Specific Duties: S/he will have the following specific duties:

  1. Understand the contextual drivers of humanitarian needs in Somalia. Develop and maintain knowledge of the humanitarian context in Sudan and political, social, and operational issues impacting humanitarian efforts.

  2. Coordinate the development and implementation of BHA’s annual Somalia humanitarian assistance activities. Work with BHA staff based in Nairobi, Kenya; Mogadishu, Somalia; and Washington, DC to develop response plans, program strategies and yearly budgets for emergency response and ER4 activities.

  3. Oversee the day-to-day management of BHA Somalia’s portfolio in the field. Lead BHA’s Nairobi-based program staff in the day-to-day management of emergency response activities and program budget in Somalia. As needed and required, supervise one or more Foreign Service National (FSN) staff and Temporary Duty Staff (TDYers).

  4. Guide implementing partners in developing applications based on BHA’s Emergency Application Guidelines. Review concept papers and applications and provide timely recommendations to BHA/Somalia team in Washington D.C.

  5. Liaise with other BHA and USAID/Somalia offices and other internal stakeholders, including the interagency, to develop a coordinated USG response to the complex emergency in Somalia. Coordinate with USAID/Somalia to ensure complementarity with development programming and help to leverage BHA funding for longer term sustainability.

  6. Identify and prioritize potential UN and NGO partners for possible BHA funding. Coordinate the award application process in the field with BHA program and technical staff to ensure partner applications meet BHA’s program objectives and BHA Emergency Application Guidelines.

  7. Ensure satisfactory oversight, monitoring and reporting for all UN and NGO partner implemented humanitarian assistance activities by:

    • Providing guidance on regulations, policies and procedures to IDA and Title II assistance award recipients for both new activities and modifications.
    • Overseeing the proper documentation of programmatic activities, including updates on the humanitarian context, work progress, and significant events.
    • Reviewing program reports to ensure that program activities are on track and that objectives will be achieved.
    • Reporting on the quality of the grantee’s work, noting deficiencies, attributes, and evolving operational conditions.
    • Ensuring the completion of and adequate reporting on assessments and evaluations.
    • Ensuring the monitoring of USG-funded relief activities. As security allows, travel to assess, evaluate, and monitor activities and make recommendations.

  8. Serve as BHA Somalia’s representative for planning efforts, which as assigned by the Team Lead may include:

    • Conducting regular planning briefing and debriefing sessions for BHA Somalia, BHA Washington and USAID/Somalia.
    • Identifying the need for specific technical specialists, elaborating scope of works and providing support and supervision as needed.
    • Articulating BHA’s response priorities to implementing partners and other key stakeholders.
    • Preparing official documents, suchs as memos, cables, information products, and information requests.
    • Monitoring, analyzing and revising plans based on information gathered by the planning staff, and making recommendations for improvement.
    • Analyzing available humanitarian data to ensure BHA response plans are timely and appropriate to meet evolving needs.

  9. As required, serve on Washington-based Response Management Teams (RMTs), which provide services and support to Disaster Assistance Response Teams (DARTs) deployed in response to disasters. The duties on RMTs will be varied.

  10. As required, serve on Disaster Assistance Response Teams (DARTs), which may require immediate (within 72 hours) deployment overseas for an extended period of time.

SKILLS AND QUALIFICATIONS

The incumbent must meet the following requirements in education and professional experience:

Bachelor’s degree plus seven (7) years of relevant work experience with a humanitarian or development focus and include responsibility in determining budget levels, selecting programs for funding, and managing or evaluating programs. Experience must include one (1) year of cumulative experience in international humanitarian assistance, emergency management or relief, disaster risk reduction, post-emergency rehabilitation or recovery, or resilience.

OR

Master’s degree plus five (5) years of relevant experience with a humanitarian or development focus and include responsibility in determining budget levels, selecting programs for funding, and managing or evaluating programs. Experience must include one (1) year of cumulative experience in international humanitarian assistance, emergency management or relief, disaster risk reduction, post-emergency rehabilitation or recovery, or resilience.

EVALUATION AND SELECTION FACTORS

The Government may award a contract without discussions with offerors in accordance with FAR 52.215-1. The CO reserves the right at any point in the evaluation process to establish a competitive range of offerors with whom negotiations will be conducted pursuant to FAR 15.306(c). In accordance with FAR 52.215-1, if the CO determines that the number of offers that would otherwise be in the competitive range exceeds the number at which an efficient competition can be conducted, the CO may limit the number of offerors in the competitive range to the greatest number that will permit an efficient competition among the most highly rated offers. FAR provisions of this solicitation are available at https://www.acquisition.gov/browse/index/far.

MATRIX (40 points)

  • (Grant Management Experience) Experience managing grants, contracts or other funded projects (5 points)
  • (Grant Making Experience) Experience working for a humanitarian or development grant making organization (5 points)
  • (Humanitarian Experience) Demonstrated experience supporting or implementing humanitarian programming, including related to disaster preparedness, mitigation/ risk reduction, emergency response/relief/recovery, and/or resilience. (10 points)
  • (Program Design and Management)
    • Experience designing strategies or programs (5 points)
    • Experience developing or reviewing proposals (5 points)
    • Experience monitoring or evaluating programs or projects (5 points)
  • (Communication) Experience drafting or editing documents (5 points)

Timed Writing Test

  • A simple, short (30 min, 300-word max) writing test related to humanitarian response, early recovery, risk reduction or resilience with a question that doesn’t require research.
  • Scoring based on grammar and coherence of response.
  • Scoring is simple: No mistakes in grammar and the response is fully coherent = 20 points; two or fewer mistakes or problems with coherence = 10 points, and three or more mistakes or problems with coherence = zero points.

Scoring (100 points)

  • Matrix -- 40
  • Timed Writing Test -- 20
  • Interview – 40

Satisfactory Professional Reference Checks – Pass/Fail (no points assigned)

Total Possible Points: 100

[1] U.S. resident alien means a non-U.S. citizen lawfully admitted for permanent residence in the United States.

How to apply

  1. Interested applicants are required to submit the following:
  • Offerform AID 309-2, “Offeror Information for Personal Services Contracts with individuals,” available at https://www.usaid.gov/forms/aid-309-2
  • An up-to-date curriculum vitae (CV) or resume (no more than five pages), cover letter explaining your qualifications for the position, copies of all relevant certificates and include three (3) referees, who are not family members or relatives, with working telephone and e-mail contacts.
  1. Applications must be submitted electronically via email to nairobipscjobs@usaid.gov by the closing date and time indicated above.
  2. To ensure consideration of offers for the intended position, Offerors must prominently reference the Solicitation number in the offer submission/cover letter.

 

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